Steve Leung of VAS installed a new Al cantilever and microridge stylus on a Sumiko Blackbird cartridge a few weeks back, and the result is an unexpected and pleasant surprise.
Background-
The Blackbird had already been repaired, and had a SoundSmith ruby cantilever with their line contact stylus. It had light wear when I broke it. At that time, it had been in my main rig on a second arm, but wasn't my favorite cartridge in that system... that spot was reserved for a Dynavector 20x2L. That rig had all of my best gear, cables, room treatments, etc. I had moved it to my smaller room system when I set up a pod for a Victor TT81 I had recapped. I had it well installed and many hours put on it while waiting on a new pod from the good Mr. Elledge. When the new pod arrived, I broke the cantilever moving stuff and installing the arm.
Bear with me. This is a bit long winded.
Ok, so now I have the "new" Blackbird on the Jelco750 on the new pod, on my Victor TT in my small system. The small system also has a Dodd preamp, a Folsom amp, misc ok cables, and a pair of GR-Resesrch X-Statiks all in a medium L shaped room with minimal treatment. My new copy of Jennifer Warnes "the Hunter" arrives, I put it on the small system and it sounds great. Like better than I've ever heard this album. I assume its the LP vs CD magic. So off to the the big system because this is going to be ORGASMICALLY good! LS9 speakers, Moscode 401HR amp, Dodd pre, Dodd phono pre, Vyger Timor TT, Pioneer P3 arm, and Dynavector 20x2L cartridge. But... the room treatments had been pulled a couple of nights ago for the Ladies Book Club (and a happy wife yada yada yada) . But I gotta hear it, so on it goes and it all sounds like crap. No detail, boomy bass, - disappointing, but not unexpected with no treatments. Today, I put it all back, room set up right, and I play the new Jennifer Warnes lp... and there's clearly detail missing compared to my small room rig.
Ok, never on its best day has my small room with X-Statiks come close to the detail of my LS9 lines sources. Never has that Blackbird sounded as good as the Dynavector 20x2L.
There's a lot of things in play, but I leaning toward thinking that the new microridge stylus is the cause of so much extra detail. On the Soundsmith website,
Peter Ledermann mentions the potential for great detail from microridge styli when everything it
just right. But he doesn't push them because he thinks they wear out too fast. But
IF I'm right, and the stylus is the main factor in this change in sound.... I'll never buy another line source, Shibata, super elliptical, etc. ever again.
Now I've got to pull the old Dynavector off and install another one that Steve retipped for me, fortunately with a microridge stylus. And kudos to Steve Leung at VAS for great work.