[Closed] Would you spend £149 on a turntable stylus?

Along with the room, amp and speakers the stylus is without doubt the most important parts of a record player set up in terms of sound quality.

Well that about covers it.

And the once-critical importance of a decent analogue source and quality interconnects was genocidally destroyed by lossless digital about 20 years ago

I don’t think so. For those with large existing analogue connections who love music - still very important. Also DAC’s to your analogue amplifier. For casual listeners, purity has never really been that important.

There are lovers of music and there are lovers of hi-fi equipment.

There are lovers of music and there are lovers of hi-fi equipment.

I count myself in the former camp.

And all CD players do not sound the same.

That was absolutely the case when CD was first introduced - the early players from the likes of Technics were very ‘toppy’, because they were biased towards the sort of music common in Japan, which doesn’t have much bass. It was Denon, Philips and Marantz who first developed CD players for the Western market, my Denon was about £800 retail IIRC, and sounded amazing. However, many CD’s were actually very badly mastered, as the master tapes used were those originally used for vinyl mastering, which is deliberately eq’d with a reduced dynamic range.

er, yeah, no

hifi is sold in exactly the same way as fad diets or politicians or self improvement schemes, with voodoo and hand waving mysticism

@mrmonkfinger there’s always one post like this in a hifi post on STW so well done for being this thread’s doubting Thomas.

What I don’t understand is why people like you feel it so important to dismiss everyone else’s experience as delusion. It’s like any time religion gets brought up here and everyone races to explain it as mass hysteria (like COVID 😂); why not just accept your own intransigence and allow others who can hear huge differences in sound reproduction to enjoy their more informed experience; why the need to unilaterally dismiss us as the deranged ones; do we threaten you that much?

I’ve been blissfully happy since I was able to get a decent stereo back in my life. After my divorce, I set aside £30k from the house sale to buy the best damn system I could afford. Bit by bit it’s been built tweaked and improved and my new partner, a huge music fan but not someone who has ever been exposed to good quality sound before, has heard the subtle and often not so subtle, improvements that every iteration has yielded, even down to the use of graphite cones under the amps (which was a quite dramatic improvement but then the amps are valve based and so more prone to mechanical vibration effects).

Source continues to be a hugely interesting area for development. Because I was starting from scratch I went with a server based front end; I ripped about 600 albums to bit perfect 44/16 copies and bought a high end custom built music server. This was the last box to be delivered and having replaced my MacBook Pro on serving duties, the improvement was vast.

But what has impressed me the most are the high res files you can bow buy and download (downloaded still sounds considerably better than streamed) from places like Qobuz. 196/24 is a dramatic lift but DSD256 is a whole order of magnitude better again (when the music is recorded in DSD of course, which very little is currently apart from classical re-recordings).

I’m at the point now where other than user experience (which remains hugely important for analogue) there is little if no benefit from using vinyl over digital if your reason for doing so is quality of sound.

30k is a lot to spend on a hifi. Do you dance to the music it plays or sit in a specially placed armchair ?

there’s always one post like this in a hifi post on STW so well done for being this thread’s doubting Thomas.

followed by one that is so pretentious I cant decide if it’s parody or not #poeslaw

There's both nonsense AND common sense spouted about most subjects.

Crank length on bikes is a good example. I prefer a certain length, others can't tell the difference.
Fine, but my knees hurt when my cranks are too long.

The thing about HiFi is that many people who claim that others are being precious about it haven't used their own ears to decide.

CountZero
Full Member
And all CD players do not sound the same.

That was absolutely the case when CD was first introduced – the early players from the likes of Technics were very ‘toppy’, because they were biased towards the sort of music common in Japan, which doesn’t have much bass.

I bought a Technics SL-PG520 in 1992, and still have it. It's a huge step forward from the first gen players.
I recently compared it to a Marantz KI signature, same model as Derek's.
I'd fancied one for years, they have a great reputation. It sounded amazing, but I still preferred the Technics in my system. More natural, less processed, less emphasis on the top end but a nicer bass and midrange.
The Marantz had better dynamics and more 'slam'. Horses for courses.
A huge difference in presentation, but both sound very good indeed and would please most people I think.

At last, we get to the answer! If you are over 20, grandad, your ears will not appreciate a good stylus. And in any case, what you really need is a £30k digital system, and just listen to newly recorded classical music in some hi-res format.

Or just go buy the stylus, and a few lighty scratched £10 albums that you happily found in a real record shop, and enjoy life eh.

do we threaten you that much?

Not even slightly.

Keep on spending!

I've just bought another turntable
Ariston Q deck as it got great reviews back in the late 80's and it was made in Troon or thereabouts
Not quite a Linn or even a Systemdek my previous turntable but sounds good. May now treat it either to a new stylus or even more expensive cartridge
I want to compare it to my Project

Well, I needed a new stylus and I gambled on a cheap sixteen quid one off ebay. Boy was that a mistake. I can't justify £150, but I have now ordered the £45 one (Ortofon 10) that I should have got in the first place.

Anyone want a crappy, harsh sounding stylus to fit an Ortofon OM cartridge?

Is anyone going to tell me how long they last, or not?

(apologies if I missed a response amid all the fascinating discussion above)

I am on a B&W site on FaceBook. I am stunned at how much people will spend on hi-fi or worse - but updating really good hi-fi to get a minot incremental change which I think most ears wouldn't hear.
The interesting thing is that most of them don't seem to have a real interest in music - and there is an awful lot of love for ELO !

Is anyone going to tell me how long they last, or not?

Depends on the stylus and how you treat it, and the state of your records, I imagine.

Lolz #flying monkey corps.
Just did virtually the same. Bought a replacement cartridge and stylus for my SLQ202 from MAG for 30 odd quid and its shocking. Can't sort the sibilant, toppy sound of it out even with an equaliser. Can't be arsed to send it back, so hunting for recommendations for a decent one. I did buy a genuine replacement mat as well; initially thought that was a wrong 'un as well until I realised my original one had gone rigid with age.

30k is a lot to spend on a hifi. Do you dance to the music it plays or sit in a specially placed armchair ?

It's all relative - some people spend that on a car when about half the amount will do the job just as well but as with music, this ignores the fact that the utility offered by a more prestigious/luxury/performance car goes far beyond simply getting you from one place to another.

to answer your question though, the latter; I have no TV, just a really great place to experience music and feel the worries of the world melt away.

£30k is a lot for sure but I know people that have spent three or four times that and since they can afford it that's their choice and yes, the difference is vast (though for someone like me the room is the biggest limiting factor).

Unilet HiFi in new malden have some 25k turntables, horses for courses if you have the cash spend it. There must be a market for it they have been in business for years.

Sat here listening to Sandinista on a rega 1 which is about 300 quid, more than happy...

Answering the OP - if you can justify the cost and believe it will enhance your listening experience...yes.

Depends on the stylus and how you treat it

Thanks but I was looking for a timespan.

One year? Five years? 20 years?

@chakaping - 800-1000 hours of playing time depending on stylus type:conical, eliptical, microlinear etc.