Deep Grooves Mastering now selling Diamonds!!!

[opcode66]

Yes, i reply genuinely. You laugh at me. Seems about right. When there is no substance to a position people usually resort to that sort of thing. You've followed suit brilliantly.

I would be happy to send one of my diamonds for free to a neutral 3rd party not located in Europe for comparison to yours. Do you have enough faith in your product to do that? I do.

[The Shank]

When there is no substance to a position people usually resort to that sort of thing.

Not always... Sometimes theres is so much substance that I don't have time to waste, sorry. I don't laugh at you, I don't know you, I laugh about what you say. I never laugh about people, except my close friends.

I wish you good luck with your diamonds from the moon polished by the N.A.S.A. supervised by the freemasons.

[opcode66]

Well, you are partially correct. I am a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Freemason. Capital F please.

Your lack of willingness to have our two product properly inspected by a 3rd party confirms my comments regarding quality and longevity. Mine are simply better. I'm willing to prove it. You are not.

[flozki]

we all like the best diamond stylus for cheapest price.

i f i can get better and cheaper one, i would buy another product... as i can understand in this
more or less "imperialistic" (sorry for that expression.haha) posting,
the USA stylus is the best of the best. And all the rest must be the same crap.

which seems to be an indication that some people might not know the market very well.
so i try to give a small hopefully neutral overview of all the existing diamond stylii and my experience.because i tested all except the one from opcode666...

so we have in order of historical appearance:

1. souri stylus.
very solid nice one stone diamond. made in switzerland by the leader of eye surgery diamond knifes (at least until 2-3 years ago, so he might have another source now). anyway he had exclusive rights and the producer did not want to produce for other customers. so we even can publish the companys name. but in respect to him i dont do and i am not sure if he still produces there.
quality is great. he has maybe most experience and the most number of stylii sold.
liftime is 10-20 hours. we once did cutting sessions in parallel with a souri cutter and my old presto lathe with sc99 and i think it was around 12-14hours average on 4 stylii
the only downside as usual:
he only sells to his brave followers.... so not an option for 90% of all users.


1. vinylium stylus.
i was mainly involved in developing this solution around 2000-2001. so i know those details.
because of souris exclusive rights vinylium had to go to another company (which is in close contact to the one souri produced) and therefore they kind of rejected to produce full diamond product. also for cut cost reason they came up with another technology.
if produced in larger series (which sadly never happend) this would be the technology to produce a low cost stylus...
a titanium bar with a soldered diamond tip. this solution needs a fraction of a full diamond stone and it can be handled better and shaped. the technology also asks for a bent titanium. so if you watch a vinylium diamond close it always looks kind of bent.
the big advantage would be a very easy change of cutting stylus. with the solid diamond you can not great change that angle.
so we did tests with angles -3 up to +3 . always small series of 5 or 10 and then tested it out.
also main focus was the vinylium dubplatecutter. one angle was choosen as best. cant remember which one.
there are people out with fantastic results. i personally used that stylus for long time in my disk-o-mat and on my vms82 with sx74 for lexan cuts. if you had a good stylus they hold for 20hours no problem. (without heating plate or stylus..which increases life time. but for m it was always too complicate and time consuming to heat that stuff)
the weak point is the soldering joint between diamond and titanium.
this company has big experience in this technology for other diamnod tools... as all the other companys they do 99% of other knd of diamond tools. where the expectation in quality of industry is quite big...so all those companys are not a one man show. they have great equipment and knowledge......
but anyway if you drop the head too fast or cut too deep it can break fast. and most users are not very skilled cutter when buying the fist one ortwo diamonds. also the lathes are mostly not neumanns with propper dashpot..
so you have to knwo what you are doing. this was the main reason vinylium never propagated this stylus a lot. too fragile. too many problems with unskilled users. it was just a strong request from users that vinylium started to sell.
also i had the impression that the last series had a problem with the soldering. not sure if this is true.
and i think they not gonna do another series. this is pure speculation. so in short: they are good sometimes it was a bad one. but 80-90% it was an operators error that broke that stylus.
another downside: you can not resharpen. if damaged. mostly the tip is distroyed. and is just the titanium left.

3. the shank stylus.
steven correct me if i am wrong. i only had one stylus. and i know a few cuts.
i dont know where it is produced. but its quite similar to the souri stylus.
very good very long lasting. available for everyone.

4. the vinylike stylus
( a joint venture between ameise and flozki)
in search of another source of a full diamond solution we did a development with Indimant.
Indimant is germanys lead in cutting tools for cooper roll engraving (for high quality printing).
So they have also like 60 years of experience in those stylii. the stylus for cooper roll engraving is almost similar to
DMM cutting. so they know what they do. We have exclusive deal with indimant and so we can communicate the real producer.
And we always get forwarded the requests from other people try to produce their stylii there... for example souri tried to get stylii from them. hehe. but they tell everybody to contact vinylike .
Also if we can raise the series we can drop price. but with the numbers we do we can not make cheaper... we really like but can not.
also this is not big business for us. more a service for us.
quality is equal to souri and the shank. i guess quality control is quite good and can even improved if we know what to look for.
if it comes to geometry we still have potential to make it more robust.
but one of the leading cutting rooms for polycarbonate blanks had a 70 hours running time with such a stylus.
i now use them all the time in the disk-o-mat and i cut easy 200 side under very difficult circumstances. (no heating, lot of mechanical vibrations. bumps, drops, unreliable chip removal,automated not very soft dropping) and they cut and cut and cut.
i also had out of 10 maybe 1-2 which did not had same performance. so this will be improved with our experience.

also i can say that the vinylike diamonds are the only one who uses the official 1:20 cone.
i have a batch of original neumann cones. prouced for neumann which they delivered to the stylii manufacturer to insure they dont destroy the cutterhead. there was an issue in the 70-80ies that one of the stylii producer wanted to safe money and did their own made in USA cones. so the cone was not right and neumann received a lot of repairs because of damaged cones in the sx68/74.
i will find that paper and publish once.....


5. opcode's stylus.
as he reported must be the best and all others are crap. no info about the producer.
i never had one and if i find time i would love to order and test it no question.
but i even have never seen a picture.
and never tested so can not tell anything and all the information you find directly from him.


resumé:
This is the market situation. i hope it clears up a little.
but in short: all the non USA stylii are definitely made by professional companys. all from different ones.
they use same technology in very delicate applications like eye surgery and industrial manufacturing.
so they can not afford to produce crap. and it would be strange that 4 different companys produce all the same crap.
so reason for faillure must be searched somewhere else.

a diamond is very easy to break.
90% its the users fault.
10% its a bad stylus from the beginning. all of them except vinylium stylii can be resharpened if they are noisy.
to find the criterias why one is good or bad is still on search and sure it has to do with cristal structure angle.
its a price question if you can clearly detect it and its still improvment in that.
also geometry can be optimised to make them more solid.

but more important is the cutting angle. and i have very bid questions about knowing, adjusting the exact angle
on most of the lathes used in this forum.
so a difference of only 2-3 degree can put your diamond into bad cutting condition and it will last only a friction of time.
also steven , the shank showed how important the heating is for increased life-time.
i did not believed for long time. but it seems still to make big difference. for me its just too complicate.
static issues is not a problem unless you cut laquer (but i dont see a reason to cut laquer with diamond)

also i or somone else hopefully can publish once pictures of the different stylii. nicely shot under a microscope.
that would be a great thing.

about price. i would love to see them dropping and therefore competition is nice. also for raising quality.
but i guess with the small amount of series it would never drop to half the price right now.
but we still can dream...

[The Shank]

3. the shank stylus.
steven correct me if i am wrong. i only had one stylus. and i know a few cuts.
i dont know where it is produced. but its quite similar to the souri stylus.
very good very long lasting. available for everyone.

We invested in grinding & polishing material (and very talented guys!) 6 years ago now

We made same stylus for different cutting head : Vinylrecorder, SX74/Vinylium, Grampian, Westrex, Fairchild, Vestax...
And actually developping an other new stylus for PVC (but not only).

But anyway Flo, Opcode666 is... the best

[opcode66]

My handle is Opcode66. Not Opcode666. That would be absurd. Original Operational Codes were just one byte.... I don't address you by anything other than your handle.

I will be cutting plastic this weekend. I can certainly take some pictures. And rip the results. My camera lens on my phone is scratched. So, pictures will include the same annoying imperfection. But, it seems pictures are in order.

I contracted a professional company as well (duh). I wouldn't have done anything less. They produce tools used for scientific research. Research labs and universities worldwide contract them for diamond tools used in electron microscope work. So, I would say, they also know what they are doing... The level of precision necessary for this type of work far exceeds that required for cutting records. They were the perfect choice.

Mine come with heating wires as well. Mine come in exact clones of the Neumann 320 shank. 1:20 taper. No issues. I also have long shank prestos in production now.

Static is always an issue when cutting plastic. The more you cut in a day, the worse the issue. I'm developing a stylus that can actually discharge the static that would otherwise build up on the tip.

As far as price is concerned, mine are less. Mostly because I'm not trying to profit by this venture. I wanted a good tool for cutting plastic. Better than what I had seen in the market to that point. Producing a volume of them and selling what I don't use seemed to make sense.

Overseas providers charge up to $350 for one diamond. And, shipping time is a month or longer. For those cutters in the USA, I can provide a diamond (shipping included) for $285. Shipping time of 5 business days or less. Regrinds are offered at $180. I will only regrind a diamond sourced from me. That way we know the original grinds were made with the proper orientation to the facets of the stone. Overseas shipping is not much more. I've had an oversees customer receive a tool in a couple of weeks.

[opcode66]

as i can understand in this
more or less "imperialistic" (sorry for that expression.haha) posting,
the USA stylus is the best of the best. And all the rest must be the same crap.

Wanna talk about imperialism? Flo, you are the epitome of imperialism. Its true. I have never said your stylus was crap. You are the only person saying that. Saying that mine are better in no way connotes that yours are "crap". I have said that they are a crapshoot in a PM to The Shank which you obviously got copied on. If you are unfamiliar with the term, let me explain. It means they are a gamble.

We have exclusive deal with indimant and so we can communicate the real producer.
And we always get forwarded the requests from other people try to produce their stylii there... for example souri tried to get stylii from them. hehe. but they tell everybody to contact vinylike .

To be perfectly clear. I have never and will never contact Indimant. If I thought that there was potential to do better, why would I contact your provider? I only contacted companies located in the USA that do their own grinding and laser sawing.

5. opcode's stylus.
as he reported must be the best and all others are crap. no info about the producer.
i never had one and if i find time i would love to order and test it no question.
but i even have never seen a picture.
and never tested so can not tell anything and all the information you find directly from him.

Never said all others must be crap. Please show me where I said this. If not, then please retract.

but more important is the cutting angle. and i have very bid questions about knowing, adjusting the exact angle
on most of the lathes used in this forum.

A lot has been discussed on this topic. I've never once seen someone post something saying definitively that X degrees is the perfect angle for some cutterhead/suspension. Seems to be a rather elusive figure...

[flozki]

well the word crap is coming from my side...
it is my interpretation.
apparently european diamonds seem to break after 5 cuts.
as a reader of this forum one must get that impression of all those other diamonds if he reads your annoucment.
but i am not sure how scientific this expereience is. and if you come with your own product which seems to be way better i dont think you need to put all the rest in one pot without knowing...
i can accept this if you do real reearch on it.e.g. study the quality of the products. tests of series of 5-10 of each(which is almost impossible) and then get clear answers why they are so bad. would be a great job, which no one can afford or want to spend the time&money...

and already the lower price is quite a powerfull argument.everybody is happy.so no reason to tell stuff about products you dont really know. quality always wins. thats best argument. be proud of your diamond.
if the product is that better we all swap. thats how it works..

cutting angle is very important and i think that noone knows the perfect answer yet.
there is reason why an sx84 has not the 15 degree cutting angle as an sx74.
it will be for sure not the best cutting angle to use an sx74 on polycarbonate with a diamond.
so there we know almost nothing yet.

anyway. my overview of diamonds wants just to make clear that all the solutions on the market coming from professional diamond manufacturers who know their business. and the main reason they break is most of the time not not the product itself, its how the product is used.
diamond is super fragile.especially with that edges. thats a fact. and it shoud be said again and again that cutting with diamonds is still somehow tricky.

[The Shank]

The Shank which you obviously got copied on.

WRONG!

Please stop talking about thing you don't know, please stop, it becomes really ridiculous. I even sent pictures to Flo of stylus I had before he did some.

You are arguing with supposition. Thats's a fact.

So now, before creating legend, please ask.

And, they won't break after 5 cuts!!!

I have never said your stylus was crap. You are the only person saying that

Choice 1 : Vinylium
Choice 2 : Vinylike (removed because already answered)
Choice 3 : MyShank

My stylus are crap?

[The Shank]

Well, just looked over the papers... Your name are not on our list.

[d]

Hi to all

this is really sad to see this picture here.

The discussion is very interesting to many of us, but not the fight. about diamonds. There should be no personal fights. I think they should be personal and not to all of us.

Anyway, Flo is trying to be clear and he is not a person who is trying to blame on someone. Trying to put his honest words other way is childish. Many of us can read and write in english but sometimes english is not the first language we use everyday. We should be nice to each other.

I am really interested what is going on about diamonds. what to use or how to use them. It is very nice to hear that there are more sources to get them from. I think we should be optimistic about it. If there were any bad luck with using diamond, then we should go futher and not stand in one place with fights.

cheers

[The Shank]

Hi to all

this is really sad to see this picture here.

The discussion is very interesting to many of us, but not the fight. about diamonds. There should be no personal fights. I think they should be personal and not to all of us.

Anyway, Flo is trying to be clear and he is not a person who is trying to blame on someone. Trying to put his honest words other way is childish. Many of us can read and write in english but sometimes english is not the first language we use everyday. We should be nice to each other.

I am really interested what is going on about diamonds. what to use or how to use them. It is very nice to hear that there are more sources to get them from. I think we should be optimistic about it. If there were any bad luck with using diamond, then we should go futher and not stand in one place with fights.

cheers

You are definetly right.

But should we let a guy saying on a public forum without any argument that our product/work is crap?

I'm sorry, but this is inadmissible to do is own publicity by disparaging the work of others. Respect start by this way. I respect the work of EVERYBODY here. Some of you asked me in privat about diamond
cutting technics. Even if they are unknow people form MyShank, the exchange of knowledge should be a priority. I don't care if so and so cut with the lathe from "Mr X" on blank from "Mr Y" with stylus from "Mr Z", by the way, who cares?
No one can't claim to revolutionize anything in this cutting game. Everything is already here since more than 40 years... You just adapt old technology with high-technology, nothing else...

Peace

[d]

Sometimes people say stupid things. If there is something that we should all know then it is OK. The only thing that it have to be very heavy information and it should be confirmed by any means if someone wants to say on someone or someone's work. This is logical position of my point of view.

Most people here with whom i talked to are very nice and good people. I just hope that we should stay here and not try to find any reason for fighting.

There are not much people in the world that are giving their time, life, brain for what they do.

[studiorp]

Wonderful "verbal war " among diamond producers, interesting...
More interesting are the experiments about synthetic stones, which point are you Opcode66 ?

[emidisc]

I am in total agreement that this is a very sad state of affairs
It does not give me any confidence to purchase a diamond stylus from anyone,
to be honest all it does is "muddy the water"
I honestly feel people are shooting themselves in the foot.

A few suggestions before this gets out of hand
1) lock this thread
2) people promoting their own services or products do not make reference to other forum members products.
3) any comparisons made on products by members who have a similar product to sell should be subjective and fair unless independently verified.

And there ends the sermon.......

Rev emi disc

[flozki]

this is how it goes on forums.
there is alot written between the lines.
but in the end each one can make his own conclusion.

a little bit more distance and humor is maybe needed.

emidisk. the goal of my post is to give you more confidence
all of the stylii are professionally made. thats very good news!
from my point of view and the experience i have from 4 out of 5 products
they are all close in performance.
but it would be great to hear the real experts.
i think there must be some souri cutters and other polycarbonate cutters
on the forum who can tell us more about their experience.

[andybee]

thanks for all the infos, flo etc., yes some users should calm down!
and yes, some fun would be nice!

I recommend again, to listen to one of my fav 12inches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMRTZVK7oh4

[emidisc]

Nice tune but my wife hates it when a 12" only lasts 3 and a half mins may as we'll give her 7" twice

[opcode66]

I think there is a lot of unfair characterization going on here. I never said on this public forum that anyone's diamonds were crap. I will again ask for anyone to point me to a post where I said this. These are words being put in my mouth by someone else who everyone champions. Please use the search feature of the site for the word "crap" and me opcode66 as the poster. No results re: diamonds. So, all of that rhetoric is completely without basis.

I did state, and this is fact, that I've had diamonds fail after only a small number of cuts. I am not alone in this experience. You can search the site for a number of comments from other users regarding this very topic. Why do you think some others are so quick to site "user error" here. Because, they've had a number of complaints and have created a blanket statement answer of "user error". Not very responsible. Do these suppliers include any instructions? Pictures? Recommendations? List of things to avoid? How about anything? The answer is no.

I have posted a lot of useful information regarding cutting plastic. A whole thread in fact. These folks don't post practical information regarding the plastic cutting process. Which makes me wonder how much cutting they actually do. Questions like "why would anyone want to cut lacquer with a diamond" beg this line of reasoning. Because if you are professionally cutting both you realize that changing out your stylus day after day in order to cut both lacquer and plastic in the same day is a distinct pain. It would be handy to have one stylus to do both. But, if you don't really cut, you don't know that. And, if you don't really cut, how do you really know your product (or any other for that matter)?

I include instructions and recommendations with my product. The only thing I can really be accused of is having a zeal and enthusiasm for my own projects. Guilty! I can have the opinion that mine are better and can say that publicly. It is allowed. It is my opinion, and is not stated as otherwise. If others are taking this too much to heart, there might be an underlying reason that goes beyond what I'm actually saying (not the words others are filling in for me).

I will be posting soon pictures, video, and audio samples. Finally, there are ways to innovate, even today. There is always a way to innovate. To think otherwise is very limiting. An innovation is imminent from DGM.

I have sourced diamonds from all the above providers directly or indirectly (via a 3rd party). I've also sourced Souri's diamonds (both new and used) though I'm not a user of his system. Seemingly, anything is possible with the right amount of money these days.

[uvoscillator]

Ready to try it ! How to place order ? Already e-mailed with no reply !