cafe latte
Addicted Member
After seeing an elliptical retip recommendation on a thread for a cart that tracks at 2.5g and seeing some of the really very high modern carts with elliptical stylus tracking at 2g and avove I felt to speak out and though it was discussion worth.
Back in the old days of vinyl conical was king and they tracked 4g plus which is not as heavy as it sounds. When elliptical was invented it drove the push for high compliance cartridges as the heavy 2.5-4g tracking forces were just too heavy for an elliptical so 1-1.5g became the norm. An elliptical in its simplest form is a conical with the front and rear cut off this results in a much smaller footprint on the groove walls. Put simply more pressure per given are as the contact patch is smaller.
I have some pics somewhere showing a 0.2x0.7 tracking at 1.5g and then pics of the groove after one play, the groove is marked and after 20 plays there is a groove cut in the croove wall (not cut really but ploughed into the wall by deformation). Then 20 plays with a conical at 2.5g and no damage at all is visable.
Now we have more exotic cuts like Shibata and Micro ridge which have huge narrow contact patches which not only track better, but the large area speads the load further so reducing both stylus and groove wear. These cuts tracking at 2.5g plus is not a problem as it was not a problem for conical and exotic cuts have a larger contact area with the groove resulting in even less wear, but the understanding that elliptical can not be used tracking at 2g plus seems to have been lost in time as more and more we see ellipticals tracking at crazy tracking forces resulting in accelerated stylus and groove wear, the latter being the most concering.
The VE stylus wear study 2 showed significant wear at 190 hours on an elliptical tracking at 2g, if the stylus is wearing so quickly I can only imagine what it is doing to the groove walls.
When we look at the cost of say a ATvm95e and the Micro ridge version ml in Aus the e version is 80 Aus dollars and the ml is 265 so 185 more. Looking at the stylus wear study groove wear aside you will use 5 elliptical so in the long run you will spend more buying elliptical stylus over the time you have the micro line then we consider groove wear and sound quality all of a sudden the elliptical starts to look very unatractive indeed.
Chris
Back in the old days of vinyl conical was king and they tracked 4g plus which is not as heavy as it sounds. When elliptical was invented it drove the push for high compliance cartridges as the heavy 2.5-4g tracking forces were just too heavy for an elliptical so 1-1.5g became the norm. An elliptical in its simplest form is a conical with the front and rear cut off this results in a much smaller footprint on the groove walls. Put simply more pressure per given are as the contact patch is smaller.
I have some pics somewhere showing a 0.2x0.7 tracking at 1.5g and then pics of the groove after one play, the groove is marked and after 20 plays there is a groove cut in the croove wall (not cut really but ploughed into the wall by deformation). Then 20 plays with a conical at 2.5g and no damage at all is visable.
Now we have more exotic cuts like Shibata and Micro ridge which have huge narrow contact patches which not only track better, but the large area speads the load further so reducing both stylus and groove wear. These cuts tracking at 2.5g plus is not a problem as it was not a problem for conical and exotic cuts have a larger contact area with the groove resulting in even less wear, but the understanding that elliptical can not be used tracking at 2g plus seems to have been lost in time as more and more we see ellipticals tracking at crazy tracking forces resulting in accelerated stylus and groove wear, the latter being the most concering.
The VE stylus wear study 2 showed significant wear at 190 hours on an elliptical tracking at 2g, if the stylus is wearing so quickly I can only imagine what it is doing to the groove walls.
When we look at the cost of say a ATvm95e and the Micro ridge version ml in Aus the e version is 80 Aus dollars and the ml is 265 so 185 more. Looking at the stylus wear study groove wear aside you will use 5 elliptical so in the long run you will spend more buying elliptical stylus over the time you have the micro line then we consider groove wear and sound quality all of a sudden the elliptical starts to look very unatractive indeed.
Chris
. I have seen discussions about what cartridge "sound better" and there are opinions those with elliptical and even spherical tips are "the best sounding". So maybe they are still produced until there still is market for them (like Ortofon still manufacture classic SPU with spherical and elliptical tips).
