1x.5 mil stylus, hi fi?

oldman54

Well-Known Member
The Pickering PDE stylus was one, now there is an Ortofon dj stylus with those dimensions. I bought an OM Pro cart and it has a 1 mil tip. Sounds good on old mono discs but no highs on most, not all, stereo discs. Do 12" 45s have wider grooves? Are these tips for serato? Shure HE tips are 1.5 wide so I'm thinking the .5 is the important dimension. I thought a 1 mil would ride above groove damage from a .7 tip. I guess it did, but no highs. Anyone tried this? The Ortofon dj tip is half the cost of an HE. All the PDE tips for the v15 I've found are .3x.7. Also, I'm going to see if running the 1 mil tip at 45 will wear down the surface scratches on a couple lps, it must be good for something.
 
The Pickering PDE stylus was one, now there is an Ortofon dj stylus with those dimensions. I bought an OM Pro cart and it has a 1 mil tip. Sounds good on old mono discs but no highs on most, not all, stereo discs. Do 12" 45s have wider grooves? Are these tips for serato? Shure HE tips are 1.5 wide so I'm thinking the .5 is the important dimension. I thought a 1 mil would ride above groove damage from a .7 tip. I guess it did, but no highs. Anyone tried this? The Ortofon dj tip is half the cost of an HE. All the PDE tips for the v15 I've found are .3x.7. Also, I'm going to see if running the 1 mil tip at 45 will wear down the surface scratches on a couple lps, it must be good for something.

1 mil is for mono discs cut pre 1965. This is a ruggedized DJ stylus option designed for HipHop/Techno/club abuse. I like this stylus for mono LP discs, and 45 RPM discs pre 1955 or rougher later mono discs. Use the new OM1s stylus if you want a conical for HiFi use.
 
1mil is for pre-stereo mono records. You need 0.7 or better for stereo records
Some stereo styli were wider than 0.7 mil. Many early elliptical styli from Stanton and Pickering were 0.2x0.9 mil. These were intended for stereo records; they sold a separate 1 mil stylus for mono LPs/45s.
 
Some stereo styli were wider than 0.7 mil. Many early elliptical styli from Stanton and Pickering were 0.2x0.9 mil. These were intended for stereo records; they sold a separate 1 mil stylus for mono LPs/45s.
Well, are we talking sphericals or ellipticals? I'm talking about sphericals. Ellipticals came later, and were developed for stereo records.
 
Some stereo styli were wider than 0.7 mil. Many early elliptical styli from Stanton and Pickering were 0.2x0.9 mil. These were intended for stereo records; they sold a separate 1 mil stylus for mono LPs/45s.

A very few. But most are simply .7 mil. And those old Stanton and Pickering styli are rarities. They also make very wonderful mono styli.
 
I have read that .5 stylus were made for stereo, back in the day. Also, they lasted half as long as a .7 did. Vivid Line are .2x3 mil! I think Shure MR were the same. Most AT conical are .6, although they have some .7 tips. Jico used to be .6 but seem to be .7 now. I wonder what their thinking, at Ortofon, is as their Night Club .5x1 seems to be unique.
 
The .5 stylus was originally for Stereo playback but they were not that great at playing the still plentiful mono. The .5 was also used to play the 16 rpm Seeburg background music system discs which a .7 will wear them
quickly, also used in the 16 rpm highway hifi records. The .5 quickly fell out of favor in home stereo when the elipticals were introduced.
In my experience .6 styli are the best sounding of the conicals.
 
om54: Careful there - at least in case of line-contact needles you can't directly conclude from major radius to needle width anymore, because in case of these the reference point for the curvature radii isn't the intersection of the two perpendiculars onto the contact points with the groove walls. Instead, the reference points for each side are just somewhere on the corresponding perpendicular, and in case of pretty large major radii these points may actually be outside of the tip. So in that case all one can tell is that the distance between the two contact points will most likely be up to ca. 25 µm (1 mil), because that's what a couple of record standards allow as instantaneous minimum groove width (at the top of the groove) for microgroove stereo LPs.

Even the manufacturers sometimes would appear somewhat dimensionally confused, though. For example, if you check the two sphericals in Namikii's current "contact area" table over on https://www.ad-na.com/en/product/jewel/product/stylus.html and look at the first row (front view) and then the second row (A - A'), you'll easily notice that, if the front view dimensions actually apply, the A - A' radius dimensions can't apply at the same time, as the radii in the A - A' plane would rather have to be the given radii divided by square root of 2. So that A - A' would merely apply to how the cross-section in that plane would look, while the given radii would be the (minor) radii as seen from the reference points instead.

Well, and if one does math, actual A to A' distance (i.e. distance between the contact points) for an 0.7 mil/18 µm spherical tip would simply be 18 µm times the square root of two, which happens to be not quite 25.5 µm.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
I have read that .5 stylus were made for stereo, back in the day. Also, they lasted half as long as a .7 did. Vivid Line are .2x3 mil! I think Shure MR were the same. Most AT conical are .6, although they have some .7 tips. Jico used to be .6 but seem to be .7 now. I wonder what their thinking, at Ortofon, is as their Night Club .5x1 seems to be unique.

.5 mil was a popular early Stereo tip size, generally used at the lightest tracking forces. Usually not a stylus option suited for the record changers of the time, which usually needed 3 grams or more tracking force to reliably trip the automatic arm mechanism.
 
The .5 stylus was originally for Stereo playback but they were not that great at playing the still plentiful mono. The .5 was also used to play the 16 rpm Seeburg background music system discs which a .7 will wear them
quickly, also used in the 16 rpm highway hifi records. The .5 quickly fell out of favor in home stereo when the elipticals were introduced.
In my experience .6 styli are the best sounding of the conicals.

I agree, .6 mil sounds the most natural of the conicals I've heard. I now only use JICO conicals for my Shure cartridges since, as far as I know, they are the only after-market manufacturer of .6 mil tips.
 
om54: Careful there - at least in case of line-contact needles you can't directly conclude from major radius to needle width anymore, because in case of these the reference point for the curvature radii isn't the intersection of the two perpendiculars onto the contact points with the groove walls. Instead, the reference points for each side are just somewhere on the corresponding perpendicular, and in case of pretty large major radii these points may actually be outside of the tip. So in that case all one can tell is that the distance between the two contact points will most likely be up to ca. 25 µm (1 mil), because that's what a couple of record standards allow as instantaneous minimum groove width (at the top of the groove) for microgroove stereo LPs.

Even the manufacturers sometimes would appear somewhat dimensionally confused, though. For example, if you check the two sphericals in Namikii's current "contact area" table over on https://www.ad-na.com/en/product/jewel/product/stylus.html and look at the first row (front view) and then the second row (A - A'), you'll easily notice that, if the front view dimensions actually apply, the A - A' radius dimensions can't apply at the same time, as the radii in the A - A' plane would rather have to be the given radii divided by square root of 2. So that A - A' would merely apply to how the cross-section in that plane would look, while the given radii would be the (minor) radii as seen from the reference points instead.

Well, and if one does math, actual A to A' distance (i.e. distance between the contact points) for an 0.7 mil/18 µm spherical tip would simply be 18 µm times the square root of two, which happens to be not quite 25.5 µm.

Greetings from Munich!
My browser wouldn't let me go to the site you posted but I think I understand what you said. Probably why shure HE stylus were 1.5 mils. I see why some complain of more surface noise if the tip goes to the top of the groove. Does the tip get closer to the bottom as it wears or shave off the top of the groove? Salutations from the Front Range! (Rockies)
Manfred / lini
 
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