Imagine a coil of copper wire that’s charged with electricity.
If you waved a magnet around near that coil, the nature of that electric charge would change. It would fluctuate up and down in direct response to how you moved that magnet. If you moved it in and out once every second, the charge would rise and fall once every second.
This is ultimately how a turntable works: the movement of a magnet relative to a charged coil paints your music into an electrical signal.
The cartridge houses the stationary part of the system. If it’s a “moving magnet” (MM) cartridge, it contains the coil. If it’s “moving coil” (MC), it contains the magnet. Then there’s something attached to the cartridge which houses the moving part of the system…
And it’s called the stylus.
A turntable’s stylus is one of the most important parts when it comes to sound quality.
Make no mistake. The cartridge, the platter, the tonearm, the motor, the plinth, the drive principle, the feet, even the record itself… all of these play critical roles in the performance of a turntable.
But the stylus is where the rubber meets the road. The place on the record where the music lives is the groove, and it’s the stylus’ job to ride as accurately as possible on that surface.
Not only that… but the stylus has to keep its shape for as long as possible, despite constantly rubbing against spinning vinyl. So it’s made from diamond—the hardest naturally occurring substance on Earth—which is very difficult to shape. This puts limits on what shapes are possible, and of course, makes some styli very expensive.
As you’ll soon see, the performance of a stylus (and therefore, a turntable) largely comes down to its shape… as shape determines how accurately it tracks the groove.
What is the best stylus shape?
If there was an ideal stylus shape—one that would track the groove perfectly, guaranteeing every bit of musical information was picked up—then it would be the exact same shape as the record cutting head.
The cutting head shape is chisel-like and sharp. It makes sense that its shape would track the groove perfectly, considering it’s what put the music there in the first place. But there are a lot of caveats to trying to match a stylus shape to the original cutting head.
- If a stylus were too precise like that, it wouldn’t keep its shape for very long, quickly spoiling the effect of having an ideal shape. This is true even if it were diamond, as diamond styli do wear down with enough playback time.
- A perfect cutting head stylus would also struggle to track records that have themselves worn down, as the records’ grooves would no longer be the shape of the head that cut them.
- It would also cause records to wear out faster, because as mentioned, the cutting head shape is chisel-like and sharp.
- Worse, the groove would wear asymmetrically to an aggressive degree, in most cases. This is because the record cutting lathe moves the cutting head across the record linearly, from the outer edge to the centre… while most decks have radial tonearms that move the stylus along the record in an arc shape. That causes tracking pressure errors at most locations across the record.
- Shaping diamond to match the robust profile of the cutting head would be challenging, and therefore costly, while other designs are much easier and capture most of the effect.
So if the “ideal” shape (the cutting head) is not really what we want, then…
How do you choose a stylus for your turntable?
Well of course, a good stylus shape has smoother, rounder edges that cause less wear and forgive imperfect record grooves.
Beyond that, the secret to making them track as accurately as possible is (1) minimising the contact width and (2) maximising the contact height.
Minimising the contact width makes it so the stylus is only making contact with the very moment in time it’s currently sitting. If it was too wide, it would ride along the “biggest humps” in the groove for a given section, missing finer details. If it’s nice and thin, it can get in-between those humps and pick up more musical information.
Maximising the contact height on the other hand, makes it so the tracking pressure is evenly spread for surest contact and less wear.
So those are the two principles you need as you assess stylus shapes, which we’ll get into down below. But first we need to cover…
The difference between bonded vs nude styli:
Shape isn’t the only thing that determines stylus performance. There are two common types of stylus constructions that matter as well.
One is the “bonded” stylus. This is a mostly metal stylus (it’s called a “metal shank”) with a tiny piece of diamond adhered to the tip.
The upside is that the bonded stylus is cheaper to produce while still offering the durability of diamond. The downside is that it’s heavier, and therefore it cannot respond to the groove as quickly. So these tend to conceal a song’s finer details and dynamics.
(It’s worth noting that none of the high-performing stylus shapes are available on bonded styli.)
The other construction is the “nude” stylus. This is pure diamond… which obviously means it costs more. But it also makes it a lot lighter and more responsive to the groove, which means better sound quality.
(All high-performing stylus shapes are found on nude styli.)
Onward to the shapes…
The conical stylus
The conical stylus has a simple and consistent taper, making it the easiest to manufacture. It only requires one radial cut.
It has the smooth edges we want to reduce abrasion and forgive imperfections. It’s nothing special when it comes to contact, however—conical styli track shallow and only make contact at one point on each side of the groove. This causes a reduction in high-frequency information, meaning less detail in vocals, percussion, and so on.
(Image above: Audio-Technica VMN95C bonded conical stylus.)
The elliptical stylus
The elliptical stylus is still relatively easy to make. It’s essentially a conical stylus with an additional radius cut into it, causing the shape to taper inwards towards the sides where it contacts the record.
That gives the elliptical stylus reduced contact width compared to conical. It tracks deeper and presents more of the high-frequency information. But like conical, it still only makes contact at one point on each side of the groove.
(Image above: Audio-Technica VMN95EN nude elliptical stylus.)
The Microlinear stylus
The Microlinear (AKA MicroRidge, SAS, and others) is one of the more sophisticated stylus shapes, and it’s essentially the new ideal. The first variation of this shape was allegedly designed using computer analysis to come close to cutting head accuracy, but still has those smooth, radiused edges that prevent excessive wear and forgive imperfections.
Microlinear styli have tiny ridges at their very tips, making them very challenging to manufacture relative to the other shapes. From a performance standpoint, that puts this shape at the very top. It has the smallest contact width and the greatest contact depth, and thus can pick up every detail.
Of course, all that performance comes with its downsides: Microlinear styli tend to wear out faster than other types, because the ridges are thin and vulnerable to atrophy. They also play back dust and scratches if the record has them. (Though listeners say that Microlinear styli do well to separate crackles and pops from the music, making it easier to tune them out.)
(Important point: All high-performance styli pick up more details, but also more dust and imperfections. This is the tradeoff, and it means you must pay extra attention to vinyl hygiene!)
(Image above: Audio-Technica VMN95ML nude microlinear stylus.)
The Shibata stylus
The Shibata stylus is legendary for being one of the first stylus shapes to contact along a vertical line rather than just two points in the groove. The shape isn’t hard to cut—it’s similar to the elliptical, but adds another two cuts on one side to reduce the contact width even more. But that reduced contact width does require very precise setting, which makes manufacturing a challenge.
Shibata styli gives us a lot of the benefit of Microlinear styli, with excellent detail retrieval and separation… but it returns to us the durability and longevity that Microlinear styli lack. Shibata styli don’t wear out as quickly and therefore require less frequent replacing.
(Image above: Audio-Technica VMN95SH nude Shibata stylus.)
Concluding thoughts…
There are other stylus shapes out there, but the core principle is the same: minimise contact width, maximise contact height. Also remember that the more accurate a stylus, the more you need to keep your records free from dust and grime. Those basics should serve you well moving forward, when it comes to choosing a stylus (or pre-fitted cartridge) for your turntable.
For further reading, check out these articles:
Or browse our cartridge and styli offerings here.
Happy spinning!
