Currently we are facing new cartridges telling us the diamond cantilever might be the best choice for our listening adventure. Really?

Let us look a little deeper into this:

We have aluminum, rubin, beryllium, boron and diamond cantilevers. Most carts use aluminum and boron cantilevers. But Ortofon and Hana are now offering new diamond cantilevers for a good price. Interestingly you get these synthetic diamonds for a small price (Ogura, Namiki) asking for the real add on? None of these diamond cantilevers are dampened, they just don‘t do it. The diamond cantilever has a high natural resonance, it needs to be dampened. Nevertheless most buyers are elderly and wealthy aficionados. What are they hearing? We have the effect that you hear the high frequency portions more intensely believing the sound has improved, a kind of silver shimmer. Ok, it is fine for me!

What are they not hearing? They don‘t get the balanced and more voluminous sound picture. So what should we do? I used to own a Sony XL-88 with a full diamond cantilever and integrated diamond (1981). I liked it, it was not bad, in the end I sold it due to too many carts I had.

Beryllium cantilevers are out of range, the material is too soft and poisonous. Ikeda san e.g. (FR) used aluminum for his carts with less noise which was very good. I still have three of his FR-carts.

Boron is in my opinion the best material for a cantilever. If you have the chance to get one with inner dampening (special gel) it might be the most adequate cantilever right now.