Conical styli, such as the basic 103?
Anyone who has been in this hobby more than 15 years should be familiar with J Gordon Holt. He originated Stereophile magazine and near the end of his life wrote a bit for TAS. Gordon was highly respected for his knowledge and habit of writing exactly what he thought. One advantage he had was making many live recordings, then utilizing those tapes (RtR) to evaluate components.
The point is that for many years his reference cartridge was a Shure V-15 with CONICAL stylus! This was while most hobbyists may not have even been aware that Shure offered anything other than elliptical styli.
So if someone with great ears and lots of live music experience found that a conical stylus best replicated the sonics of first generation tape recordings, should we be quick to discredit or replace them?
Anyone who has been in this hobby more than 15 years should be familiar with J Gordon Holt. He originated Stereophile magazine and near the end of his life wrote a bit for TAS. Gordon was highly respected for his knowledge and habit of writing exactly what he thought. One advantage he had was making many live recordings, then utilizing those tapes (RtR) to evaluate components.
The point is that for many years his reference cartridge was a Shure V-15 with CONICAL stylus! This was while most hobbyists may not have even been aware that Shure offered anything other than elliptical styli.
So if someone with great ears and lots of live music experience found that a conical stylus best replicated the sonics of first generation tape recordings, should we be quick to discredit or replace them?