Ortofon Pro S, Concord DJ S and Night Club E side by side

0:00 Another video for you on cartridges or styli

Right folks, another video for you on cartridges or styli. In this video we're going to be looking at three different styli from a company called Autofon. This video is going to be in four parts. The first part, the long one, which is this one, I'm going to be showing, demoing, listening to, explaining. The other three parts is going to be a basic close-up of each styli so you can have a closer look and I'll link those underneath this video. Very important, I have got three identical turntables. They're all known as the SL Technics SL1200 Mark II. Say again, in full, the Technics SL1200 Mark II. I'm using the same record. By the way, look in the description of this video and you'll have all relevant information there and lots of links, etc. Now what we've got here, excuse me, hay fever, pain in the blinking ass, Concord Pro S, the Autophon,

Mix Scratch, sometime known as the Blues. And then we've got here the Nightclub Autophon. Now they're all the same. They're known as Concord cartridges. But they've all got slight subtle differences. We've got here a basic styli that is run-of-the-mill but does the job. We've got a slightly more expensive one here and we've got a pro one over here. Now I want to show you this first of all. Very important. Spherical and elliptical. Now, that guy there, the Concord Pro S and the Mixed Scratch Autophon, the DJ, sometimes known as the Blues, are the Autophon S. These two guys are spherical. Now they are ideal for bedroom turntablists, scratch DJs, club DJs as well, but if you demand rugged use and you're always continually going wiki-wiki-wiki, then spherical is the one.

2:24 Here, I'm going to play

The end, if you look at that, if you imagine that blue part there is the groove of the record. You can see the spherical one, the diamond on the end of it, it will fit inside the groove, but because it's rounded, it's not going to rub as much, therefore your vinyl will last a damn sight longer. Now if you think about it logically, if you're a nightclub DJ and you're not a turntablist, then you're not going to be doing wiki wiki all the time, so Elliptical is the one for you. But, the thing, well it's not but actually, it's a good point, the sound quality will be a lot better. Now what I'm going to do is, I've got three identical turntables, the arms are set identically the same, the volumes on this mixer are set identically the same, everything is known as flat, same with the speaker. First part here, I'm going to play the same track on each turntable.

You're going to hear it through the speaker. Then what I'm going to do, I'm going to plug in that to the side of the camera so you can get proper audio and make up your own mind. Bearing in mind we are talking about the web and it's gone from the camera into the PC, out the PC onto the web, out the web back into your PC, out your PC into your speakers. So you know we're not going to get a vast difference but hopefully you may be able to work something out and you may be able to hear slight subtle changes in the high frequencies and possibly somewhere down rumbling in the bass. So what we'll do we'll bung this one on first now this is The Concord Pro S, here we go. The track anyway is Sander Van Dorn by Demand. It's the original mix. Okay, that's that guy. Very quickly as well, if you're a bit scared about putting the needle on the vinyl, watch this. Now first of all, if you're fine with putting a needle on the vinyl, then you just lift it up, put it down. If you're scared about putting your needle on the vinyl in case you may scratch it, this is what you need to do. Lift the arm up, move the needle, the arm...

5:04 Better audio, so bear with me

All the way across and then let the arm rest down and that will slowly let the arm place itself onto the vinyl, no scratching. Okay, that's that one. Portofone Blue. Okay, now we're going to take it over here to the nightclub. Right, I'll take that off now. I'm going to put it back on to the first one which is the Pro S. I'm going to plug this now into the side of the camera and hopefully you should get some... Better audio, so bear with me. I hope you got that. I'm going to play this back before I put it on the web. So here's the deal as well. This is very important. Loads of people out there think that they've got to buy the best, most expensive styler in the world because, you know, they want to be the best DJs. But you could actually be wasting your money and also you could be knackering your vinyl. The reason being is because let's say you're a scratch turntablist. You think, yeah, let's go and buy the fantastic stylight. So you end up buying the elliptical.

Well, believe it or not, if you do that, you'll end up knackering your vinyl because if you think about it, that is going to scratch into your vinyl a lot more than spherical. So, hopefully a video or videos like this will help you make the right decision. That's what this sort of video is all about. It's not about advertising and telling you go and buy it. This is my way of giving a little bit of advice and helping people out there. So don't forget... Look underneath this video. There'll be three more with a title. It'll only be like 10 seconds or so, but it'll be basically showing you what they look like. Thank you very much. Practice and enjoy. I'll pause it now.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.