Do the more basic stylus shapes (conical and elliptical) cause records to get worn out quicker?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by colby2415, May 19, 2017.

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  1. harby

    harby Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    Because with a digital transfer, you can preserve the best version of the LP.

    Recording right after a cleaning or rare glue peel to make it as clean as possible, transfer on your best equipment instead of your convenient equipment, digitally remove the pops and clicks, optionally give it a "re-mastering" EQ for a more uniform sound and volume between content, and fade in just where there is music, along with more advanced surface noise removal.

    Along with the theme of this thread, add in discovering the best-performing stylus for capturing a particular record, whether catering to its cutting, or avoiding previous wear.

    Then backup as many places as you like and load it up on your pocket music player.

    Better would be to have a professional get the original tapes out of the vault and do this for you without adding compromises needed for vinyl mastering (which is what you would often find just buying a CD).
     
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  2. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Wow an actual paper being linked, Im beyond impressed. And a great read too!
     
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  3. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    Good point !
     
  4. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Coming to this a bit late in the thread. Shure produced a measure of the effect of stylus profile and tracking force on vinyl. They called this "indentation factor", with a table of numbers in the V15-V manual. Which you can download by google searching.

    The other one, also by Shure, looked at anti-skating. "The Skating-Force Phenomenon" by James H Kogen. October and November, Audio, 1967. Also from a google search. The skating force depends on stylus profile.
     
  5. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Got me thinking about record wear with different stylus shapes. This is a YouTube vid that is a kind of review of a book showing record wear microscope photographs between elliptical and spherical stylii after the same number of plays



    The interesting conclusion is that "when tracked light", ie at 1.5g, a conical stylus causes much less wear than an elliptical one. Which I agree is not what one would expect - but the photos do not lie.
     
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  6. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Depending on the area youre looking at this will not be true. But overall it should do a little less damage because of the larger contact area.
     
  7. H8SLKC

    H8SLKC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    I'm interested in a more basic, real-world comparison point. Are there any posters who have ever heard a record that was "worn out"? I'm not talking about one with obvious damage, just a record that sounds "worn out"? Come to think of it, I cannot describe what "worn out" would sound like because I've never heard it as far as I can tell, and I own hundreds of used records at this point.

    The question becomes one of the theoretical issues with stylus shapes and VTF regularly impacting what we hear when we play used records, or degrading the records we own over time. I've never read about someone complaining that some cherished record was "wearing out" because they've played it so many times. In fact I've heard the opposite. I myself have a few records that I bought new and have played at least 50+ times, and they sound as new. I once read Steve Guttenberg discuss a record he owned that had hundreds of plays and still sounded great.
     
  8. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    In the 1960s, RCA Victor claimed that with their Studiomatic record changer -- which tracked at 5½ grams -- you could play a record 3000 times and it'd still sound great:

     
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  9. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    You could claim pretty much what you liked back then without any comeback. Remember the dog food PAL - supposedly for Prolongs Active Life? Or going back a long time, Listerine. Initially sold as a surgical disinfectant, then as a floor cleaner. Later as a genital wash for gonorrhea. And relatively late in the product lifetime as a mouthwash. Although the word halitosis existed before Listerine switched to using the gonorrhea cure as a mouthwash in 1920, they capitalized on "chronic halitosis" in adverts - and increased their sales by nearly 100 in a handful of years.

    So take anything said in adverts, certainly of a certain age, with a sizable pinch of salt. Sell, sell, sell.
     
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  10. PhilBiker

    PhilBiker sh.tv member number 666

    Location:
    Northern VA, USA
    Here you go. My copy of "Monks' Greatest Hits". I was pretty happy to find this in what appeared to be VG+ condition with the shrink still on the cover and the original inner sleeve in great condition. Until I played it. Bad groove damage.

    Monk.mp3
     
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  11. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    I was also under the assumption that this was a worst case scenario. I recall one of Joes videos saying that or something.
    Also this book is about the history of the phonograph from 1877 to 1929 I believe. Although its mostly talking about the vinyl we have today in this example it cant have been studying equipment past the year 1959, when the book was published. Needless to say they didnt have the best tables or cartridges back then.
     
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  12. nosliw

    nosliw Delivering parcels throughout Teyvat! Meow~!

    Location:
    Ottawa, ON, Canada
    That's exactly my thought as well, as more refined stylus shapes and other advancements in turntables and cartridges largely do not exist back in 1959. Much of the information gleaned from the book and that video is definitely obsolete.
     
  13. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    That was a lie :crazy: :winkgrin: RCA's promotion advertising was very good. I dare anyone to play an original Art Blakey Jazz Messengers even 5 times on any RCA record changer, and then play it on a high resolution audiophile table. The offending changer does not track the damage it causes, but the audiophile cartridge will certainly track the damage. The chances are every 1st press Blue Note WAS played on a record changer, the reason these records, and so many prized vintage records are (99'9%) impossible to find in pristine condition.
     
  14. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Are the damages often not visible with the eye then? What do you recommend doing if a blue note is on auction online but only visually graded?
     
  15. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I'd agree that the video is decidedly questionable, the groove wear video is another thing entirely. Spherical and elliptical stylii are well known and understood, so the comparisons are in that sense valid. Of course there are more sophisticated stylus shapes now as compared with the early 60's, but there is a massive amount of relevant and highly technical information on cartridge dynamics, vinyl wear, skating force, trackability, effective mass all from the the 60's and very early 70's.
     
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  16. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    70s sure, thats the great era. But you rarely if ever are recommended to buy equipment from the 60s and back for serious listening.
    Its not just about styli shapes either, much of what causes damage is not stylus to groove friction but rather jittering, geometrical incompatibilities, and just poor installation.
    Reducing small amounts of mass in the cartridge front assembly like stylus, cantilever and magnets or coils can have great effect on the tracking accuracy and in turn wear as an example.

    But Ill do my own study on this in the future since it seems impossible to find real published papers to read. Im very curious what kind of wear my Nag produces after 200 plays.
     
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  17. Bathory

    Bathory 30 yr Single Malt, not just for breakfast anymore

    Location:
    usa
    After my good friend passed away (RIP Asit) he left me all his DJ records, a lot of them, they all look great, minimal wear, and he played the crapola out of them.
    ill get a lifetime out of them myself. no worries. i use both spherical and elliptical.
    don't worry about it, just play your records and enjoy.
    or burn them to a CD like i do quite often.,
     
  18. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    OK - here we go:

    Garrard 301, 1954 to 1965
    Garrard 401, 1965 to 1974
    SME Series II 9" and 12" arms introduced in 1962
    Denon DL103, 1962 to current date
    Ortofon SPU series cartridges, 1958 to current date

    So how about a Garrard 301, SME Series II 12" arm and Denon DL103 or Ortofon SPU?

    Add Quad ESL57 speakers and Quad 22/Quad II, which were from 1957, and you have an overall system you could have assembled in 1962 that will knock spots off many more recent pieces of gear.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2018
  19. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    We are speaking in generalities, not specifics.
     
  20. punkmusick

    punkmusick Amateur drummer

    Location:
    Brazil
    I collect Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols pressings. I have about 50 of these LPs. I've been studying them for decades. I have some rare and expensive releases. One of the most expensive, if not the most, is the South African one. I only saw it for sale once but I was outbidden by some very rich collector. Still don't have it.
     
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  21. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Which is also why I'd rather have well played ex broadcast station copies compared to a ordinary well played copy if I must choose. At least the broadcast station had decent odds of their record still playing reasonably well as they had better turntables, better tonearms, and decent magnetic cartridges. You explain why I keep stylus options open and even cartridge options. The fancy Shibata or exotic tip or too high resolution option isn't always the best answer. Records like this is why I keep whatever is necessary to get a good playback until a better example can be had. Sometimes less can be more.
     
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  22. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    It's an incorrect statement either way. There's never been a general rule that gear from the 1970's is better then gear from the 1960's. It can be your opinion, but no, this isn't commonly accepted as fact.
     
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  23. H8SLKC

    H8SLKC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    But there is no way to know how that damage occurred, and further, why is it that there is a veritable universe of decades-old vinyl that sounds fantastic? If heavy tracking and conicals were notably "hard" on vinyl, I very would expect that high-quality used vinyl would be much rarer than it is. I suppose where I get off of this bus is in noting that if Herb Reichert, a guy who makes his living writing about hifi in a crazily snooty publication, says that a Shure SC35C tracking at 4.5g won't harm my records, I'll just press the "I believe" button. That position doesn't follow current analog orthodoxy but I'm OK with that. To each their own!

     
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  24. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Its not very strange to consider that as time passes we develop better and better gear. The 70s is the peak decade of vinyl in general and brought us many things. Such as the more exotic styli profiles like Shibata.

    I dont think its a streatch either to say that when you are recommended and out shopping for vintage gear you see more 70s and onward rather than 60s and back.
     
  25. googlymoogly

    googlymoogly Forum Resident

    I had a conversation with an older guy a few years ago, and he talked about the turntable his parents had in the 1950s - it had a ceramic cartridge of some kind, pre-set to track at 10 grams! I don't imagine too many people spent much time futzing with the stylus alignments then, even if you in fact had a tonearm design where you could fine-tune the setup. That really puts in perspective the SPU and Denon 103 developments, when they finally became available commercially; a home user could have a phono pickup that tracked with a 50% reduction or more in VTF.
     
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