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Boron Cantilever and Ruby Cantilever, Why Ruby?

I have noticed that many of the better cartridges use Boron cantilevers. I know that Soundsmith uses a Ruby cantilever. I was thinkin of having my Benz Wood Body cartridge retipped but was not sure if the different material used for the cantilever will impact compliance and even sound. Why not boron like the original?
tzh21y
nandric's avatar
nandric
3,263 posts
 

@hdm, Thanks for your (moral) support  and empathy.

My ZYX has an curious history. I got this sample as present

from an friend. Alas the suspension was defective while I

was skeptical about repair possibility because of the, uh,

glued together plastic body. Skeptical because I already

owned Sony XL 88 D (D= one piece diamond cantilever/

stylus combo). This kind of cartridges are regarded as

irreparable. But Axel Schurholz is my friend with 40

years repair experience. So I posted my ZYX to him in

hope to get ''somehow'' new suspension. From this (part)

of the story you can deduce that I have no idea how my ZYX

sounded before Axel's repair. He needed to drill hole's

in the body to reach those screws on the generator. Those

are adjustments screws for the tension wire ,etc. Anyway

he phoned me with advise to also change the cantilever/

stylus for his boron/shibata combo. The stylus only retip

was not possible because ZYX cantilever/stylus construction.

I was very satisfy with the sound because back than I was

not aware about chakster's warning (grin). However my

aversion against those plastic bodies was such that I would

never buy any ZYX . I ever started an thread about irreparable

cartridges in the mentioned context but, alas, nobody was

interested despite my good intentions (grin). Anyway I hope

for my friend Lew as well my Slavic brother that their ZYX

styli will last for ever...

lewm
6,770 posts
 
Cynic that I am, I cannot help but think that the veritable torrent of Universe variants that we have seen in the US over the past 3-5 years (Uni II, Uni Premium, Uni this, Uni that, and now Uni III) is due to the realization on the part of ZYX that by introducing new models with ever better review comments, it is possible to double and even triple the original price of the original Uni without eliciting screams of anguish from the faithful (because after all the newest version is always the best), thereby enriching those in the chain of production.

I have a neighbor who is like hdm's friend; he is upgrading his phono systems at least every 6 months.  At a point in time when he still owned a pair of Sound Lab speakers that he bought from me (the sound of which I therefore knew quite well), I heard the original Uni in a Talea tonearm.  I am not easily impressed, but the Uni blew me away with its, I hate to say it, holographic presentation.  (HP first coined this term, and I generally regard him as the king of blather and at the same time maybe the best audio reviewer ever.)  Anyway, when I had the opportunity to purchase one at a very good price from one of our colleagues here on the Analog Forum, I jumped on it.  I am not sorry.  If the subsequent re-iterations of the original Uni are as much better than the original as they are said to be, I guess even greater pleasures are out there to be had. But one or another of my MM or MI cartridges may be better yet.
chakster's avatar
chakster
2,482 posts
 
@hdm

my understanding is that some glue is probably used even in situations where the stylus is mounted and attached literally through a hole in the cantilever

Right, i will add pictures for you to compare retipped (glued) diamonds to the original diamonds on some exotic and conventional cantilevers.

You will not see as much amount of glue as you can see on re-tipped carts:

1) Retipped stylus by SoundSmith (picture from another user)

2) Technics 205c mk4 Retipped by Axel (this and the rest of the pics below taken by me)


Simply compare to the originals (almost no glue):

3) Technics 205c mk4 Original laser etched hollow pipe boron cantilever with nude Elliptical diamond.

4) ZYX Airy 3 Boron cantilever with pressure-fitted diamond with ZYX unique method.

5) Original pressure-fitted Replicant 100 diamond on Aluminum cantilever of my SPU Royal G mkII

6) Original pressure-fitted Shibata diamond on Beryllium cantilever of my Victor X-1II

7) Original preasure-fitted Elliptical diamond on titanium cantilever of the Victor X-1IIe



hdm
971 posts
 
Chakster: 

You are completely missing my point which in this thread is much less about retips in general and more about the two different stylus mounting techniques. You obviously feel the through mount is superior; I am not absolutely convinced.  

And lets be clear, with respect to retipping (perhaps we are into semantics here), it's very possible to have a retipper/rebuilder replace the entire cantilever assembly with one that has the stylus through mounted. It can be done with cheap eliptical styli on aluminum cantilevers and line contact or microridge styli on sapphire cantilevers. Those styli will show/have no more glue than your beloved Zyx. 

It's simply a matter of changing the entire cantilever instead of just the diamond. 

But I get it: you don't like retips/rebuilds and I'm sure that you would not like the idea of removing/cutting an older cantilever and grafting a new one on, even with a through mount stylus probably. 

Which would be ironic, though, in light of the strong possibility that in principle your Zyx might essentially be doing the same thing right from the get go. 

With respect to cantilever material though (the original topic here) I've come to the conclusion that my preference is boron. I am generally not a big fan of aluminum and I find boron to be a little bit more neutral/relaxed/less forced sounding and kind of mid hall in presentation compared to ruby or sapphire which I find to be a bit more up front in terms of presentation. As a generalization, I also think that boron is more forgiving of surface noise and quieter in the groove than other cantilever materials with the exception of beryllium.

The only cartridge I owned with a beryllium cantilever though was a Shure V15 Type VMR many years ago. Very smooth and very quiet in the groove, but I also found it very boring. 

Preferring boron means that, unless I want to spring for the magical Zyx ;), I'm pretty likely to be stuck with the more glue around the stylus option, regardless of whether I retip or buy new. 
nandric's avatar
nandric
3,263 posts
 

Dear chakster, ''You will not see as much amount of glue as you can

see on re -tipped carts''. This remind me of my ''socialist upbringing''.

Our secretary of foreign affair declared: ''In our socialistic country

there are no homosexuals . But if there are they are in such small

numbers that it is not worth mentioning''.  For ''some'' reasons this

person have had very short political career. The (philosophical?)

''IF' may have ruin his career. So what is the difference between

''no glue'' versus ''very little glue''?

Dear Lew, I offered to you my Ikeda 9C under very favourable

conditions: free trial and decision after, uh, inspection. As

you mentioned many times you are not easy to impress. This

Ikeda 9 C is the most dynamic MC cart ever produced. The

reason , like by Decca, NO cantilever at all. But you refused

my offer because you preferred my FR-7fz with ALUMINUM

cantilever .  Some ''dogmatic reasons'' perhaps?

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