I had the boron then went to the sas sapphire neo when the boron was unavailable. I'm happy with the sapphire and really couldn't tell the difference. Ended up buying another sapphire as backup I was so pleased with it. ps. My wife thinks I'm deaf so you may have to take my opinion with a grain a salt.
At least you are talking tow different material's. I don't get why there would be a difference in a ruby cantilever or a sapphire cantilever? "Rubies and sapphires are both members of the corundum group with the same crystallographic and gemological properties. ... The only real difference between rubies and sapphires is the color. In essence, a red corundum is considered to be a ruby while any other color is considered to be a sapphire." "The Mineral corundum. Corundum is best known for its gem varieties, Ruby and Sapphire. Ruby and Sapphire are scientifically the same mineral, but just differ in color. Ruby is the red variety, and Sapphire is the variety that encompasses all other colors, although the most popular and valued color of Sapphire is blue." Some things in audio don't seem to make much sense to me. This is one of them.
I bought two boron cantilevers with nude diamond stylii as part of a group buy on DIY Audio. As an insurance for broken cantilevers and worn stylii on MC cartridges I have. They are in a small plastic box and needs a magnifying glass to see. Really, seriously tiny. Hats off to companies like Jico who deal with microscopic things like that as part of their regular everyday business.
Going back to the cantilever variations. The ruby has a tapered end, which they say reduces the moving mass of the stylus tip giving it a greater ability to reproduce vibrations with precision, accuracy, speed, and fidelity
Sapphire density: 3.98 g/cm3 Boron density: 2.08 g/cm3 Zirconia density: 5-6 g/cm3 Beryllium density: 1.85 g/cm3 The original Shure be cantilever is a hollow tube and thus has the highest stiffness to mass ratio, resonance is 30-35 kHz. The boron solid rod by JICO has lower mass than both sapphire (and ruby) cantilevers and resonance is around 13-16 kHz. The zirconia is a hollow tube, but I do not know how thin the wall is. Measurements show that the resonance is rather high Q in the 10-15 kHz region. In summary, I think the original boron by JICO sounds the best, but preferences vary.
To add, aluminum has a density of 2.7 g/cm3. So a thin-walled hollow tube may have a higher stiffness to mass ratio than a thin boron rod, but I leave this since I cannot calculate any numbers. Alu has less stiffness, 2.75 on MoHS scale compared to boron 9.5 (diamond is 10) . An alternative stylus is the vivid line with an alu cantilever.
On something as small in diameter and as light weight as a cantilever is to start off with, I wonder how much a "tapered end" can work to reduce the effective overall mass? It doesn't appear to me that it would be enough to have any meaningful effect.
I use the Jico elliptical, HE, and SAS on two turntables that have type III's. The elliptical sounds about as close to the stock Shure stylus that I remember from 1973, the year I bought my first V-15 III. The SAS really brings out detail but lacks a fullness, for lack of a better word, that I like. For me the HE produces a sound that's part SAS and part elliptical. Of course my comments are purely subjective.
The "fullness" is what I like about the vintage Sure cartridges. I have the V15 Type IV, with the stock stylus. I do have a couple of the Shure M97xE's also and they are nice and full sounding.
I agree mostly, the one I had was lovely, but I was a little too rough with the cantilever. You have to be gentle with them. It is a nice compromise. M~
I just got a Jico SAS boron stylus for the V15-VMR and have posted a recording of it on youtube: Here's a comparison between the V15-VMR with Jico SAS against a Stanton 680 with Jico Shibata stylus: Cartridge Shootout: Shure V15-VMR with Jico SAS boron stylus vs Stanton 680 with Jico Shibata stylus I also have a BLISSPro Hyper Elliptical stylus for the V15-VMR and will post some comparisons of that against the Jico SAS in the future.
I recently got a Brand New Generic (Pfanstiehl) Shure VN45E for my V15 Type IV. This has the stylus guard with VN45E in white letters/green background. .3 x .7 mil. and tracks at 1 gram. I haven't done a comparison yet with my NOS VN45HE, but so far I'm VERY, VERY happy.