The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

bart1927 wrote:
The usual advice is to use conical styli on (somewhat) worn records, and elliptical styli on records in E condition or higher. While I can confirm that conical styli can sound better on certain worn records (especially those with stressed grooves), because the distortion will be less pronounced, I still can't hear a difference between a TE or a TC on an E condition record.

A question: would the diameter of the stylus be relevant when playing a pristine record? I can understand that different diameters would touch the groove at different heights, and therefore if the disc is worn there could be an improvement in sound if the stylus tracks at a height that is less worn.

Yes. Mint HMV and Victor Scrolls tend to play best regardless of condition with the 4 mil TE, of course there are always exceptions, but most of the time it's what I use.

Sean

Yes Carlos. Suppose to play a record intended for a 4 mil tip with a 2.5 mil tip, that is basically half as large. The tip would drag on the bottom of the groove and would bounce left and right on the sides of the groove, with much noise and very high distortion.

"Standard" 78 diamonds are usually 3 mil and are of course a compromise: they will sit a bit too deep in the grooves of older records, and a bit too much on the edge of the grooves of the most recent ones, but they usually play well enough both types and are OK for intermediate records.

The other "standard" choice is usually 2.7 mil. This one is more oriented towards intermediate and newer records (that usually require a 3 mil and a 2.5 mil tip respectively), which will be tracked better, of course at the expense of older records which are left a bit behind.

CarlosV wrote:
A question: would the diameter of the stylus be relevant when playing a pristine record?

Also, if you use a wide tip (like a 4.0) on a later era 78, one that is higher fidelity, the wide loses some of the top end (treble.) Most later era records that I've played seem to need smaller tips to play best. Say, 2.0 / 2.5 mil or something. There are 78's that have notable high frequency content - especially vinyl 78's - but probably not before the late 1940's, into the magnetic tape era. Can't think of any right now.

Thanks for the replies, Marco and Sean. I normally play my 78s in my gramophones, but I also utilize a modern turntable once in a while, a Dual Golden with an Orthofon cartridge, and an equalizer. The 78 stylus (3 mil) works ok, but to me the audition on a gramophone is more satisfactory. The modern turntable uncovers too much noise including low frequency rumble that otherwise is filtered out by the acoustic reproduction of the gramophone.

Maybe not totally on topic, but this is an interesting item : https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-A ... B0002ERE30

Stylus is 2.5 mil conical.

I've never heard or used a moving coil cart on 78's. Some of the comments there seem to suggest it's superior.

Since it's mono, though, it'd probably only work best with mintier records, as you won't be able to switch groove walls.

Marco Gilardetti wrote:

bart1927 wrote:Your list sounds good, but perhaps you could also throw a 3.5 in the mix? Ideal for Victors and HMV's.

Thank you very much for your notes. Retipping is so costly and the whole thing is so close to overkilling that I never decide to go ahead with these two styli to be retipped, go figure if I had to have three of them retipped!

Should you be forced to pick only one larger than 3 mil, would you buy a 3.5 or a 4? Or a way in between like perhaps a 3.7?

Can you expand your thoughts on elliptical diamonds applied to 78s? I ask beacause in my opinion (and I mean the opinion of a physicist, in this case) elliptical cuts are useless with 78 RPMs. Elliptical (and more complicated) cuts were introduced to minimize needle pinching at very high frequencies, especially with stereophonic records. There are no such things as very high frequencies in 78 RPm records, and in any case a spurious vertical movement of the needle can be disregarded as there is no vertically cut signal. All other common wording about elliptical cuts (like the pretended "increased contact surface") seem absolutely negligible - if not self defeating - to me when it comes to 78s. As a matter of fact I'm not suprised that you can hear no difference: there shouldn't be any sensible difference.

If I'd be forced to pick only one larger than 3.0 I'd go with a 3.5 TC. That's the stylus I use the most, and it produces good results on most of my records. I should point out, however, that my collection contains mostly records from 1920-1932.

When I started getting serious about this hobby I may have gone a little overboard and bought no less than 7 custom styli. Not all at once, though. I started with the standard 2.7 Stanton stylus for 78's. The results were unsatisfactory, especially on Victors and HMV's there was a lot of hiss and crackle. I read several articles on the subject (such as this one: http://www.jazzhound.net/the-berresford ... r-playing/ and http://rfwilmut.net/notes/repro78/stylus.html), and decided that a 3.0 TC would be a good "one size fits all" stylus. But to my surprise it wasn't much better than the 2.7. The hiss and swishing was a little less prominent, because it was a truncated stylus, but there was no dramatical improvement. So I started experimenting and bought more styli.

Most articles on the subject claim that elliptical styli produce better results on clean records, but opinions differ on the definition of a clean record. Nauck recommends elliptical styli for "better than average" records, the article on Mark Berresford's site speaks of "very clean" copies. I'm no physicist myself, but I do have a good set of ears, and I never encountered records that sounded better with a TE stylus than with a TC. The other way around, I encountered plenty. Twenty years ago, I read an article on the subject by Dutch audio engineer Harry Coster in which he says that while theoretically elliptical styli should produce better results when playing 78's (they would be able to track the grooves better), in practice, there is little proof for this, unless you use styli bigger than 4.0.

So if I would have to start all over again, I think I would just buy a 3.0 TC, a 3.5 TC and perhaps a 4.0 TC and be done with it. And if I had only money to buy just one custom stylus, it would be a 3.5 TC.

Wolfe wrote:Maybe not totally on topic, but this is an interesting item : https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-A ... B0002ERE30

Stylus is 2.5 mil conical.

I've never heard or used a moving coil cart on 78's. Some of the comments there seem to suggest it's superior.

Since it's mono, though, it'd probably only work best with mintier records, as you won't be able to switch groove walls.

Wolfe, a moving coil output is lower than a moving magnet, you will need a preamp with switchable phono output. The only time I used a moving coil was in the eighties, I bought a Technics SL-10 that came with it, and the turntable had a MC/MM switch. I only played LPs on it, though, the turntable didn't even have 78 rpm. Still works, although I replaced the cartridge a long time ago with an Orthofon, the MM was not manufactured anymore.

Carlos, what you have written is correct in general, but this Audio Technica is of the "high output" type, and it can be used without a specific MC preamplifier.

There is a general consensus amongst audiophiles that MC pick-ups, if well used and correctly interfaced with the amplifer, sound better than MM counterparts. It must be kept in mind that we're talking of shades of sounds, not huge differences. With 78 RPMs, even in the best case scenario there is not much sound fidelity to begin with, so without any doubt a MC pick-up is overkilling by every point of view. I wouldn't spend one extra penny to switch from a MM to a MC only because it is a MC, if we talk about 78s.

However, this Audio Technica MC is very cheap compared to the average MC pick-up: almost the same price of a good MM. Moreover, it is "ready to use" as it can be connected to a standard amplifier without the fuss of an MC preamplifier, and its stylus bears up to 7 grams of tracking weight, which is good. So, without expecting to hear any improvement in sound quality (there won't be any), it is overall an interesting pick-up that I would take in consideration, should I need to purchase one.

This has been a very interesting discussion as i have been thinking of getting a custom tip for my stanton 500 cart. I already have a 3mil tc and have been thinking for a while about a 3.5mil or 4 and wondering about the difference between a te or tc. So thanks all for the comments