Interesting article about the importance of the cantilever:
“Cantilver is more important in quality performance level than stylus shape.”
That’s what Jonathan Carr says, and he’s the designer of the famous Lyra MC-cartridges.
The diamond stylus of most cartridges is mounted on a little piece of thin material. This little pin in fact is just something like a very tiny flag pole. It’s rigid material, but it flexes as the pole in the wind does. So there a mechanical losses between stylus movement and the electrical generator. Even very hard material is flexible, like everyone knows from the glass window, when wind is heavily blowing against it.
Most High End-carts today are Moving Coil systems (MC). And most manufacturers use the same basic components delivered by few specialist like Namiki. The “secret” of every manufacturer is how to “cook” this components. Sometimes the secret is nothing more than a nice looking housing for the generator combined with a good sounding story. All of the manufactures have one common aim. They all believe in mass reduction. Therefore the cantilever and the diamond are becoming smaller and smaller. The boron cantilever of a modern MC High End system has an diameter of only 0,3 millimeter. It’s just as thick as three times of a beard hair.
Check the complete article: http://en.schiller-phono.de/room-cantilever