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Conical, spherical stylus

It touches the groove wall with 2 small points. Less expensive, more robust but with a lower quality sound.

Elliptical stylus

The contact surface is wider so the needle goes deeper into the ridge of the record. Product well-balanced beetween performance and cost; used in Hight Fidelity.

Others sizes do exist such as Hyper elliptic, Microline with better sound quality and longer-lasting but these are both rarer and more expensive.

The cartridges

The cartridge is found at far end of the arm and transforms the waves engraved on the record into electric energy.

The quality of the cartridge is of great importance; one can have a wonderfull record player, a super amplifier, exellent loud speakers but the quality of the sound will only be that of the quality of the cartridge however good the equipement.

The cartridge and its point is of fundamental importance to your Hi-Fi. It is in fact the one and only point of contact with your record.

Anything that is lost at the first contact of a musical piece will never be recovered however good your equipement may be.

There exist nowadays two types of cartridge :

- Mobile magnet cartridges :

This specific technologiy offers very good value for money. At the moment it is also the most common.

A coil is attached to create a magnetic field and the needle vibrates inside this field.

Advantages : It make it easyer to change the needle, it is economical and solid.

- Moving coil cartridges :

A small coil is at to the end of the needle and vibrates with it inside a fixed magnetic field.

The fabrication of this demands precision, and the replacement of the diamond can only be done in factory. The exit signal is weaker and in some cases an amplifier needs to be installed. Prices start at 200 euros

Advantages : The quality of the sound is very good. Soft tone, transparence and width of sound band.