Re: [ARSCLIST] Need Turntable advice for amateur archivist

[George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

James L Wolf wrote
>    I've transferred a lot of Edison Diamond Discs at the Library, so
> this is something I know pretty well.
....................
Obviously you don't want a truncated
> stylus.

----- I would like to know why "obviously"? The truncated stylii I have
 obtained over the years from Expert Stylii are elliptical truncated by
denomination, but in practice the footprint does not look like an ellipse.
Rather it could be compared to a very oblong rectangle with very rounded
corners, or a Piet Hein super-ellipse. The short axis is not so long as
to be useless on the wavelengths encountered. At 400 grooves per inch,
the measurement of the stylus is very LP-like, however the radius of
curvature of a standard >conical< stylus is not identical to the radius of the
original Edison cutting stylus. Remember that the groove is entirely bounded
by a circle (rather an ellipse, but similar enough), i.e. one radius, whereas
a lateral groove of a 78 shellac has varying radii, in later years becoming
the straight lines having an included angle of ca. 90 degrees between flanks,
and only a radius at the bottom, that we know so well. To be very precise: a
narrower stylus will not go deeper into an Edison groove, it will only wear
it more.

....................

>    When EQing, there's usually a lot of rumble to get rid of and a good
> bit of high end can be tossed out without losing any music. How much on
> either end depends on the disc. Same with corrective EQ of the musical
> material, but I usually just leave that as is. There is a lot of variety
> in quality to Diamond Disc recordings, especially if you include the
> dubs from cylinder recordings.

------- that has been my experience too!

Best regards,

George