High End cartridges and the built quality

Ninetynine,

Melm was saying that Peter Ledermann's styli work are a great deal more precise than what you showed of Lyra styli, not that his pictures are better than your photography.

Thank you for the "heads up."

These photo's while great are magnified 220x. So how much are they off really? You take anything and magnifie it that many times, you will never have perfection at any price. I am pretty sure the diamond is set by hand. I would be interested in seeing the same photo of a Lyra atlas. Then make a comparison. Has the cartridge been set up properly? Is there a issue with sound quality that can be pinpointed at the cartridge being the cause? Or did you inspect first then voice your disappointment? Some time we know to much and it clouds our thought process. I'm just saying.... ✌️

What Whatthe said.
How do we know that any styli magnified to that degree will look much the same, or not.

Not surprising, but disappointing. I see all manner of cartridges in the alignment service I perform, and although one would expect more expensive ones to be built more carefully, which they often are, there is no assurance. A while ago I encountered an EMT cartridge which the manufacturer eventually admitted had a defective stylus, and to their credit they took care of the problem, although it took months to do. More recently I encountered a cartridge costing a few thousand dollars with 6dB of channel imbalance, finally described as a 'manufacturing error' (why didn't they catch it?) and another sent after being examined by the head of the company, albeit nearly two months later.

Cartridge manufacturers must inspect every cartridge they ship, but it's also incumbent upon the dealer to install and check each one sold in the customer's system as a crucial part of earning his commission, and customers should expect such service at no additional charge.

The magnification used to make the measurement and take the photo does not affect the extent that the diamonds are not "plumb and square". The only thing the microscopy does is allow the user to see and measure the degree (pun intended) to which the stylus is "out of spec". With respect to a line contact or micro-ridge or other exotic stylus shapes, where the contact patch is so small, a 4 or 5 degree error is, IMO, substantial.