Retipping Miyajima mono cartridge

You are aware, of course, that an elliptical stylus makes less groove contact than a standard conical and will, broadly speaking, have greater groove wear, all other factors being the same.

All Lyra cartridges have always used line contact stylii and I have no doubt that they are superior, and certainly have a larger groove contact area. But a manufacturer is hardly an unbiased person to quote on such matters.

The dissing of conical stylii as being crude was misinformed. The Denon, EMT and Ortofon conicals being nude mounted, grain oriented and highly polished. Nothing crude about them.

Yet a respected cartridge maker who presumably wants to make mono cartridges that sound as good possible and who chooses the mono stylus shape based on extensive listening comparisons is hardly someone to be summarily dismissed as a factor for consideration.
-Bob

Bob is the implication here that those who use conical styli in their mono cartridges presumably don't want to make their cartridges sound as good as possible, such as Miyajima?

My guess is that there are differing aesthetics at work here here. Carr being in the maximum detail retrieval camp and Miyajima looking for maximum tone. There are no right or wrong approaches, IMHO.

Interestingly, Miyajima uses Shibata styli in their top stereo cartridges so they certainly have radical stylus cuts on hand should they find this to be a preferable shape for their mono cartridges.

Bob, thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated.

Dnath, Art Dudley, in Stereophile did a photographic comparison of the EMT and Ortofon conicals in concert with a column on the two cartridges.

I don't think that you seemed inflammatory at all. There is always room here for differing perspectives and aesthetics.

Very often, cartridge makers buy styli already mounted on cantilevers. Soundsmith shortens the existing cantilever and grafts their cantilever on. It may be possible to try the Soundsmith and still send the cartridge back to Miyajima if you are not pleased with the sound, however it would probably be best to have them confirm that before taking the plunge.

Although no one has responded to this thread, there are tons of folks that have had Soundsmith retip the conicals of their Denon 103s and I have never heard anything but praise.

One last thing to think about, Soundsmith uses the European styli, Geiger, Van Den Hul, etc. Andy Chong at Cartridge Clinic in Seattle retips with the Japanese line contact styli, Ogura, etc. So if you have developed a preference for one type of line contact over the other that may sway you as well. I certainly have a favorite.