Just because this is fun. Here are three different needles of high quality. All are on the same cartridge body, the design of the stylus are the same, all that is different is in principle the needle-cut. One is a nude Shibata, one is a nude 0,2x0,7 elliptical, and one is a high quality conical. The peace is rather in the middle of the side of the record. Is it easy to tell which is which? Dropbox - mahler1.wav Dropbox - mahler2.wav Dropbox - mahler3.wav
Thanks for the activity. To my ears via headphones: 1 has more detail, definition and background noise. As well as ticks and pops, groove noise easily heard in sections. 3 has less detail, record noise is quite muted, and so is definition. 2 is between - record noise is less than 1 - definition seems closer to 1 than 3. There is less difference between 2 and 1, than 1 and 3. The visual that appears of the volume also indicates more detail and variation in 1, least in 3. It would interesting to select more percussive sounds - piano or percussion.
Thanks for taking the time. Here are three files of a rather dynamic piano. The files are in the same order as previously. Dropbox - Straw1.wav Dropbox - Straw2.wav Dropbox - Straw3.wav
Wait! just 1 second, I must go to work. Number 3 sounds the best but just because it's louder! You normalised to peak, but that's risky because it favours less dynamical sample. I should RMS normalise the three before judgment. My guess is 2 better than 1 (slight margin) better than 3. But it could be all way around. EDIT I am talking about the piano sample EDIT EDIT I am on speakers
OK. #1 is a 0,2x0,7mil nude needle, #2 is a nude Shibata, and #3 is a bonded good quality 0,5mil conical.
My hearing is not completely impaired, it seems... I would like to thank you for this test, it takes time and patience preparing the samples and I wish more people would like to have feedback this way about their setups. At the same time I am surprised almost nobody did enjoy this kind of game, apparently blind tests scare "audiophiles".
You may need a very aggressively cut record to notice the differences in a drastic way. Some records I have, particularly jazz and classical records, are cut with wide deadwax and are not the best records to test with. Grab an aggressively cut record with narrow deadwax and the standard stylus shapes fall apart on those once you get to the inner grooves. This is the main reason I prefer advanced stylus shapes most of the time.
No classical or jazz for this uncultured rock and roll barbarian. So far in my experience microline and whatever sort of ellipticals are attached to my Yamaha MC-100 and MC-1s carts seem to fare best with the hot stuff. No amount of alignment or VTA adjustment helps the line contacts make it to the end of a face melting final track. I also think tip mass makes a big difference and I will freely admit that I'm a fan of boron and beryllium.
Based on only the first samples I thought 1 & 2 might have been the other way around, though I thought 3 (the conical/spherical) was what it was - lowest definition. Thanks.