SCRATCHING AND BACK CUEING

The stylus is the most important part of your turntable, as it’s the only part of your cartridge that makes contact with the record. So if you use a subpar stylus, you’ll experience subpar sound. A low-quality stylus can also damage your record. After all, it’s exerting roughly 6,000 pounds of pressure per square inch! Styli are made of ultra-hard materials to prevent premature wear.

Styli also come in various shapes. A spherical stylus like the Ortofon Concorde MkII MIX picks up less surface noise than other shapes, but with inferior frequency response, higher distortion, and inferior phase response. An elliptical stylus delivers superior audio performance but wears down faster than a spherical one. Many DJs prefer a spherical stylus for heavy back-cueing and scratching, but for high-fidelity listening and archiving, an elliptical is the way to go.