Replicant 100 stylus

Yikes. There is so much crazy misinformation in this thread that it is scary. A little information is truly dangerous. First of all, Gyger is not out of business. They are a small company that has healthy sales and a niche that will keep them healthy for years. Phonograph diamonds are a tiny (no pun intended) sideline for them.

As to which diamond is what, the following is my distillation of what is found on the net and including a phone call to Mr. Wyndham Hodgson who told me he made the van den Hul diamond. Also AJ van den Hul’s own words in various interviews easily Googled.

1. AJ designed the vdH1 and vdH2 diamonds on the computer. But he still needs a partner to actually make the diamond;

2. He approaches Fritz Gyger (who else, anyway?) whose production equipment made from a “Meccano Set” according to AJ had a flaw in that it could not produce round phono diamonds. It made ovals, but AJ took advantage of this “flaw;”

3. Together Gyger and AJ developed the final version of the two diamonds, one radical asymmetrical and the other a conventional symmetrical design until it was ready for market;

4. Gyger beats van den Hul to the patent office and wins global patents for the Gyger 1 and Gyger 2;

5. AJ sues in Swiss court;

6. AJ in a compromise decision wins patent protection for all the globe except Switzerland. Gyger wins patent protection in Switzerland. Thus, the patent is SHARED. Gyger and van den Hul both may claim the design and use it as they like;

7. AJ needs someone to make his diamond. He finds Wyndham Hodgson who agrees. But Hodgson knows AJ can turn to no one else so gets a license agreement to produce the same two designs as the “Paratrace 1” and “Paratrace 2;”

8. Gyger diamonds are the one “real” versions as they are made as originally designed on the original equipment;

9. Van den Hul and Paratrace are made to the same design but are not quite “identical” to Gyger as anyone who views them under a microscope can see. They are not quite laterally symmetrical like a Gyger is, but they work and the tracing edges are where they should be;

10. Decca diamond looks like a Gyger 2, but it is a different size diamond block. It’s pretty huge in comparison to a Gyger 2, but otherwise appears to be made to the Gyger 2 formula. Could be made by Expert Stylus. Could be made by Gyger. The person to ask is John Wright if he would tell you.

11. Replicant 100 and all Ortofon Gyger diamonds are made by Fritz Gyger AG in Switzerland. Replicant 100, 110, 120 etc is all marketing bluster from Ortofon as is “FG70,” and “FG80,” etc. Gyger makes 2 diamonds with nominal dimensions. The S is 5/120 and the 2 is 5/75. As with any diamond, there are tolerances. Namiki’s dimensions for the Micro Ridge are given as r/R 2-3/70-80 microns. Gyger is likely truly the same way. Despite the specs, customers receive an assortment of sizes all compliant to a range. I suggest that all Ortofon might do is sort and grade what they get. They put the S with the 100 micron scanning edge in one pile and the 110 in another and so on. If you really believe they go through the time and expense. So a Replicant 100 is really a Gyger S with a measured scanning edge of 100 microns.

Gyger AG is not out of business. I order from them regularly.

I hope I have put some rumors to bed.

Needlestein

Hi nandric,

The last line of my post says that I buy from Gyger all the time and so can you. They are easily found with a Google search. That’s how I found them.
Not sure where the confusion is. Yikes.

They aren’t hiding. AJ van den Hul is certainly not going to peddle a diamond called a Gyger when he can sell it as his own. Besides, Gyger doesn’t make van den Hul’s diamonds. I think calling them all the same would be confusing for the consumer. I know my Gygers come from Gwatt (Thun) Switzerland.
You’d have to ask AJ why he keeps it a secret that Expert produces his van den Hul diamonds, but Wyndham would be glad to tell you that his Paratrace are the same. You’re dealing with very successful people with business ideas that surround brand identity. Even they are built to the same formula, it’s really only Paratrace and van den Hul who are “hiding” if anyone should be accused of hiding. Gyger makes his diamonds and is up front about it and he doesn’t seem to care that van den Hul has diamonds made to the same formula in England. Why should he? He has no obligation to. The patent is his as much as it is van den Hul’s for all practical purposes.

Ortofon I guess can be maybe accused of hiding, but it’s marketing and they are probably at worst simply developing a tier system. It makes sense to grade diamonds and then charge a little more for the better ones. Most manufacturers do this in audio. Grados color schemes come to mind right away. I can think of others.
The drawback to their approach is that people who rely on Gyger’s nominal specifications can always sell the same 5/120 diamond as an upgrade to the Replicant 100 since if I don’t grade mine, I can assume all mine are 120. But that’s just an ironic detail.

The only mystery I see is who makes the Decca diamond. I would guess that it’s Expert because Expert can make that r/R and put it on larger diamonds that they already make. And they are in England, so I assume there’s a relationship there. John Wright probably knows Wyndham Hodgson professionally. Plus, Gyger only uses one size diamond blank for the two diamonds they make. So I’m my book, it’s less likely that they make the Decca diamond.

I understand your point about different languages having different names to indicate the same geographical place.  That would sort of apply maybe to van den Hul and Paratrace since they come from the same source.  But Gyger is separate.  It’s not the same diamond even if it’s made from the same formula.  One could say it’s sort of like the difference between a Fiat 128, Zantave Koral and a Yugo GV.  Same frame, same philosophy, same parts, different factories and different locations with some modifications.  But here, in this case, this is a clearly defined license agreement between Zastava and Fiat, and a marketing decision between Zastava and Yugo.  

I’m not going to argue with you.  But I will point out a few errors.  

First of all, if you are going to search the internet for Fritz Gyger AG, you may try spelling his name correctly.  
 

www.fgyger.ch

Secondly, Gyger is small by revenue standards (something like $7 million/yr) and by number of employees (6, I think) but I imagine that their capacity to produce diamonds is rather high.  They have never told me that they were out of stock of anything I have ordered and there is zero lead time.  In fact, I like to order from them for a number of reasons, mostly because I love their product, but also because they ship quicker than anyone else in the industry.  My orders from Japan takes three or four months lead time now.  Gyger gets me product within one week.  Every time.  AMAZING!!!

Thirdly, it seems you enjoy arguing and raising provocative but nonsensical questions loaded with assumptions that are just ludicrous and paranoid.  No one is “hiding” anything about these diamonds any more than is usual in this industry where half the cartridges are made by Audio Technica even though they are sold as Goldring, MoFi, ClearAudio, Roksan, Stanton, Sony, Rega etc.  I think you get the picture.  If I can find out what the story is with the history of these diamonds by searching the internet, so can you, just like if you decided that you wanted to actually find Fritz GYGER and order diamonds, you could.

GYGER

GYGER

GYGER

G-Y-G-E-R

Hi Raul,

All I can say about Mr. Allaerts’ claims is that he must use the same diamonds from the few diamond manufacturers that everyone else uses. Without any explanation as to why his diamonds last 20x longer than anyone else’s diamonds there is not the barest evidence to support a claim of 10,000 hours. I have removed worn diamonds from Allaerts cartridges and they appear to be the same diamonds others use and they seem to wear at the same rate based entirely on customer estimates of usage hours. It’s kind of disappointing as I would love to be able to ask Gyger, Namiki or Ogura to produce for me a diamond that lasts 20x longer than anyone else’s. I would pay at least 4x for a diamond that durable. My college physics professor says this is not possible though so who should I believe?

I can tell you that if Mr Allaerts was capable of preparing a diamond to last that long compared to all other diamonds, he wouldn’t be in the cartridge business. He would be working in aerospace selling diamond ball bearings that never wear down.

The stylus manufacturers don’t make any such claims and there certainly isn’t anywhere in their sales materials where longer or shorter lasting diamonds are offered. As far as I know, Mr Allaerts sources diamonds from the very same manufacturers I do. Perhaps they have special diamonds that they make just for him. It’s possible, I suppose. There are many exclusive arrangements. Where does Audio-Technica get that beautiful gold-plated extremely fine tapered boron cantilever that no one else has? I assume Namiki because the MicroLine version of the Micro Ridge is found on it. But I cannot get these cantilevers from Namiki and they do not appear as an option.

Nandric,

I its very interesting that the ’’small production by GYGER ’’

I never said this. I said they are a small company with a healthy niche. HEALTHY.
Gyger supplies diamonds to EMT, Ortofon, ClearAudio (“Trigon”), Allaerts, Goldring, Benz Micro, and even the Chinese manufacturer whose name escapes me at the moment and, I’m sure, others. You can buy them as well. Just send them an email and be ready to purchase a minimum order amount, which drives most Sunday hobbyists away.

You seem to think that because I said “anyone” can order their diamonds that that means they can and must be able to supply the world’s entire output of phonograph cartridges. I’m not sure what your point is or how this rabbit hole assumption is even relevant. Just a few days ago you had convinced yourself that Gyger was out of business.  Now, to prove they exist they must supply the entire industry?  At some point, I’m just going to stop responding to you because there doesn’t seem to be a purpose to continuing to argue over easily verifiable facts such as the existence of Gyger AG.

The whole reason I came in here was simply to clear up what the issues were about the identity of similar but different diamonds that are found on the market right now and to neutralize some outlandish conclusions. That’s it. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s fine. You seem to have taken offense to being corrected although that was not my intent. My intent was simply to explain the difference between Gyger, van den Hul and Paratrace diamonds. The differences between Gyger and van den Hul/Paratrace are legal and physical. The differences between van den Hul and Paratrace are purely legal and, perhaps, maybe marketing semantics.

As for the rest, you can argue with yourself. You’re good at it.

I’ve said all I can say in this thread on this topic now. There’s nothing to add.

Nandric,

Ich spreche auch ziemlich Deutsch. Ich weiss gut die Unterschied zwischen “Wien” und Vienna. But it has nothing to do with the difference between Gyger, van den Hul and Paratrace. You just don’t seem to grasp what I am saying so I am giving up.

If we are now arguing whether or not a Swiss person can spell his name differently than a German person, I quit! There’s no “Geiger” in the phonograph diamond business to differentiate himself from as a matter of trademark. The only reason I brought up the spelling is because you couldn’t find info on the Geiger company and concluded that Gyger was out of business or perhaps existed in name only to support a theory of brand obfuscation by van den Hul? Paratrace? I can’t follow your logic and neither can you. You just keep changing your story and for what reason? I don’t know.
If I were in Austria or anywhere in Teutonic Europe, I would call Vienna by its native Teutonic Austrian name:  “Wien.” But if I were in Switzerland or Germany or America or England or Timbuktu, I would not call a Gyger diamond a Paratrace or vice versa because they are NOT THE SAME!

I quit.

Perhaps AJ uses both old Gyger and new Paratrace. One doesn’t necessarily mean exclusivity. Wyndham Hodgson told me himself over the phone that he makes van den Hul’s diamonds for him. I don’t have any reason to doubt. Perhaps van den Hul sources from both manufacturers. Anything is possible. Under the microscope, van den Hul diamonds that I have seen and Paratrace look identical, but Gyger still look different, even if the scanning edges and tracing edges are cut and polished to the same formula. Van den Hul (that I have viewed) and Paratrace share diamond block that has a distinct silhouette that Gyger does not. If this were a forum that easily allowed for uploading photos, I’d be happy to share.

Albert Lukaschek supposedly quit using Gyger diamonds according to an article that I read somewhere on the internet because Gyger could not keep up with his volume requirements/demands. I cannot comment on this because I am not an insider, but there is a lot to be suspicious of. At least, there are likely more details that would flesh out the entire picture. The article was mainly there to explain why we still have the “S” name on the LP but no Gyger “S” diamond on the cartridge anymore. I don’t have any idea what Benz’s cartridge output is, but given that Goldring, who delivers many more cartridges and also replacement styli featuring Gyger diamonds, doesn’t have a problem with Gyger’s production volume capacity, I am free to assume that other issues were at play behind Lukaschek’s decision to drop Gyger (if the decision was indeed Lukaschek’s).

I’m not sure what you are telling me about Jonathan Carr.  Are you saying he provides Ogura with the boron rods used to manufacture boron/Ogura 3/70 Vital line contact cantilever assemblies for Lyra?  That may be.  But I don’t see any difference in boron cantilevers on Lyra and boron cantilevers that Ogura sends me. There was some company that provided Lyra with the Ceralloy cantilever on its old cartridges.  I don’t know who that was, but Lyra doesn’t equip their cartridges with these anymore either.

I can’t imagine that there is any confusion over who produces the Replicant diamond.  The ones I have seen are Gyger all the way.  But I haven’t seen them all.  Perhaps Ortofon used a variety of sources.  I know that Ortofon also uses Namiki for their nude Shibata on the Quintet and 2M Black.  It’s very distinctive and unmistakeable.  But they use an Ogura “Fine Line” 8/40 Vital line contact on the 2M and Quintet Bronze and Vital elliptical on the 2M and Quintet Black.  
If Ortofon is not using Gyger for the Replicant, than the only other choice is Expert Stylus.  Why?  Because the Gyger S formula is the only one with such a long scanning edge.  The other formulas all top out at 80 microns.  
But, have you noticed that Here Lukaschek doesn’t always update his specs?  I have seen many of his cartridges that are equipped with Micro Ridge still offer the old Gyger S 5/120 spec.  The longest scanning edge offered by Namiki is 80 microns.  
I can’t say this about every player in the cartridge world, but unlike Benz and van den Hul, and even Ortofon, Gyger has never played “smoke and mirrors.”  They are very clear that they make two diamonds and two diamonds only.  The price is what it is.  They don’t hide facts and they deliver their product quickly.  If it weren’t for the shared patent, I would not be able to buy such nice diamonds, because I am sure van den Hul would not just sell diamonds to just anybody.  They are truly no nonsense.

I can’t speak to EMT.  Every EMT I have seen has had a Gyger diamond on it unless it was conical.  I don’t know who makes their conical but I suspect Ogura.  Could be Namiki too.  Could even be Nagaoka or some source local to Switzerland or Germany (or wherever EMT is these days) who can produce a simple pocket watch bearing, which is what a conical is.  I have a U.S. source for conical if I ever need them, which is not that often).

www.fgyger.ch

“Well Gyger is also an trademark so this explains why ’’Paratrace’’ is

different name . Patents are not relevant because expired”

This statement is just confusing because you are comparing a company name, Gyger, and a product name, “Paratrace.”

A company name distinguishes one company from other companies. A brand name distinguishes the products of one company from the products of another company.

It would be very odd indeed for Expert Stylus to market a diamond called the Gyger. I suppose they could, but I assume that Gyger keeps the trademark up to date on its brand. Expert is the only company we are talking about that doesn’t actually bear the name of the company founder. Both Gyger and van den Hul are both eponymously named. Gyger could probably produce a diamond called the “Paratrace” is they wanted to and it might not even cause an issue. After all, people are confused already as to what’s what. MicroLine is often used generically to describe any line contact. But it’s actually a trademarked name, although I notice now that in the latest Audio-Technica materials, the name MicroLine has a large circled “R” for copyright. Legally, I don’t understand how MicroLine is protected by copyright.

Copyright laws do not protect names, titles, or short phrases. Trademark law, by contrast, protects distinctive words, phrases, logos, symbols, slogans, and any other devices used to identify and distinguish products or services in the marketplace

Maybe they lapsed the trademark and are still trying to scare people away from using the name????

I could give you the address of a retipper who installs Gyger diamonds, but that would constitute self-advertising here on Audiogon. I don’t think that’s allowed. You’ll just have to find me on your own.

There is more to the story of the Decca diamond that makes it unique. It’s 0.25mm square. Most manufacturers only go up to 0.20 mm square. The only manufacturer who makes a diamond that large is: you guessed it, Expert Stylus. That’s proof enough for me that Expert makes it. However, I have old FFSS from which I have removed round shank diamonds. So, even though the receiver is a certain size, Decca clearly used smaller diamonds and made up the difference with cement. John Wright prefers to use the largest size diamond he can fit into the receiver but I have retipped Decca with 0.20 mm square diamonds without any problem.