Boron Cantilever and Ruby Cantilever, Why Ruby?


I have noticed that many of the better cartridges use Boron cantilevers. I know that Soundsmith uses a Ruby cantilever. I was thinkin of having my Benz Wood Body cartridge retipped but was not sure if the different material used for the cantilever will impact compliance and even sound. Why not boron like the original?
tzh21y

Dear Lew, As you (should) know I would be more interested in

what Frege would say instead of Kant. But you may be more

impressed with Kant's ''transcendental subjects''. As a blind

person can ''see'' on chakster picture his ZYX has an tube on

the cantilever in which (tube) the stylus is fastened. So we

need to know the material of which this tube is made. As I

already mentioned I quoted Carr regarding the need to glue

the stylus in those fragile cantilevers. Even if those are laser

cut. By pressure fit they will break or shatter. Otherwise nobody

would use glue for this purpose. The glue between the cantilever

 and stylus is not beneficial for the rigidity of the connection. I am

 not able to judge Axel's capabilities but, if chakster is right, he

obviously destroyed the ''magic'' of my ZYX (grin).

Nandric: You have my deepest sympathies; the magic is gone and your life may never be the same ;)

I am curious: do you have any comments as to how your Zyx sounds with Axel's boron/shibata compared to the original Zyx cantilever/stylus?

Now I am no expert as Chakster so clearly pointed out in another thread but my understanding is that some glue is probably used even in situations where the stylus is mounted and attached literally through a hole in the cantilever. It is just that there is less glue in this situation. Most common with aluminum cantilevers as I believe has been pointed out, but also in use on sapphire cantilevers. Seems not to be the case with boron. 

The Zyxillion dollar question with respect to the Airy 3 is whether the stylus is even mounted into boron. It's almost certain that Zyx's .3 mm boron rod measurement refers specifically to the smaller section of the cantilever closest to the cartridge body. The .3 mm boron rod is pretty standard Namiki fare (I have a couple here with spec sheets). 

It would certainly appear that this is a "telescoped" cantilever with the section in which the stylus is mounted clearly larger in diameter than the rest of the cantilever and quite possibly made from a different material and then attached to the boron rod. This, in and of itself, is not really contradictory to anything that Zyx states in its marketing literature. 

I'm also curious, Lew, if your Universe uses this type of cantilever/stylus or something more traditional? Should be pretty easily visible. A friend of mine just mounted a Universe in the past month or two; couldn't make it out of town to visit him in the past few weeks and may have to wait until Spring to check it out-if he still has it by then LOL. He is a bit of a vinyl fetishist! But you would think if this kind of method was the be all/end all the Universe models would be using it. 

With respect to the two different mounting techniques, they obviously each have their proponents. Less glue clearly in the so called "pressure fit" through the cantilever technique but I have read that on the other side of the coin the "more glue on solid cantilever" focuses on the idea that butting the end of the stylus up against the solid cantilever and then essentially adding the glue like a welding fillet around the stylus results in more structural integrity.



@hdm, Thanks for your (moral) support  and empathy.

My ZYX has an curious history. I got this sample as present

from an friend. Alas the suspension was defective while I

was skeptical about repair possibility because of the, uh,

glued together plastic body. Skeptical because I already

owned Sony XL 88 D (D= one piece diamond cantilever/

stylus combo). This kind of cartridges are regarded as

irreparable. But Axel Schurholz is my friend with 40

years repair experience. So I posted my ZYX to him in

hope to get ''somehow'' new suspension. From this (part)

of the story you can deduce that I have no idea how my ZYX

sounded before Axel's repair. He needed to drill hole's

in the body to reach those screws on the generator. Those

are adjustments screws for the tension wire ,etc. Anyway

he phoned me with advise to also change the cantilever/

stylus for his boron/shibata combo. The stylus only retip

was not possible because ZYX cantilever/stylus construction.

I was very satisfy with the sound because back than I was

not aware about chakster's warning (grin). However my

aversion against those plastic bodies was such that I would

never buy any ZYX . I ever started an thread about irreparable

cartridges in the mentioned context but, alas, nobody was

interested despite my good intentions (grin). Anyway I hope

for my friend Lew as well my Slavic brother that their ZYX

styli will last for ever...

Cynic that I am, I cannot help but think that the veritable torrent of Universe variants that we have seen in the US over the past 3-5 years (Uni II, Uni Premium, Uni this, Uni that, and now Uni III) is due to the realization on the part of ZYX that by introducing new models with ever better review comments, it is possible to double and even triple the original price of the original Uni without eliciting screams of anguish from the faithful (because after all the newest version is always the best), thereby enriching those in the chain of production.

I have a neighbor who is like hdm's friend; he is upgrading his phono systems at least every 6 months.  At a point in time when he still owned a pair of Sound Lab speakers that he bought from me (the sound of which I therefore knew quite well), I heard the original Uni in a Talea tonearm.  I am not easily impressed, but the Uni blew me away with its, I hate to say it, holographic presentation.  (HP first coined this term, and I generally regard him as the king of blather and at the same time maybe the best audio reviewer ever.)  Anyway, when I had the opportunity to purchase one at a very good price from one of our colleagues here on the Analog Forum, I jumped on it.  I am not sorry.  If the subsequent re-iterations of the original Uni are as much better than the original as they are said to be, I guess even greater pleasures are out there to be had. But one or another of my MM or MI cartridges may be better yet.
@hdm

my understanding is that some glue is probably used even in situations where the stylus is mounted and attached literally through a hole in the cantilever

Right, i will add pictures for you to compare retipped (glued) diamonds to the original diamonds on some exotic and conventional cantilevers.

You will not see as much amount of glue as you can see on re-tipped carts:

1) Retipped stylus by SoundSmith (picture from another user)

2) Technics 205c mk4 Retipped by Axel (this and the rest of the pics below taken by me)


Simply compare to the originals (almost no glue):

3) Technics 205c mk4 Original laser etched hollow pipe boron cantilever with nude Elliptical diamond.

4) ZYX Airy 3 Boron cantilever with pressure-fitted diamond with ZYX unique method.

5) Original pressure-fitted Replicant 100 diamond on Aluminum cantilever of my SPU Royal G mkII

6) Original pressure-fitted Shibata diamond on Beryllium cantilever of my Victor X-1II

7) Original preasure-fitted Elliptical diamond on titanium cantilever of the Victor X-1IIe