Heaviside
Active Member
Last night I received my JICO stylus straight from the factory in Japan. The process was easy--ordered from their web site, paid by PayPal, delivered relatively quickly by the post office, packaged well with detailed technical information.
This is the Super Analog Stylus (SAS) designed to replace the hyper eliptical sylus on the Shure V15 Type III.
My first impression while installing it: boy, that's a small diamond!
Last night my son and I put it through its paces with the following records: Thick as a Brick, Working Man's Dead, and Jesus Christ Superstar. The theory was that we have listened to these albums many times both in the old days and recently, so they were good test subjects.
We were both very impressed with the sound. The tonal balance seemed close to optimum (I had been complaining about excessive brightness with the old styli that I had been using). I heard things that I had never picked up on before. For example, I must have heard Casey Jones 1000 times over the years, but I never noticed the snort at the very beginning, or at least it never stood out before to the point that I realized the significance (maybe I'm a little dense!).
One thing we noticed that has been pointed out by others: it does pick up dirt and imperfections pretty aggressively. My records have been well cared for for the most part, but I don't have a cleaning machine--yet. So we are hearing a few more ticks and pops, but those don't really bother me much. It's always seemed like part of the record listening experience.
Anyway, the JICO doesn't seem to have needed a break-in period as it is producing some pretty awesome music right out of the box, and we are very pleased so far.
Dan
This is the Super Analog Stylus (SAS) designed to replace the hyper eliptical sylus on the Shure V15 Type III.
My first impression while installing it: boy, that's a small diamond!
Last night my son and I put it through its paces with the following records: Thick as a Brick, Working Man's Dead, and Jesus Christ Superstar. The theory was that we have listened to these albums many times both in the old days and recently, so they were good test subjects.
We were both very impressed with the sound. The tonal balance seemed close to optimum (I had been complaining about excessive brightness with the old styli that I had been using). I heard things that I had never picked up on before. For example, I must have heard Casey Jones 1000 times over the years, but I never noticed the snort at the very beginning, or at least it never stood out before to the point that I realized the significance (maybe I'm a little dense!).
One thing we noticed that has been pointed out by others: it does pick up dirt and imperfections pretty aggressively. My records have been well cared for for the most part, but I don't have a cleaning machine--yet. So we are hearing a few more ticks and pops, but those don't really bother me much. It's always seemed like part of the record listening experience.
Anyway, the JICO doesn't seem to have needed a break-in period as it is producing some pretty awesome music right out of the box, and we are very pleased so far.
Dan
