Sometimes known as needles or styli, styluses are the contact point between your turntable’s tonearm and the record itself. For any vinyl DJ, good styluses are truly essential not just for sound quality, but to avoid skipping and to help minimise record wear.
Generally speaking, the best DJ styluses are designed for specific brands’ cartridges, so for example you’ll need an Ortofon stylus for an Ortofon cartridge. Third-party brands like Tonar and Kyowa also make compatible styluses for Stanton and Shure cartridges.
It’s also worth knowing that there are two main types of stylus – spherical and elliptical – which have slightly different shapes at the needle tip. As a general rule of thumb, elliptical styluses offer better sound quality but aren’t well suited to scratching or back-cueing, whereas spherical styluses sacrifice a tiny bit of fidelity but are more versatile if you’re DJing rather than just playing records.
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