Shelter 201 Jico sas upgrade.- Vinyl Engine (2025)

I have Shelter 201 and I want to upgrade the stylus to a Jico. I know the Stylus 1 is the best choice, but its pretty hard to get.

Through my long hours of research I have concluded that other styluses may fit. I believe that the Sumiko Oyster stylus may fit the 201/Pearl cartridge, but not the other way around. I also think the Shure N91e stylus may fit.

I know this topic has been discussed many times and I have already read every posting on this topic on every forum I could find. Can you guys please help me?

I always thought that the Shelter 201 had a better stylus than the Sumiko variants and I still see a few replacement stylus for the 201 at some silly cost.

It may well be that the Shelter is a version of the OEM body used for Sumiko, and even the slightly different styled Garrott, Deft, A&R Cambridge and Rega R100 cartridges and if so "yes" the N91E stylus will fit but I don't think it would be an "upgrade" over the 201 stylus.

I have tried the N91E in my A&R but the rake angle seemed wrong and it didn't get anywhere near performance of the nude Rega/E77 elliptical stylus I have. The Philips GP401 Mkiii was better for angle and sound but again not up to the Rega/E77.

Unfortunately that really only leaves re-tipping as a possible upgrade to the standard stylus. I know Soundsmith is in the USA and his Ruby cantilevered Optimised line contact would presumably be close to the Garrott brothers AU$ 1,000 - AU$1,500 units but at $399 is fairly expensive (and his $450 boron + nude contact line look remarkably like a Namiki/SAS). He does do a nude hyperelliptical for $200.

I can tell you the A&R cartridge responds well the ESCo made P77 stylus and this is significantly better than the R100/E77 and therefore a Paratrace (extended line contact) re-tip may be an option as this is less than the hyperelliptical from SS.

Thank you so much for your reply. I didn't think anyone was going to respond.

I found a Jico neo/sas with sapphire cantilever made for the N91e for just under 200us. I didn't want to buy unless I knew for sure it would fit.

What are your thoughts on sas styluses?

Would I be better off getting a Nagaoka 200 or better?

Welcome to the forum by the way!! :D :D :D

A possible reason for the delay in people responding to your original post may be there are not a lot of Shelter 201 users around. In the UK they are relatively expensive (like Nagaoka are now) and therefore struggle to compete with UK/EU made/based units (Goldring G10xx, Ortofon Super OM etc.) particularly if there potential future upgrade paths that the 201 is unable to offer.

I have not had the opportunity to try a SAS/Microline in my system so cannot give a definitive answer. However personal preferences (mine) is for the slightly less "sophisticated" tips (Paratrace, Shibata, fineline, FG2 etc) rather than the more extreme tips (FGS, Replicant etc.) so perhaps I am not the best person to ask. For example I prefer the Super OM30 (fineline) to the OM40 (FG70).

Although the FGS etc. type of tips give remarkable control and detail to the lower and upper registers of the performance I find vocals appear to be further back in the mix overall whereas the older generation styli bring the vocal performance more "front and centre" stage and still have very good control and detail.

I cannot yet comment fully on the Nagaoka range yet but I have heard enough good things to try a few experiments for myself but I am trying to do this without completely breaking the bank. I have bought a second user MP11-Boron (sort of older generation MP-20/MP-200) at low cost because it had lost it's tip and that is now on route to ESCo for a lightweight Paratrace tip to be fitted - hopefully that will make a poor man's MP-500 at only £140 total.

I have another MP11 Boron body on route and have purchased new MP-110 and MP-200 stylii from Japan (less than half the cost of in the UK). Once the body arrives I can start running in the MP-110 and MP-200 styli ready for comparison when the MP11B/Paratrace unit is back in about 5 weeks.

I am also getting a sapphire cantilever/Paratrace done for my P77 at the same time (£160) so that is two cartridges with fancy cantilevers and nice tips PLUS two spare styli for about 2/3rds of the cost of an MP-500 in the UK.

Thanks DeepEnd, you have given me more to research. I don't even know what Paratrace is.

I am really going to enjoy being on this forum. I don't really know to many audiophiles, so it's difficult to talk to people about music. Just yesterday I found a nm original us pressing of Dark Side of the Moon, with post cards and poster. I only gave 50 dollars for it. Most may think I'm foolish, but not you guys.

DSOTM may be the only album I have worn out, and had to replace.
FYI the ESCo referred to is Expert Stylus Co, in the UK. I have only heard good things about them.AFAIK they do not deal on the internet, so you have to phone or snail-mail them. Paratrace is their extended contact stylus.
A quick search shows the 201 cartridge being sold for around $200 US.

Cheers,
Alec

If you want to know more about stylus shapes from the humble conical to the radical then try this post (will keep you going for a while) but basically styli started with conical (spherical) types and then ellipticals were the developed to increase frequency response and lower distortion nearer to the centre of the record (the so called "pinch" effect).

Following the work of Mr Shibata at JVC in trying to increase the frequency response all the way up to about 40kHz (needed for early 4 channel systems) without problems with wear or groove damage that very small ellipticals gave resulted in the "Shibata" cut of styli which had a small radii in one direction and a much larger radius in the other.

After this stylus was found to also improve the performance on stereo too a whole host of "line contact shapes" were developed to improve performance (and avoid patent/royalty costs?) and the Paratrace by the Expert Stylus Company Ltd (ESCo) was one of these. The post gives lots more info on types and dates.

I am a happy 201 owner and also looking to upgrade if possible. It would be nice if someone who have heard the SAS Jico tip on the Shelter would comment. Original replacement styli are easily available but the wisdom of the Internet claims it could be so much better with the SAS Jico.

BR
Henrik

HMT05 wrote:I am a happy 201 owner and also looking to upgrade if possible. It would be nice if someone who have heard the SAS Jico tip on the Shelter would comment. Original replacement styli are easily available but the wisdom of the Internet claims it could be so much better with the SAS Jico.

BR
Henrik

I really love my 201 also. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy an sas stylus.

DeepEnd wrote: ↑

19 Feb 2018 14:01

I always thought that the Shelter 201 had a better stylus than the Sumiko variants and I still see a few replacement stylus for the 201 at some silly cost.

According to Shelter, the 201 has a .3x.7mil elliptical diamond. According to Sumiko, the Pearl has a .2x.8mil elliptical diamond. In theory that makes the Sumiko diamond better than the Shelter diamond.

Last year, a friend of mine broke the stylus on his Shelter 201. Not wanting to pay those silly costs you mentioned, I helped him buy and install a Sumiko Pearl stylus. I'm happy to report that it's a 100% perfect fit and my friend says it sounds better and tracks better than the original 201 stylus ever did.