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Mono needle

H

hongyingdang

Member
Is a 0.5mil cone stylus suitable for monaural LP after 1950? I can find brand new 0.5mil needles, but it is very difficult to obtain brand new 0.6mil and 0.7mil needles. I have several mono cartridges, all with 0.7mil needle, but they are worn out and need to be replaced. Can I use 0.5mil instead of 0.7mil needle?
hong
 
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An 0.6 or 0.7 is likely going to do a better job of it. They’re still out there in wilds waiting to be found. Have you ever used a 1.0? What cart are you running?
 
hongyingdang said:
Is a 0.5mil cone stylus suitable for monaural LP after 1950? I can find brand new 0.5mil needles, but it is very difficult to obtain brand new 0.6mil and 0.7mil needles. I have several mono cartridges, all with 0.7mil needle, but they are worn out and need to be replaced. Can I use 0.5mil instead of 0.7mil needle?
hong
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Gramophone magazine once did an article on playing a mixed collection of stereo and mono records. Yes, older mono records had a slightly wider groove, and the best fit stylus size was a 1 mil conical stylus. However, Gramophone found that sizes down to a .5 mil, though riding a bit lower on the groove wall, worked quite well and could give less tracing distortion. Sumiko's Black Pearl cartridge used to come with a .5 mil conical, and it worked well for me on all my older mono as well as newer mono and stereo albums.
 
jrtrent said:
Gramophone magazine once did an article on playing a mixed collection of stereo and mono records. Yes, older mono records had a slightly wider groove, and the best fit stylus size was a 1 mil conical stylus. However, Gramophone found that sizes down to a .5 mil, though riding a bit lower on the groove wall, worked quite well and could give less tracing distortion. Sumiko's Black Pearl cartridge used to come with a .5 mil conical, and it worked well for me on all my older mono as well as newer mono and stereo albums.
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This is very valuable information, I will consider using 0.5mil
Thank you
Best Regards
Hong
 
hongyingdang said:
Is a 0.5mil cone stylus suitable for monaural LP after 1950? I can find brand new 0.5mil needles, but it is very difficult to obtain brand new 0.6mil and 0.7mil needles. I have several mono cartridges, all with 0.7mil needle, but they are worn out and need to be replaced. Can I use 0.5mil instead of 0.7mil needle?
hong
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Only if the records are in perfect condition. The .6 or better yet, .7 mil is better in terms of being less prone to reproducing surface noise. A 1.2 mil is great for worn records of the era.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Only if the records are in perfect condition. The .6 or better yet, .7 mil is better in terms of being less prone to reproducing surface noise. A 1.2 mil is great for worn records of the era.
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The .7 mil was extremely common at one time, and probably why RCA modeled the predistortion added in their Dynagroove process on the tracing distortion produced by a .7 mil stylus. My experience was that a .5 mil could give cleaner sound on some of my used records, perhaps because it rode a bit lower on the groove wall and avoid ed wear previously caused by a .7 mil. Stereophile found that the predistortion phase of Dynagroove was still a benefit even when using smaller styli.
 
A professional transcriber might determine that on a specific disc, this small .5 mil stylus tip does some magic.
But, when @hongyingdang spins some early mono, 1 mil grooves, pre-1968, this .5 mil tip will undoubtedly cause a splashy sound from the wider, normal 1 mil grooves.
More recent reissue mono discs are usually mastered/cut for a .7 mil stylus/groove. Then, the .5 mil tip might retrieve some more highs.

Heres something to consider. The more "cut" a stylus is simply means more grinding>polishing was needed, in manufacture. That means a thinner spherical tip might not have long life, compared to a .7 mil conical/spherical.

This is true with exotic cuts of styli as well, like Line Contact, Shibata, Micro-ridge, etc. unless your playback regimen includes expensive disc cleaners and you only spin mint discs.

Sphericals last the longest, Conicals next.

Personally, if I was to invest in a non-standard size, I would make sure I have nice, standard size styli around too.

Enjoy your audio adventures !
 
I thought spherical and conical were the same?

I don't know if a .5mil stylus will last as long as a .7 but it starts smaller and will have better HF reach, at least initially. I don't know if they're suitable for early long plays as the earliest I have is mid '50s, but as these were cut at hotter levels using essentially the same cutting stylus as used today it makes sense that a finer tip is still a good idea.
 
tubeactive said:
A professional transcriber might determine that on a specific disc, this small .5 mil stylus tip does some magic.
But, when @hongyingdang spins some early mono, 1 mil grooves, pre-1968, this .5 mil tip will undoubtedly cause a splashy sound from the wider, normal 1 mil grooves.
Click to expand...
Have you experienced splashy sound using a .5 mil stylus on mono records? Ortofon has reported that the bottom groove radius of old microgrooves from around 1950 could approach 15 µm, and for those records a 1 mil stylus was recommended. That bottom radius was narrowed considerably by the mid-1950's, and Gramophone's 1969 article on playing a mixed collection of older mono plus stereo albums included: 1) "The 'best fit' pickup stylus [for stereo] will have a tip radius of 0.0005 inch. Radii up to 0.0007 inch, either in hemispherical or elliptical form, will still be satisfactory"; and 2) "The 'best fit' pickup stylus [for mono] will be hemispherical, with a radius of 0.001 inch. Radii down to 0.0005 inch, though sitting slightly deeper in the groove, will still be satisfactory and indeed may give less tracing distortion."

I like mono records and always specifically seek them out when shopping at used record dealers, but it's possible that I've simply never owned any mono records with that wider bottom groove radius mentioned by Ortofon. I think my oldest record was a 10" lp from 1954, and my .5 mil stylus played it, and all my mono records, without any issues. I did at one point set up a cartridge with a 1 mil stylus to see if it offered any improvement for my mono records, but, at least for the ones I had, it did not.
 
I also played the 1954 album with 0.5mil without any problems. But for LPs before 1954, I don't have an answer to whether there is a problem with 0.5mil or whether 0.7 is better than 0.5
jrtrent said:
Have you experienced splashy sound using a .5 mil stylus on mono records? Ortofon has reported that the bottom groove radius of old microgrooves from around 1950 could approach 15 µm, and for those records a 1 mil stylus was recommended. That bottom radius was narrowed considerably by the mid-1950's, and Gramophone's 1969 article on playing a mixed collection of older mono plus stereo albums included: 1) "The 'best fit' pickup stylus [for stereo] will have a tip radius of 0.0005 inch. Radii up to 0.0007 inch, either in hemispherical or elliptical form, will still be satisfactory"; and 2) "The 'best fit' pickup stylus [for mono] will be hemispherical, with a radius of 0.001 inch. Radii down to 0.0005 inch, though sitting slightly deeper in the groove, will still be satisfactory and indeed may give less tracing distortion."

I like mono records and always specifically seek them out when shopping at used record dealers, but it's possible that I've simply never owned any mono records with that wider bottom groove radius mentioned by Ortofon. I think my oldest record was a 10" lp from 1954, and my .5 mil stylus played it, and all my mono records, without any issues. I did at one point set up a cartridge with a 1 mil stylus to see if it offered any improvement for my mono records, but, at least for the ones I had, it did not.
Click to expand...
 
hongyingdang said:
I also played the 1954 album with 0.5mil without any problems. But for LPs before 1954, I don't have an answer to whether there is a problem with 0.5mil or whether 0.7 is better than 0.5
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I didn't own a record player until 1964, already well into the stereo era. Except for that 1 mil stylus experiment, I've always just enjoyed my mono records on the same turntable and with the same cartridge and stylus that I used for my stereo records. Whether conicals from .5 to .7 mil, or ellipticals from .2 X .7 to .4 X .7, or even a couple of line contact styli, my whole collection of mono and stereo records played well. I did, of course, use a different stylus for 78's!
 
jrtrent said:
I didn't own a record player until 1964, already well into the stereo era. Except for that 1 mil stylus experiment, I've always just enjoyed my mono records on the same turntable and with the same cartridge and stylus that I used for my stereo records. Whether conicals from .5 to .7 mil, or ellipticals from .2 X .7 to .4 X .7, or even a couple of line contact styli, my whole collection of mono and stereo records played well. I did, of course, use a different stylus for 78's!
Click to expand...
For later mono albums, or albums released in both mono and stereo, I also use an elliptical stylus which is very good
 
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