Piezo-Azden-Acutex Thread

[boreas]

Just got a response from JICO.

"Dear John,

"Thank you for the suggestion.

"As you say, it would be possible to offer these models with elliptical tips.
The SAS may or may not be possible because of requirements in the shank
measurements. We will take your suggestion into consideration.

"Sincerely,
Seth Kolon / JICO"

So, they seem to have a gaijin in the house now.

In my reply I suggested that an HE might be possible if the SAS was not.

John

 

[Balifly]

Just got a response from JICO.

"Dear John,

"Thank you for the suggestion.

"As you say, it would be possible to offer these models with elliptical tips.
The SAS may or may not be possible because of requirements in the shank
measurements. We will take your suggestion into consideration.

"Sincerely,
Seth Kolon / JICO"

So, they seem to have a gaijin in the house now.

In my reply I suggested that an HE might be possible if the SAS was not.

John

Cool, makes for easier communication!

 

[boreas]

Goofy bass, huh? If that keeps up, I wonder if your tension wire could be loose. Get a couple of these styli (in case of oopses) and see what tightening the wire (n.b., I'm only guessing that's what the screw is for) does. If I can find a screwdriver small enough..

Shortening the SAS canti to the length of a typical Pritchard (ADC) design would maybe make it possible to do the whole thing in boron. What fun!

I wouldn't call it goofy, although it was sort of jarring when I first swapped it in. Much more bass than the YM-320, so much so that I put the YM-320 right back to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.

Still has more bass but it has settled down a lot. Bass is more controlled now but it has a lot of slam for sure! As I said, I kinda like it. Works great for some of my records, like the one I just listened to, Heiner Stadler's "A Tribute to Monk and Bird", avant garde jazz.

John

 

[boreas]

Another Follow-Up from JICO

"Dear John,

"A bonded hyper-elliptical or even a Shibata tipped version are also a
possibilities. Upon initial inspection, it looks like the design of the
YM308 stylus would not be compatible with an SAS system, but I'll leave it
to our technicians to decide.

"Sincerely,
Seth Kolon / JICO"

Their quick response and follow-up would seem to indicate that the idea interests them. Fingers crossed!

John

 

[wualta]

We should put it in terms of a Japanese video game: "Do you accept our challlennnge?!"

 

[boreas]

Since you got me all inspired (dangerous at my age), I got out the the magnifier and found that the "ears" are pushed (and held) against the foam donut by a clear plastic collar. Looks like a jam fit. No swaggeration seems to be involved. Take a look and see what you think. This could mean the whole thing's adjustable if you know how to loosen and tighten the plastic collar.

Were you looking at the gray guardless one or the guarded yellow one? I think the yellows with the "STEREO" sticker are generics.

We could be seeing evidence of production variation, type to type or OEM to aftermarket. My YM-308, guarded variety, appears to be swaged as I suspected. Below are 2 views, 50x and 100x.

John

 

[wualta]

Dunno. My view with the magnifier seems clearer, but not clear enough for me to be certain. Still looks like a clear plastic collar on both the gray and yella styli.
Underneath the collar, whatever it's made of, the "ears" are part of what looks like an E clip:

 

[boreas]

Dunno. My view with the magnifier seems clearer, but not clear enough for me to be certain. Still looks like a clear plastic collar on both the gray and yella styli.

Underneath the collar, whatever it's made of, the "ears" are part of what looks like an E clip:

Yeah, the problem with high magnification is that you lose depth of field. That makes it hard to get an image that shows you all that you want to see. You have to refocus to see different parts of the object.

On my stylus there is no indication of any sort of plastic slipped down the sleeve to hold the ears on. It does, however, appear to be swaged .

I ordered a couple of styli from Gary today. I'll check them when I get them but I expect I'll see what you did.

John

 

[boreas]

Got two of the yellow 707-DE styli today from Gary. They're definitely ellipticals and the cantilevers are as wualta described them with a plastic collar holding the Mickey Mouse ears in place.

In examining them I decided that they're almost certainly JICOs. They have the traditional blue dot on the underside of the cantilever and the elliptical tip looks like every JICO elliptical I've ever looked at and not at all like the two Piezos I have here. Also, they both have the generic "STEREO" sticker on them. JICOs do too but, on the other hand, all the original styli I've seen have the model number of the cartridge on them, whether it be Piezo, Acutex, or whatever. Gary thinks so too and wonders why Pfanstiehl came out with a 4707-DE that's also a generic and, I think, may well be the same thing.

The packages are marked as 0.4 x 0.7 mil but, if they are JICO, they'd probably be 0.3 x 0.7 since that's all JICO makes, at least under their own brand.

One of the two styli had been poorly assembled with the stylus fitted to the cantilever both off-center and off-azimuth (bad enough to see with the nekkid eyeball). Also the stone was rotated off-axis clockwise. Gary has already sent out a replacement.

John

 

[wualta]

Aha! More mysteries. I wonder if the plastic bit acts as a damper as well as a fastener. That would be a happy accident. But the aftermarket diamonds are very different from the original Azden/Piezo diamonds?

Yes, I too wondered what Pfanstiehl was up to with the 707-DE v. the 4707-DE. It could be that for at least some of the aftermarket styli, Azden was the maker. It would be like buying an aftermarket stylus made by Azden for your Empire 190LT, which was originally made for Empire by Azden. So is it really an aftermarket stylus or semiaftermarket, or... what?

 

[boreas]

Aha! More mysteries. I wonder if the plastic bit acts as a damper as well as a fastener. That would be a happy accident. But the aftermarket diamonds are very different from the original Azden/Piezo diamonds?

Yes, I too wondered what Pfanstiehl was up to with the 707-DE v. the 4707-DE. It could be that for at least some of the aftermarket styli, Azden was the maker. It would be like buying an aftermarket stylus made by Azden for your Empire 190LT, which was originally made for Empire by Azden. So is it really an aftermarket stylus or semiaftermarket, or... what?

Well, I didn't wonder because I always believed that the "4" denoted aftermarket and the "non-4" meant original equipment. My assumption, therefore, was that the 707-DE was Piezo/Azden.

The difference I see in the styli isn't so much in the stone but in the mount. The Original equipment ones that I have use smaller/shorter mounts which would significantly reduce tip mass.

John

 

[boreas]

I just saw a listing on eBay for a single Acutex "Mini Transducer System" speaker which turns out to be none other than a Realistic Minimus 7.

So, do you suppose Piezo made the Minimus 7 for Radio Shack?

John

 

[wualta]

Wild! I wonder if Acutex saw the phono writing on the wall in the late '80s and decided to branch out a little. EDIT: No! make that the late '70s! they made a serious attempt to break into the then-booming stereo market. A whole line of speakers.

 

[boreas]

Wild! I wonder if Acutex saw the phono writing on the wall in the late '80s and decided to branch out a little.

Could be. I saw a set of Acutex cans on eBay once too.

John

 

[boreas]

My God, the bass!



I just switched the YM-308 from a Technics "MK1" headshell to a MK2 headshell and the cartridge was transformed! It sounds really wonderful. I'm listening to Charlie Haden & Carla Bley's "The Ballad of the Fallen", a wonderful album on ECM. Haden's bass is clear, focused, deep and powerful and Bley's piano is beautifully crystalline. The ensemble playing is nuanced and flawless. Detail is so good that it's hard to believe that this is a conical stylus.

I suppose there may be more going on than the change of headshell. The stylus may be coming into its own and I may have hit it just right with the alignment when I made the switch. I dunno but I'm very, very pleased!

Meanwhile, I've discovered some not so good things about my Spectrum SC-212E. First, it's picking up a hum from the transformer in my amp. It's quite pronounced (through headphones) with the arm in the rest and quickly diminishes as the arm moves to the record and away from the amp, being virtually gone when the stylus lands on the record.

The fix is obvious and simple, move the components farther apart, but I'm wondering whether this problem is related to the second one, namely that the cartridge is fairly microphonic. My plan is to mount the Spectrum in the "MK1" headshell to see whether the plastic slider kills the microphonics and possibly even the hum.

John

 

[melofelo]

[I suppose there may be more going on than the change of headshell.]

These tri-poles seem quite critical of three things from my limited experience..arm mass, tracking force and fussy alignment to an accurate protractor.
The first and last just requires patience as with most cartridges, but, with no easy way to measure the distance of all three x,y,z poles away from the respective induced armatures when under static and dynamic load (And I suspect that they need to be at a relatively even distance apart to work as intended)...
... then a headshell swap might actually make a quite noticeable sonic difference.
Where tracking force is concerned, It seems relatively easy to notice the sound achieving maximum focus and resolution as it moves in and out of narrow band somewhere along the range...and i suspect this is what makes them so fussy compared to a normal dual magnet cartridge that doesn't need the z pole to do its thing..

 

[boreas]

These tri-poles seem quite critical of three things from my limited experience..arm mass, tracking force and fussy alignment to an accurate protractor.
The first and last just requires patience as with most cartridges, but, with no easy way to measure the distance of all three x,y,z poles away from the respective induced armatures when under static and dynamic load (And I suspect that they need to be at a relatively even distance apart to work as intended)...
... then a headshell swap might actually make a quite noticeable sonic difference.
Where tracking force is concerned, It seems relatively easy to notice the sound achieving maximum focus and resolution as it moves in and out of narrow band somewhere along the range...and i suspect this is what makes them so fussy compared to a normal dual magnet cartridge that doesn't need the z pole to do its thing..

That makes sense. The heavier headshell adds mass right at the end of the arm where the cartridge has to do its thing. The extra mass increases inertia and may cause the armature to move more radically in and out of the "sweet spot" under dynamic loads.

Right now I have my M312 III STR mounted on a "MK1" headshell because I need the extra gram to get the necessary VTF. My "flat nose" YM-308 and the Spectrum/YM-320 are both mounted to MK2 headshells. Interestingly (and quite conveniently), the assembled weight of cartridge and headshell for those three tripoles is within 0.02g, thus making it unnecessary to rebalance the arm when switching between them.

John

 

[boreas]

Meanwhile, I've discovered some not so good things about my Spectrum SC-212E. First, it's picking up a hum from the transformer in my amp. It's quite pronounced (through headphones) with the arm in the rest and quickly diminishes as the arm moves to the record and away from the amp, being virtually gone when the stylus lands on the record.

Okay, just had an idea about this hum business. The Spectrum is the only cartridge I own which does this. One of the noteworthy things about this design is that it's an IM with a pretty good size magnet. Now, the "bricks" have a magnet of the same size but it's shielded by a steel lining in the stylus assembly. The Spectrum has no such shielding. Neither do the LPMs but the magnet is a LOT smaller. So, maybe the problem is that the "short nose" type cartridge has a large unshielded magnet that can pick up RFI from any nearby source.

Any thoughts?

John

 

[boreas]

Just Another Brick In The Hod! Redux

The same seller I bought from in Germany is offering another YM-308 with NOS AN-308 stylus with a BIN of EUR 45.00, about $60.00, but this time it's an auction with an opening bid of $32.00, zero bids and a little less than 3 days left. It also includes a decent looking SME type Hitachi headshell.

Rainer, the seller, is great to deal with and gets stuff out fast and cheaply. If anyone's interested, I can recommend him strongly.

John

 

[wualta]

Off the top of my head I can't think of a reason why the lack of shielding around the magnet would make the cartridge more susceptible to 60 Hz EMI. The coils are the things that have to be shielded, and I'd think the body shell would be connected internally to one of the output posts, like an internal ground strap. But maybe that's missing or broken. And if you've tried all the usual antihum dodges, I got nuthin'.

Is it a hum or a humm?

Comedy aside, is there a difference between the YM-308 and the YM-308 II?