Jico NeoSAS: Ruby or Sapphire?

Yes that's the zerodust - you're a brave soul to do the finger trick on a cart that nice!

 

It's less than a rub than it is a gingerly pinch at the dust itself... I usually aim not to touch the needle at all! But perhaps I should be getting me a Zerodust, and fast! Thanks for the suggestion

 

I've heard about this supposed scarcity of boron as well, and it makes no sense to me. Borax is 11% boron, and you can buy a 4lb box of borax at any grocery store for 10 bucks. That's almost half a pound of boron for $10. Yet cartridge makes seem to be phasing it out due to it's supposed scarcity. I have to be missing something. Maybe it's extremely difficult to refine into the pure cantilever material? Even that doesn't seem likely to me, being a materials engineer.

Anyway, I've just ordered a Jico VN5xMR neoSAS/S, and I'm curious to see how it compares to my Jico hyper elliptical. If I remember, I'll come back and give my opinion. I won't have it until next week though.

 

My understanding is that pure boron is difficult to produce because contaminants are difficult to remove but I am not a chemist. There probably is little demand outside of cartridges for pure boron. I think it is mainly used in compounds.

 

Sapphire and ruby are the same mineral, corundum. What is supposed to be the difference besides price? More curious than anything.

 

The Jico Ruby cantilever is tapered, the Sapphire is not.

 

I just bought a Shure V15 v-mr cartridge body on ebay. Now I am seeing both a regular Jico SAS and a Jico Neo SAS for the v15vmr cartridge on sale at lpgear.com. I see the neo SAS is about $20 cheaper. Does anyone have any experience with either? I know they have different cantilever - boron or sapphire, but I didn't know if there was a major difference. If I can save 20 bucks, I'll save 20 bucks.

 

Probably the neo sas, the regular sas used to retail for roughly half that price.

 

Have you used the Neo Sas with your Shure v15 v-mr? Any different than the regular SAS?

 

I do not as my v15vmr needle was nos when I got it I am a nut but the table it's on sees play maybe once or twice a week so as to not put too much wear on the guy.

I have experienced regular sas on the m91ed and v15iii. Honestly I might be inclined to think the neo sas or sas would be worth it for the vmr as it slaughters the other two but I don't doubt that the factory needle is actually better than the jico.

 

Thanks! I'm trying to decide between the Neo SAS or the regular Jico SAS for my V15 v-mr cartridge.

 

The original SAS I have (with a Shure V15Vx) had 5 dB lower background noise compared to the OM40, and also around 10 dB lower distortion in the highs. Tracking in a 4 g Moerch UP-4 arm is around 100 µm, which is excellent. Also channel balance were almost perfect around 0.2 dB, better than the ca 1.5 dB of the Shure original. The crosstalk was close to -40 dB both channels using the Ortofon test record. Frequency response is a bit peaky around 13 kHz, a slight dip of around 1 dB at 4-5 kHz. Not unlike most cartridges though. The low distorsion together with the small dip around 4 kHz makes the sound quite smooth.



The neoSAS has both higher mass cantilevers compared to the boron. I will order one soon to test and replace my old one.

 

I'm very curious to see the difference between the sapphire and the ruby variants, and how they sound to you, especially since you're using a VxMR. Thank you, Thomas.

 

What do you think mate ?

 

Just ordered sapphire...

 

Day three and I'm very pleased, may like it better than the boron. The diamond tip appears to be mounted by laser drilling the cantilever and inserted , not just a glob of...less tip mass perhaps. Very smooth, detailed, well-balanced and surface noise is absolutely minimal.