Jico SAS vs Neo-SAS(S) vs Neo-SAS(R)
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….
The logical conseqence from ''a and b are identical'' is that one can substitute a for b or the other way round ''salva veritate''. Say: ''whatever is true about Vienna is also true about Wien''. To put this otherwise: ''if saphire and ruby '' are identical kinds of artificial stones , then...''ruby must be superiour to saphire'' (grin). BTW I missed the Aussie humor for some time. |
Dear @chakster : """ The best Fidelity-Research cartridges with Air Core also comes with alluminum cantilevers and those cartrs considered the best of the best. """ certainly are not the best of the best, not for me. Are good cartridges and nothing more. Now, of course there are reasons why the superiority of Boron against aluminum or berillyum. I paste this from somwhere in the net: """ Boron is a much more advanced material for cantilevers than aluminum alloy. The velocity of sound in boron is almost 3x what it is in aluminum. Boron is much harder and stiffer than Al resulting in less flexure and in Boron the frequency of the first major resonance is going to be out of the audioband. """ Probably stiffness is a main material characteristioc for cartridge cantilevers and hardness could be desirable too. Boron is way superior in both parameters than berillyum and aluminum ( the poorer. ). Stiffness of a material is measured using Young Modulus where Boron has: 480 GPa, berillyum 287 and aluminum 69. Diamond has 1050 GPa and corundum 300. About hardness ( Mohs scale. ): boron 9.5-10.0, berillyum 5.5, aluminum 2.5-3.0 and diamond 10 ( corundum: 9. ) Now, everything the same cartridges with boron in cantilevers makes a better work in that critical cartridge characteristic. Yes could be cartridges using boron in the cantilever that can sound not so good but not because boron it self but because its whole cartridge design. In the other side and when I bougth my first JICO SAS for a Shure cartridge I was worried if the SAS replacement came with the same compliance than the original . Certainly not and this makes a difference as the different stylus shape and cantilever material and cantilever length and cantilever overall dimensions. Those differences are reflected in the cartridge quality performance levels. It's obvious that a cartridge with a SAS replacement is a totally different cartridge design that not necessary means it performs better . Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS, R. |
Interesting data, Raul. The question would be whether, for example, a hardness score of 9.5-10 is meaningfully superior to that of corundum (9), and I think there are a very few cartridges with diamond cantilevers; are they among "the best" sounding? Also, I don't know whether the speed of sound propagation in the material is worth harping on, since the cantilever only has to transmit mechanical energy imparted at the stylus tip. In fact, one might think that the cantilever should not transmit sound, because that would amount to distortion, the sound energy arriving at the coil end being delayed compared to the physical movement of the cantilever that is solely due to groove modulation of the stylus motion. Anyway, it's interesting to consider these things. I really don't think there is a magic formula for cantilever materials. Maybe it's cactus. |
@rauliruegas Dear @chakster : """ The best Fidelity-Research cartridges with Air Core also comes with alluminum cantilevers and those cartrs considered the best of the best. """ Sadly, nobody knows your current favorite, Raul. That Fidelity-Research PMC-3 was Influenced by FR-7 design, according to J.Carr info it is worth to searching out for (very rare model). The FR-7f and FR-7fz along with 702 adored by many a'gon members. I know your top FR was MCX-5 for some reason, but it was not the Ikeda-San design. Hope i will check some of your old favorite Ortofon MC2000 in my system soon. It was in my wantlist for a long time along with PMC-3. BTW the point about compliance different between JICO vs. Original styli is good. |
There is no best cantilever material per se. The selection of cantilever material and construct will depend on what the designer is trying to achieve with their particular cartridge design. Typically the designer will want avery stiff cantilever material in order to push the mechanical resonance of the stylus/cantilever as far above the audible frequency range as possible, but they will also want low mass and low effective tip mass on the stylus. The original method of calculating tip mass was a derivation from the resonant frequency, i.e. the higher the resonant frequency the lower the tip mass. Now here is the kicker - if you factor in not just stiffness, but mass to stiffness then the material itself is only one part of the equation. For example a hollow pipe will typically have a mass to stiffness ratio 6 times higher than a solid rod. In the Shure V15vxmr they used micro walled beryllium tube specifically to achieve the lowest effective mass and highest RATIO of mass to stiffness.. The ultra-thin (0.0005-inch) beryllium MICROWALL/Be tube, shown in Figure 1c, has the lowest effective mass and highest ratio of stiffness to mass of any stylus cantilever ever,The Shure has a mechanical resonance of 33khz. I believe my Dynavector Karat Nova 13D with its 1.3mm diamond cantilever has a mechanical resonance approaching 100khz. This high resonance results in low effective tip mass providing better tracking and cleaner high frequency response. The Technics EPC100 was another example where they used extremely thin walled Boron tube to achieve low effective tip mass and response out to 100k. The manufacturing process for the Technics EPC100 cantilever was to vapour deposit boron onto an aluminium tube and then to remove the aluminium by dissolving it leaving an impossibly thin walled tapered tube. As far as I am aware this process is no longer available due to toxicity and safety issues. I have seen over the years Boron cantilevers in both rod and pipe form, so you need to be specific. A good example of cantilever types is the Sumiko Talisman range which I used to sell in the 80’s - the Sapphire tube cantilever was the "top" model, the Boron tube cantilever was their 2nd tier model, the aluminium cantilever the lowest. Sumiko describes their cantilever choice as follows Sapphire Tube Cantilever - second in hardness only to diamond, the low mass Sapphire tube assures quickest transients with virtually perfect phase and non resonant characteristics due to lack of flexion.I also note from their blurb they differentiate between nude mounted diamond with the Boron cantilever and laser mounted diamond with the Sapphire diamond - so maybe this suggests there may be manufacturing benefits from the use of Sapphire at that time - 80’s. The key point from my posts is that in this forum audiophiles often look for a magic bullet - which is better this material or that, tubes for solid state, direct drive or rim drive or belt drive. The best answer for any competent engineer to these questions should always be "that depends" - engineering choices are almost always in the context of the overall design, purpose and constraints. Believe it or not cartridge designers often have quite different priorities in mind when designing cartridges, trading off extended response for tracking ability, low distortion, long term stability, wear, and many other factors including ( ug ) cost, just to name a few. |
