In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:

I'd be interested to see some references to some research/measurement
reports that support the above as a generalised assertion about "elliptical
tipped" cartridges.

This is info that goes back to the LP era. Do some googling. You'll
find it. You might try looking for references to stylus shapes intended
for transcription as opposed to everyday use.

Think about the shape of an elliptical stylus... imagine it contacting
the groove a little bit off angle. One side will contact harder than
the other. A conical stylus is symmetrical. It can be a little twisted
one way or the other and it still contacts the groove the same.

Alignment does NOT stay the same. If you use your turntable regularly,
things move around as you handle the tonearm. Elliptical stylii need to
be aligned every three to six months with everyday use.

See ya
Steve

--
Rare 78 rpm recordings on CD! http://www.vintageip.com/records/
Building a museum and archive of animation! http://www.animationarchive.org/
The Quest for the BEST HOTDOG in Los Angeles! http://www.hotdogspot.com/
Rediscovering great stuff from the past! http://www.vintagetips.com/

In article , Mr.T
MrT@home wrote:

DON'T try playing a vinyl copy of the Telarc 1812 with that cheap cartridge,
one playing will damage it.

I don't think there's a cartridge made that will track that properly.
Telarc cut certain records WAY out of spec deliberately for the "more
is better" audiophool set.

See ya
Steve

--
Rare 78 rpm recordings on CD! http://www.vintageip.com/records/
Building a museum and archive of animation! http://www.animationarchive.org/
The Quest for the BEST HOTDOG in Los Angeles! http://www.hotdogspot.com/
Rediscovering great stuff from the past! http://www.vintagetips.com/

"Here in Ohio" wrote in message
...
There is no reason for ANY cartridge to be misaligned or mistracked.

In fact it is easy to demonstrate cartridge mistracking on demanding
records
with all but the very best cartridges.
DON'T try playing a vinyl copy of the Telarc 1812 with that cheap
cartridge,
one playing will damage it. The CD version on the other hand, can be
played
on any cheap CD player without damage. Cheap speakers may be another
matter
though :-)

I rather doubt that anything that has been pressed on a mass market LP
is capable of damaging a cartridge (unless the LP is somehow
defective).

Obviously I meant the *record* would be damaged!

In the case of the Telarc 1812, you're not listening to the cannon
shots anyway, you're listening to the limitations of the whole vinyl
system.

Exactly.

MrT.

wrote in message
. ..
In general, when someone makes a comparison between 2 versions of the same
thing, it is assumed that other things are held constant. Therefore, the
statement above, saying that conical stylii are less temperamental that
elliptical ones, assumes that the quality of the the stylus is the
same--only the shape of the tip is different.

I don't find any confusion at all.

You haven't been following the thread then. It was claimed that a $50
cartridge with a conical stylus at any tracking force, would cause less
groove damage than the most expensive cartridges available using line
contact or any other stylus shape.
(use Google if you need to review the thread)

So, if you are not confused, do you agree?
I sure don't.

MrT.

"Stephen Worth" wrote in message
...
DON'T try playing a vinyl copy of the Telarc 1812 with that cheap
cartridge,
one playing will damage it.

I don't think there's a cartridge made that will track that properly.

In fact I used that record to demonstrate the Shure V15VMR capabilities at
one time.
However you are partly correct, I don't know of any $50 cartridge that will
track it properly.

MrT.

"Stephen Worth" wrote in message
...
In article , Mr.T
MrT@home wrote:

DON'T try playing a vinyl copy of the Telarc 1812 with that cheap
cartridge,
one playing will damage it.

I don't think there's a cartridge made that will track that properly.
Telarc cut certain records WAY out of spec deliberately for the "more
is better" audiophool set.


Actually, the ADC XLM and the Shure V15III tracked that record properly, at
the top of their recommended tracking weight ranges.

In article , Stephen Worth
wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:

I'd be interested to see some references to some research/measurement
reports that support the above as a generalised assertion about
"elliptical tipped" cartridges.

This is info that goes back to the LP era. Do some googling. You'll find
it. You might try looking for references to stylus shapes intended for
transcription as opposed to everyday use.


I have tried searching my set of AES CDROMs that contain all the issues
of JAES, etc, prior to a couple of years ago, but found no references
which relate to your assertion that:

"An elliptical tipped cartridge needs alignment every two to three months."

I found many articles which deal with other factors, but nothing on that
which I noticed.

Alas, you have not given any references, just told me to look for them,
which looks like you have none in mind when you made your assertion.
However if you do, please let me know.


Think about the shape of an elliptical stylus... imagine it contacting
the groove a little bit off angle. One side will contact harder than
the other. A conical stylus is symmetrical. It can be a little twisted
one way or the other and it still contacts the groove the same.


The above strikes me as rather an over-simplification. :-) However
the issue I was questioning was the claim that the alignment changes
sigificantly in the timescale you state. I have found articles that
do deal with the geometry and wear, etc, but not seen anything on
that point as yet.

Alignment does NOT stay the same. If you use your turntable regularly,
things move around as you handle the tonearm. Elliptical stylii need to
be aligned every three to six months with everyday use.

Yet my experience over some decades of using LP replay systems
with non-'conical' styli did not agree with your theory. Although
it has been some time since I used LP on an 'everyday' basis. But
I did do so for many years.

For all I know, you are correct. But I haven't found any assessable
evidence, not have you provided any, nor does my experience indicate
that you are right. So unless you are able to provide some specific
reference that I - and perhaps others - could examine, I am afraid I
will have to doubt your assertion. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"Stephen Worth" wrote in message

In article
, Mr.T
MrT@home wrote:

DON'T try playing a vinyl copy of the Telarc 1812 with
that cheap cartridge, one playing will damage it.

I don't think there's a cartridge made that will track
that properly. Telarc cut certain records WAY out of spec
deliberately for the "more is better" audiophool set.

Thanks to Telarc for so clearly demonstrating one of the well-known failings
of the LP format.

In contrast, playing the CD version is well within the capabilities of just
about any CD player that is operating even marginally.

"Mr.T" MrT@home wrote in message
u
wrote in message
. ..
In general, when someone makes a comparison between 2
versions of the same thing, it is assumed that other
things are held constant. Therefore, the statement
above, saying that conical stylii are less temperamental
that elliptical ones, assumes that the quality of the
the stylus is the same--only the shape of the tip is
different.

I don't find any confusion at all.

You haven't been following the thread then. It was
claimed that a $50 cartridge with a conical stylus at any
tracking force, would cause less groove damage than the
most expensive cartridges available using line contact or
any other stylus shape. (use Google if you need to review
the thread)

So, if you are not confused, do you agree?
I sure don't.

Sounds like posturing to me.

Conical styli are generally a step backwards. So we have a big step
backwards into an obsolete format, followed by a step backwards within the
technology of that obsolete format.

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

In article ,
Stephen Worth wrote:
In article , Jim
Lesurf wrote:

I'd be interested to see some references to some
research/measurement reports that support the above as
a generalised assertion about "elliptical tipped"
cartridges.

This is info that goes back to the LP era. Do some
googling. You'll find it. You might try looking for
references to stylus shapes intended for transcription
as opposed to everyday use.

I have tried searching my set of AES CDROMs that contain
all the issues
of JAES, etc, prior to a couple of years ago, but found
no references which relate to your assertion that:

"An elliptical tipped cartridge needs alignment every two
to three months."

Indeed, there is no logical reason that this would be true.

An associated but *completely different" claim would be that the SQ of an LP
degrades more for a given misalignment with an elliptical stylus as opposed
to a conical stylus. However, if one were to test that claim there would
probably need to be some way to account for the fact that the elliptical
stylus hopefully worked better to begin with. Performance thus had further
to fall.

I found many articles which deal with other factors, but
nothing on that which I noticed.

Alas, you have not given any references, just told me to
look for them, which looks like you have none in mind
when you made your assertion. However if you do, please
let me know.

You are familiar with the word "posturting"? ;-)

Think about the shape of an elliptical stylus... imagine
it contacting the groove a little bit off angle. One
side will contact harder than the other.

Irrelevant to small misorientations of an elliptical stylus.

A conical
stylus is symmetrical. It can be a little twisted one
way or the other and it still contacts the groove the
same.

More likely in either case - when you misorient a stylus you probably had to
misorient and/or misposition the cartridge. That plays hob with things like
tracking error. Unfortunately for Worth's claim, tracking error is a bad
thing, regardless.

The above strikes me as rather an over-simplification.
:-)

Did I hear that in a high end audio salon back in the day? It is clearly a
claim based on assertion, not theoretical or experimental results.

However the issue I was questioning was the claim that the
alignment changes sigificantly in the timescale you
state. I have found articles that
do deal with the geometry and wear, etc, but not seen
anything on that point as yet.

Another approach might be to show that an elliptical stylus significantly
changes the forces on the arm in such a way that the arm either bent, or its
pivots wore out faster, or some such. Again, I don't see a lot of hope for
that even though I seem to recall that elliptical styli did require
different amounts of anti-skate. There is probably some difference in the
forces applied to the arm, but would they be enough to bend it? I don't
think so!

Alignment does NOT stay the same. If you use your
turntable regularly, things move around as you handle
the tonearm. Elliptical stylii need to be aligned every
three to six months with everyday use.

I don't know why the type of stylus would change how I handled the tone arm.


Yet my experience over some decades of using LP replay
systems
with non-'conical' styli did not agree with your theory.
Although
it has been some time since I used LP on an 'everyday'
basis. But I did do so for many years.

I was spinning vinyl back in the days when the first elliptical styli came
out. Lots of us upgraded existing cartridges to use them, even though our
existing conicals were in good shape.

For all I know, you are correct. But I haven't found any
assessable evidence, not have you provided any, nor does
my experience indicate
that you are right. So unless you are able to provide
some specific reference that I - and perhaps others -
could examine, I am afraid I
will have to doubt your assertion. :-)

Hold that thought!