Bonded or nude..

[Ldg]

I'm after a Shure elliptical..I have a SAS on my V15 III...Maybe it is nostalgia,,but I'm looking for that old M75/91 ed sound I used to have.

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Goaty, I salute the pursuit of bona fide sound ! Try to hold out for as close to original spec as poss. It sometimes disappoints, but it's worth a shot. I wouldn't get hung up about mass etc. If the original ever came nude, I'd seek that out first though. But I wouldn't pursue substitutes or upgrades, personally.

[goatbreath]

I would say certainly for the smaller tips I have heard,,and actually seen under a stylus microscope..The nude ones are much better quality and a lot more care seems to have been taken..I don't think I have heard a bonded line contact/ridge etc..They have all been nude..2x7 and 3x7 ellipticals seem to sound better nude...I have never heard a 4x7 nude elliptical I don't think..I don't know how much it matters when you get up to 4x7,,then again the conical Denon is meant to sound great...But I've heard 2 opposing views about that and loss on detail on the inner grooves,,but that was in a certain Hifi magazine..Again HiFi magazines seem to have to justify people buying things that cost ten times the amount they actually have to spend..But don't get me started on HiFi mags..I remember quoting from one on here,, when a guy that was involved in that very magazine said that no one had written telling the readers to throw their vintage arms in the bin etc..All their bearings were like porridge and to buy an Origin Live..I stated the edition and quoted word for word...HaHa,,,Dodgy bunch,,wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them..


Oh and the Shure ED Styli were originally nude...

[ripblade]

I've seen another type of stylus that appears to be metal formed with the stylus shape, then coated with something...I'm not sure what. Under an m'scope the surface appears orange peeled rather than honed, as if the coating was sprayed on. I know it sounds ridiculous, but has any one else seen something like this?

I'm awaiting a digicam for my scope. I'll post a picture when it arrives.

[dlaloum]

Sometimes excess bonding agent (glue) is used between diamond and shank or shank and cantilever, in these cases you can see the excess glue quite clearly.

Some people with very steady hands, clean this up with a very fine blade (razor/scalpel)...

[Ldg]

I've seen another type of stylus that appears to be metal formed with the stylus shape, then coated with something...I'm not sure what. Under an m'scope the surface appears orange peeled rather than honed, as if the coating was sprayed on. I know it sounds ridiculous, but has any one else seen something like this?

Hi ripblade, do you mean like this: ?



It's a close up of the business end of a bonded 'elliptical'. To me, under the microscope, it appears to be surface granularity, and artifact of what I take to be not so good polishing. Why and how it ends up like that I don't know.

Here's a similar image of a nude true elliptical from the same family :



Far more goes on than just the mounting method.

[ripblade]

That looks pretty close, LD. Given variances for the photography that might actually be it, but my sample doesn't show any distinction in material at the joint where the tip is bonded to the stud as it appears to be in the first photo.

Going by the description I've read of it, my guess is this is cultured diamond, and not a chip?

Is it possible to grow diamond crystals onto a metal form, then polish it to smooth the surface?

[AK]

@goatbreath, I have compared both an original Shure M91ED "Hi-Track" (nude) and a corresponding M91E (bonded). Both have an almost identical construction of suspension and cantilever and they have the suspension string. You'll be hard pressed to tell the difference between those two soundwise. But it's there - the nude one is a slightly better tracker with difficult passages and with vocal esses. Shures from that period have a particular suspension construction - to me it looks like the cantilever is double suspended - into the shank there is a substance which holds a diamond shaped like metal enclosure which is also filled with a substance which holds the cantilever. Again, to me it looks like both substances have different compliance and at small displacements the cantilever is moving alone into the metal enclosure, but with more displacement the whole enclosure starts moving into the shank... I can almost see why it was done that way, but I may be wrong. No aftermarket styli have that type of construction, except for the ones made to strict Shure specifications. Shure also had a now rare nude conical stylus for the M91 cartridge.

[Ldg]

The close images I posted of bonded and nude 'ellipticals' are 2M Red and Blue. Which have similar, if not identical, cantilever, suspension, and armature. But tracking performance is far better with the Blue, friction measures lower, and to my ear sound is clearer. They voice similarly, but one could not mix them up for long in a listening test, methinks.

It's worth holding out for nudes, on this basis. And I agree ripblade, the bonded does appear to be synthetic in this case, a round shank implies no grain alignment I think. It's possible that nude is not natural, but it looks clear, and of finer finish, and has a square shank implying grain alignment. Even the better sphericals are grain aligned and nude.

[ipapb]

I use both stylus: N91E and N91ED (original "made ​​in USA"), the bonded and the nude tip.
The listening difference between the two is very thin, perhaps the ED is more neutral, perhaps... but the two stylus are good.
The N91E has a lower SRA than the N91ED and must be slightly compensated by increasing the VAT.
Hi