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Jico SAS vs Neo-SAS(S) vs Neo-SAS(R)

For those analogue ‘tragics’ comfortable enough in their own skins to keep playing MM cartridges despite the media and peer-pressure propaganda towards MCs…….the success of Jico and their after-market replacement styli has been good news.

Of particular delight to that minority still playing vintage MM cartridges……the success of the SAS stylus from Jico.….. has transformed cartridges like the Shure V15, Victor X1 and Z1 and Garrott P77 into world-beaters amongst the cartridge elite.

 

What is so special about the SAS stylus?

It seems that Jico has invented a profile more radical that the standard ‘Line-Contact’, VdH or Shibata…..

An inspection of the diamond under a 60x loupe displays cutting-edge profiles I have never before seen on a stylus.

Jico claims that this profile better fits the record groove and is more akin to the profile of the cutting-lathe stylus.

The better the stylus fits into the record groove, the less distortion is caused by high-amplitude reproduction

But claims are pretty meaningless in the analogue world unless they are backed up……

And with the SAS stylus, the performance matches the ‘hype’….

In all three cartridges I have used….original 35 year Garrott P77, Shure V15/III and Victor Z1….the SAS has transformed each one, from a very good performer to a superlative one.

The improvement over the original manufacturer’s stylus is muti-faceted…

From frequency response (bass and treble in particular) to transparency to sound-stage (both width and depth) but most importantly……to the emotional content able to be extracted from the vinyl grooves.

My three SAS-equipped MM cartridges leapt into contention as ‘the best’ of the 80 or so cartridges I have owned and bettered all but 3 or 4 of the 20 LOMC cartridges I have owned……

 

So imagine the reaction when Jico announced 2 years ago that production of the SAS stylus was being suspended……?

The original SAS stylus came with a boron cantilever and there appears to be a problem with the world’s supply (or price) of boron….?

Now I have a preference for beryllium as a cantilever material but because of safety standards surrounding the toxicity of beryllium during the manufacturing process……it is no longer offered as a cantilever material.

Why they can still use it for dome tweeters is a mystery to me….?

Boron is used as a cantilever material by many cartridge manufacturers…..Dynavector, ZYX, Lyra to name but a few….so why Jico is no longer supplying it is puzzling.

Six months ago, Jico announced the re-introduction of the SAS stylus but this time with a choice of sapphire or tapered-ruby cantilever….both at massive price hikes to the boron.

The tapered-ruby is almost 4 times the cost of the original boron cantilever…..


A comparison of the three SAS assemblies is revealing……

With the original boron cantilever, the actual stylus is buried under an epoxy glue sarcophagus in a manner that can only be described as rather crude….

Just the tip of the faceted diamond is visible poking out of the epoxy…

The new synthetic jewel cantilevers are different animals entirely.

The sapphire appears translucent (not blue) with the nude stylus expertly and neatly cut into the jewelled rod whilst the ruby is even more impressive, again having a nude diamond cut into the ruby rod which has been ‘shaved’ down 2 or 3 sides to create the ‘taper’. And this rod glows ‘pink’…..justifying its premium pricing ?

 

I picked the Garrott P77 for this test because the neo-SAS(R) was not yet available for the Z1 and the V15/III, though wonderful…..was not quite up to the standards of the other two……

 

When I received the two new SAS styli, I was in two minds about them…..

Could the simple change in cantilever material make a noticeable difference in performance?........and for the price increases, it had better!!

There is little doubt in my mind that the SAS’s performance boost was due primarily to the radical stylus shape and as noted earlier…..boron is a respectable cantilever material utilised by high-performance exotic MC cartridges the world over.

If sapphire or ruby were to offer even increased performance benefits over the boron…..then why wouldn’t other manufacturers have already changed over?

These thoughts mingled with the aesthetic appreciation of the ‘nude’ mounting and the ‘glowing’ jewelled rods as I swapped out my original SAS and went straight to the neo-SAS(R)….

 

If I was expecting a revelation…..I was disappointed.

In fact, if I was expecting a difference …..I was disappointed.

No matter how many albums I played (and each album side I would change styli)….I could discern no differences.

And I really tried to hear differences….

At one point I thought I had picked the only audible difference as being slightly better bass response with the two jewelled cantilevers….

This was revealed by albums from Massive Attack and Dead Can Dance.

So I brought in the decider for bass reproduction…..the Barber ‘Adagio for Strings’ on Gary Karr’s ‘En Aranjuez con tu Amor’ (Firebird) sends even my Vandersteen 2Wq subwoofers into fibrillation mode…..

But no……seemingly equal bass response…..

 

So there you have it…..

For two weeks I have exhausted my test-record catalogue, loosened the stylus-plug-insert on my Garrott P77, annoyed my wife and angered the neighbours….

And I can report that I am able to discern no differences….absolutely none….between the original SAS the neo-SAS(S) and the neo-SAS(R).

I’m sure that there will be those who will claim they can hear differences and the differences are like ‘night and day’…..

Good luck to them.

Maybe they can….maybe they can’t.

At least I will have no need to buy replacement neo-SAS styli for my Z1 and V15/III.

 

The good thing to take away from this exercise is this:-

The neo-SAS stylus assembly from Jico is just as good as the original SAS and for that…..the analogue world should be eternally grateful….

 

 

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rauliruegas
13,012 posts
 
Dear @jessica_severin: """  I was wondering about the Sapphire vs Ruby """

there is no difference is the same kind of stone: corundum ( AL2O3 ). Works the same has/shares same characteristics.

Regards and wenjoy the MUSIC NOT MUSIC,
R.
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

I think that those who question my, say, interpretation of Carr's

opinion about saphire cantilevers should provide the reference

to his post about cantilevers. BTW I asked back then the question

about cantilever kinds and Carr was so kind to answer my questions.

What I do remember was that he deed not like the sound of saphire

cantilevers. No wonder he never used them.

teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Back when sapphire and boron and beryllium originally duked it out in the cantilever wars, it was quickly found that sound quality wise..boron was the cantilever of choice. That if you could afford to move up to a cartridge that used boron for cantilevers, then do so..as sapphire was considered a non choice if you wanted the best sound quality that was to be found..

When I saw sapphire being re-introduced as a cantilever material, I could not believe it..where was the boron?

In the same way that delta-sigma one bit dacs became all that was available and the R2R ladder dacs were gone due to expense..we found that the question and answer that was known before..was somehow erased and we were all stuck with delta-sigma 1-bit dacs..as if R2R/ladder dacs never existed and their entire higher plateau of sound quality never existed.

The same thing seems to have happened with the boron vs sapphire knowledge base. As if boron never happened and sapphire was there all along. Stop asking silly questions!

My vague recollection of the scenario is that sapphire has too low a self resonance frequency (and potential excitability via energies added, bending modes, mass vs flex, etc) and this is excited by the high level high frequency transients, and a subtle high frequency emphasis/distortion is added to the signal. This is what made the jeweled cantilevers end up finding themselves brushed off the stage by boron, way back then.

If one wanted as perfect a cartridge motor as is possible (MM or MC), they had high frequency extension built into the motor, for clean transients and harmonics.... and this had to be coupled to an idealized suspension system, coupled with a boron cantilever and suitable stylus. The end. This was the end result found...across multiple companies giving these overall design packages - various forms of attempts and trials.

Of course, since the RE-introduction of sapphire cantilevers (round two) we’ve had a sea level change in how people build and listen to systems (it was slow, it took two-three decades). We’ve also suffered a near total disconnect from the lore and common consensus that came before, as the LP had faded in the interim.

LP’s come back....sapphire comes back... and is now somehow........ doing ok.
lewm
12,868 posts
 
I cannot say that I have a direct knowledge base on the subject of sapphire vs ruby, when it comes to cantilever materials, but on this I have to side with Raul; I heretofore thought that "sapphire" and "ruby" are descriptors for one and the same material that can be used to make cantilevers. Thus I wonder why SAS developed the "S" and "R" single letter code to distinguish their two lines of replacement styli. Perhaps it has to do with the method by which the stylus is fixed to the cantilever or to the shape of the stylus itself. Is there any basis for that idea?

In a jewelry store, of course, rubies and sapphires are entirely different.

Teo, I must have missed the decisive victory of Boron over Sapphire in Cantilever Wars.  Did Boron have dragons?
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
I think they had shotguns and a mean attitude. They told everyone else to leave.

But no, this was just a general drift into boron as the cantilever of choice for extremes of ’best’. I was paying attention and watching it evolve. Information as to the why of boron over sapphire was not generally spoken of unless the writer or manufacturer was into the whole fidelity thing and trying to push for boron. Very little data was around but it was of a pretty decent consensus.

Professionalism tends to disallow for trashing of others in public so the advantages of boron were spoken of but the deficiencies of sapphire were not generally spoken of unless the given supplier of carts was pushing some boron on the public (vs a strong competitor or their own older sapphire equipped units, etc). Then they waxed poetic with the technicalities of the situation. One might have read on the subject sporadically for years during that time period, but found the relevant data in a total of, what...maybe 5-6 critical sentences -spread out across only a few articles. Hard to come by lore that is hard won, is not given away, unless one is a fool, or independent of the given scenario but somehow possesses the relevant information.

The big cart companies of the time...could afford to bring that (boron) down into lower priced ’mid-high’ cartridges. Volume provides cost advantages. etc.

Then the mass manufacturing advantages began to fade, costs went up... digital came slowly creeping in..and it all slowly went silent and senile in the wide swath of the middle range of the given gear available. So boron went away except at the extreme high end of things. And fewer suppliers, one would guess, with higher prices.

If one has to take their entire mid-high line up... and abandon boron and go backward into aluminum cantilevers, there’s no way they are going to even make a peep about that...so the market reduction from quantity and quality as a pairing, down turned into something less...happened in utter silence. Marketing and public perception made it necessary to have it play out that way.

Just like it did with Delta-sigma 1-bit dacs vs the superior R2R/Ladder dacs in all the digital gear.
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