Difference between micro line and gyger s stylus

Both the various gyger and micro line stylus shapes have very narrow vertical contact patches that are "tall" (contacts the groove from the bottom of the groove to the top). This demands quite precise azimuth adjustment. I doubt that there would be much operational difference between the two types. I also wondered if unipivots might be more forgiving when it comes to azimuth and work better with these types of profiles because the cartridge is free to tilt a little and "snug" itself into the groove even if the azimuth is set slightly off.

I've heard the Transfiguration Phoenix mounted on an ARO/LP-12 combination and it sounded fantastic. That cartridge has an Ogura PA stylus, which has a micro line profile.

My bet is that if the Benz is otherwise compatible (right compliance and weight) with the ARO, the new stylus will work fine.

Hi Larryi,

Thank you for your response. I currently use a wood bodied Benz MO.9 which I think has an elliptical stylus. I think it sounds great on my analog rig. However, I'm thinking of getting a Ruby3H and I see the older ones have the micro line and the S Class have the gyger s. So I don't have any personal experience if either would work well or not. But what you have said gives me great hope. Thanks for the tip on the Phoenix as well.

No regrets,

I just bought a recently manufactured Benz LP and it came with the LP-S Gyger stylus. I think Benz tends to incorporate improvements in their cartridge line without changing the model name. So if you buy a new Ruby 3H, you may find it comes with the new stylus as well.

In any case, my LP tracks inner grooves better than my Benz L2 woodbody. Perhaps that is due to the Gyger stylus, perhaps to other reasons.

Dave

Salectric,

The Gyger stylus would help with inner groove distortion. Inner grooves have tighter twists and turns because the same amount (time) of information is squeezed into a smaller diameter. The much narrower profile of these types of styli can more easily trace the tighter turns.

The potential negative of these types of profiles is the necessity to get azimuth right. My own experience suggests that these styli might also be more sensitive to proper VTA (it could just be the case that better cartridges tend to use these types of styli, so the "sensitivity I hear may really be the product of greater resolving power of these cartridges and not a property of the stylus).

One would think that these ultra narrow profile shapes would be prone to more issues with wear, but, so far, I have NOT found that to be the case -- they seem to have a very long service life.