Your Preferred Stylus Force Gauge

Looked at mapleshade one, I like it, it's at the platter level which is critical.

But I think i will try one of the cheapo chinesee ones first.

 

Not all of them are bad. But the probability of getting a bad one (battery eater, crooked platform, etc) appears to be high enough that I can no longer recommend them, even given the bargain prices.

 

exactly. mine bent completely after one month. I hadnt even done anything major to it.

For me, buy once, buy properly, and it will save you money in the long run.

 

What he said mate !

 

I don't know how crucial exact platter level matters to tell you the truth. I mean none of the on-platter gauges are exactly record height, but most of 'em -- whether it's a balance like the Shure or one of the cheap Chinese digitals -- are right in the ball park, records aren't of uniform thickness anyway so record height is different for a Dynaflex and a 200-gram audiophile pressing. And being a fraction of an inch above platter height like some of these scales might be, is going to makes such a tiny, fractional difference in measured tracking force I think it's not much worth concerning yourself about. I mean 0.06 grams difference? Big deal.

 

Are those "cheap" chinese digital scales still pretty accurate? Seems silly to spend $15 on one for it to work once when I can spend double on a Shure SFG-2 that will last forever

 

The one I have seems to be pretty accurate. I still prefer the Shure most of the time.

 

I checked the calibration on mine and it was accurate. I also compared it to my ancient SFG-2 and the Shure was spot on!

 

With my history with the damned things...my preference is for the one I can find!

 

It's worked for me for a long, long time.

 

the shure is good too, but the digital one is definitely more accurate. Or at least, human readably more accurate. Yeah they aren;t too durable. you have to be gentle with them, but I expect they will last a bunch of years if taken care of. Again, I have seen some online (Pro-ject?) that look exactly the same except for the branding, and cost 10x as much.

 

I've had mine for a few years and it's always right as rain when I check the calibration.

 

The SPG-2 might be spot on to something, but true VTF isn't one of them - unless a particular one happens to be off by exactly the amount of fudge factor required to compensate for the fact it doesn't measure VTF at the point where the stylus meets the vinyl.

 

Best solution you have. As long as you can tare your scale for the protective "barrier" you put down, you're getting perfectly accurate measurements. Why not a small square of Magic Eraser?

 

This is a terrible idea. Regardless of how accurately calibrated the gauge might be, it will throw off the accurate measurement of true VTF by even more.

 

I had two Shure gauges a long time ago. The newer one, for some unfathomable reason, had a beam that was ferrous and so it was attracted by the powerful magnets in a MC cartridge. I barely avoided ruining a cartridge. I also found that the Shure gauges are insensitive. You can move the sliding weight quite a bit and the beam will not move. I don't think it is adequate if you are trying to get within .1 gm of a particular weight.

What I have also seen, in an interesting demonstration, was that digital scales can also give wildly different readings. An audio distributor that I observed setting up a table used three different digital scales, all set up to measure at the same height (approximating the thickness of a regular weight record). Three scales and three different readings and the range of difference was about .3 gms. All of the scales read precisely correct when standard weights are placed on the scale, but, for some reason, when a stylus is pressing down (could it be the incredibly small area that a stylus contacts the scale?), the readings are not the same. This distributor went with the average of the three scales. One of these scales is a $900 Winn, and the others were not cheapies either. This is a bit disconcerting to me.

 

No. You put the Magic Eraser on the scale. It will weigh (actually now I think you need a little rubber pad, the magic eraser is too light) the square of padding. Then hit the "tare" button and it will zero out the scale, so it knows to subtract the weight of the ME square from the total weight.

"ME square" Heh, heh. I made a joke. Oh, were we go:

AUDIO FAcT
Albert Einstein had a Princeton chem lab make him a substance with the properties of Magic Eraser to keep the needle on his Dutch record player clean. He kept a small piece of it with his classical records, believing cleaning the needle with the square of ME translated into more energy, or E=ME2.

 

I bought one of those rebadged Chinese gauges from a U.K. HiFi manufacturer seven or eight years ago but it did not work and neither did the replacement. They both devoured batteries, a total waste of time, effort and money. I have the replacement still but it is a piece of junk!

I bought the Ortofon DS-1 about 3 years ago and it works fine. I should have bought that one in the first place. As a matter of interest, is it possible to get the stylus force measurement to 2 decimal points as opposed to just one with the Ortofon? My Lyra Skala currently tracks at 1.7 grams and that is what the DS-1 shows. I wonder if there is a way to get it to show a second decimal point such as 1.75 etc.?

 

True that.

Okay, it perfectly matched the weight that was indicated on the calibrated digital scale I compared it to.

 

dont agree, if you measure the distance from the stylus to the mat while on the scale its pretty damn close to the thickness of a 180 gram record...and if that measurement isn't "close enough"

then i give up...

 

Nothing beats the SFG-2; reliably simple is best in my book!

 

Ive just bought a Shure SFG-2 and I'm pleasantly surprised how precise it is; I was not sure what to expect.

 

I keep two Shure SFG-2s and then balance their readings with the cheap digital unit that VPI provided with the Prime. All 3 are generally pretty close to each other.

 

I use this one with a shelf I made from a starbucks gift card to get the stylus at record level. Very critical with the Unipivot on my VPI Table.

Digital Precision Scale with Leather Case - Grey + Black (5g Max./0.01g) »

 

Yes I understood that you put the ME on the scale. This is a bad idea for the reason I stated. I also understand what the Tare button does, although I have no idea what it has to do with what I'm talking about it. All you're doing is calibrating your incorrect measurement of VTF rather than getting an uncalibrated incorrect measurement.

Look at the above picture and notice how different the height at which the stylus rests with a shelf, i.e. approx record height, versus if you put a piece of ME on the scale and then rest the stylus on that. The measured VTF of the two -- using the exact same gauge -- will differ by a considerable amount. The pictured VTF calculation will be pretty close to correct if using a properly calibrated scale. The ME method will not.