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Microlinear vs Shibata vs Special Line Contact Stylus’

It is also worth factoring-in history and marketing when viewing cartridges. It’s all too easy to be sucked into the pretty pictures, oligarch price-tags and endless pseudoscience marketing behind the current high-end. The reality is vinyl replay technology is ancient. Nothing of any real conceptual significance has happened in half a century or more, what we have seen is a degree of refinement and some of that being marketing-led over-engineering.

Go back to the late-50s early-60s and the three main types of cartridges (MM, MC, Decca) all existed and the better examples all costed within a few % of each other. There really wasn’t any clear winner here, the systems were viewed as having slightly different strengths and weaknesses. If you wanted the very best you’d be looking at an Ortofon SPU, Shure V15 or Decca FFSS. Each a different technology. All a fairly similar price.

Move into the 1970s and tracking/tracing became the core marketing perspective, and this obviously moved things to the MM side of the map. The one clear advantage MM carts have is lower generator mass so they can be generalised as better trackers all else being equal. There is no way around this as an MC generator has a far more complex and heavier moving element. As such things moved rather too far to the low-mass and high-compliance end of the spectrum, this move encouraged by the advent of 4 channel quadraphonic record technology which required the ability to track ultrasonic HF which was out of reach of MC technology. You just can’t move something heavy that fast.

Since then quadrophonic vanished the hi-fi marketing gods decided a child’s view of “rigid” was the thing to sell, so we went back to heavy arms, MC carts and higher tracking weights to get them through the tricky bits. This resulted in some very fine arms and cartridges, no doubt, but I feel this mindset has moved to the point of dogma now. The idea any generator technique is inherently superior is just as daft today as it was back in the 1970s. I far prefer the mindset of the 1950s and 60s where everything was assessed on its own merit and radical thinking and innovation was commonplace. Vinyl replay is a complex problem with many different yet valid solutions.

I really do find the current audio market dull as ditchwater. So much is narrow, blinkered and desperately trying to find new ways to charge ever-more absurd oligarch prices for very old thinking by adding ever more bling and unnecessary mass to everything. It is like discussing the architecture of Donald Trump. Just clueless.
 
The idea any generator technique is inherently superior is just as daft today as it was back in the 1970s.

I'm certainly ignorant about this question, but I don't find that idea daft. Wouldn't it be more surprising if all the different generator techniques were ultimately only capable of equalling each other?
 
I'm certainly ignorant about this question, but I don't find that idea daft. Wouldn't it be more surprising if all the different generator techniques were ultimately only capable of equalling each other?

FWIW I don’t think the technologies were ever ‘equal’. Each had different strengths and weaknesses and therefore excelled at different things and operated in very different usage contexts. The right arm and phono stage is obviously very different between an ultra-low-mass high-compliance MM and a heavy tracking low compliance MC, even so I find much to like about things carts as diverse as a M25FL through to an SPU and can understand why Ortofon pursued both design trajectories. Both are alive today (the 2M range being a direct descendant of the VMS MM range of which the M25FL topped).

The thing that has changed is MMs have been forced down to an area of lower expectation and even the mass market assumption they are little better than DJ cartridges, though I think this is changing gradually thanks to AT and others. There is certainly room for all technologies, though I’m not sure we’ll ever see ruby cantilevers (e.g. Grace F9 Ruby etc) on MMs again. It is worth noting that much of the past 40 years has actually been bolting the best of 1970s high-end MM design onto MC generators, e.g. all the really fancy tip profiles, exotic cantilever materials etc very much have their roots in 1970s MM technology.

FWIW I’d love to see the Decca idea brought up to date with modern manufacturing as it is capable of such incredible results. Sadly they do have mathematically impossible requirements for a tonearm (very high lateral compliance, very low vertical, very heavy body-weight), though maybe there are ways around this with modern materials and thinking. I view Deccas as very much their own thing and arguably the most interesting and certainly least-developed of the lot.

The bottom line is each technology is really good and genuinely capable of superb results. I now exist so far beyond the current influences of the market I just see concepts and the whole history. It all interests me. Its all good. I’m not taking sides!
 
They don’t. The ML is so good. It isn’t the SH though, but the CL.

Yeah, sorry I was conflating two different pieces. The one to which I linked was the review of the 760SLC and is compared with the 540ML. Worth noting that in that article, the guy takes the stylus from the 540ML and creates a 740ML and posts some graphs which give the impression that those two are quite different which would suggest that the two different bodies of the 500 series and the 700 series make a significant difference. They don't: in the comments he acknowledges that he made an error on loading settings and posted another (correct) graph which shows that a 540ML and 740ML would be basically the same, which they should be given the stylus is the same.
 
Ill ask on Saturday but can i just buy a new stylus when it wears out on the Audio Technica MCs that I’m looking at - AT OC9 - XML, XSH and the XLS?

Forgot to mention that i will also be trying out the AT33SA which is the same price as the OC9XLS
 
Not beyond real pedantry/marketing as far as I can tell. They all achieve the same aim via slightly different means and I’d describe them all as ‘line contact’ including Shibata and Geiger. If you google them you’ll find all manner of pictures, which are fascinating and beautiful, but they all aim to achieve a deep long vertical contact area with the groove over a very short (front/back) length. There is some amazing precision engineering creating such things, though as I understand it most styli are made by Nagaoka these days. AT and Ortofon may possibly still make tips too, I don’t know, but I very much doubt anyone else still has the skillset. It is certainly a vastly smaller market than it was.

Ogura in Japan make styli too.
 
I ended up getting the AT OC9XSH; rather than attempt to explain the differences this review really sums it up:https://www.hifinews.com/content/audio-technica-oc9xsh-cartridge

One thing I would say is that the 0.4mV output is noticeable louder than the 0.3mV output of the Rega Ania it replaced.

I also upgraded my Lingo 3 for a Lingo 4 and original Linn tonearm cable for a T-Kabyle; Ill start another thread for this in due course but a significant sonic improvement in what I thought was superb to begin with.
 
I'm interested in your view of the OC9XSH I currently have a Hana SL nearing its maximum hours. Service exchange price on the Hana is about the same price as a new OC9XSH I've been happy with the Hana but might try the AT.
 
The review I posted above seems correct. Out of the box I used a 470 ohm loading. The top end seems to have calmed down considerably and am now using 220 ohm. I suspect after 50 plus hours I’ll be on the recommended 100ohm.
 
That’s funny because I now use 1k, because the cartridge otherwise sounded a bit dull (Quad 34).
 
Isn’t it the other way around? After I read your post, I increased the loading to 2.2k ohms which gave the sound a more dense/ solid sound with more bottom end wallop.

Incidentally, ive now gone back to the 470ohm loading.

How long did the cartridge take to settle down fully? Thank you
 


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