kap'n krunch
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
right now I am pondering what to play to debut my new Shibata stylus I got as a replacement for my Ortofon OM30, which is a "Fine Line"-..maybe some Boston, the Wally cut; it HAS to be something of an Industry Standard.. I got no Steely Dan (here... I do in Madrid) ..oh well..
I also wanted to share the difference in Stylus, maybe I am posting this in the wrong thread but I could not find a "Shibata versus Fine Line Stylus" thread...
My extremely reliable OM30 stylus has been giving me MANY a year of excellent service and , since you should not wait until you HEAR a difference in your stylus to change it, I said what the hell, let's get another one...the people at turntableneedles.com always come to the rescue and I ventured into the unknown and bought a replacement for my Ortofon OMP cart which, according to them is a Shibata stylus and for $159 it looked like a good bargain-the Shibata is the one in the grey plastic with the red "PRO" on it.
I found a nice webpage where it explains the different kinds of stylii here.
The OM30 is $300+ and this one is basically half of that so we shall see how it sounds.
Visually they are very different; at first glance it may look like my exiting OM30 stylus was REALLY worn out, but first of all it's a NUDE (which means it's JUST THE DIAMOND) Fine line stylus and IIRC, when I installed it I said to myself "gosh, that looks rather puny!" cause it did , but since I do not have a microscope and if I did I would not really know how to measure its wear, I trust my instincts and it MAY hold for a few more LPs but I really do not want to risk it.
I found out that the reason that the new Shibata one looks WAY bigger is because it is NOT NUDE, i.e, it is the diamond MOUNTED in metal shank..but still, it looks fairly bigger...here are the pics I got yesterday, I changed the angle to prove that the difference was not just a trick of the light...
I also wanted to share the difference in Stylus, maybe I am posting this in the wrong thread but I could not find a "Shibata versus Fine Line Stylus" thread...
My extremely reliable OM30 stylus has been giving me MANY a year of excellent service and , since you should not wait until you HEAR a difference in your stylus to change it, I said what the hell, let's get another one...the people at turntableneedles.com always come to the rescue and I ventured into the unknown and bought a replacement for my Ortofon OMP cart which, according to them is a Shibata stylus and for $159 it looked like a good bargain-the Shibata is the one in the grey plastic with the red "PRO" on it.
I found a nice webpage where it explains the different kinds of stylii here.
The OM30 is $300+ and this one is basically half of that so we shall see how it sounds.
Visually they are very different; at first glance it may look like my exiting OM30 stylus was REALLY worn out, but first of all it's a NUDE (which means it's JUST THE DIAMOND) Fine line stylus and IIRC, when I installed it I said to myself "gosh, that looks rather puny!" cause it did , but since I do not have a microscope and if I did I would not really know how to measure its wear, I trust my instincts and it MAY hold for a few more LPs but I really do not want to risk it.
I found out that the reason that the new Shibata one looks WAY bigger is because it is NOT NUDE, i.e, it is the diamond MOUNTED in metal shank..but still, it looks fairly bigger...here are the pics I got yesterday, I changed the angle to prove that the difference was not just a trick of the light...
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you gotta take pot luck, roll with the punches, clutching at straws while holding the rabbit's foot 
