Hi Everyone,
Seth here (foreign guy at JICO). This is a great thread and I'd like to thank everyone for sharing their experiences and opinions. For the record, the opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of JICO. I'll be as honest as I can, though I may not be able to address all concerns. Now that I've got the disclaimer out of the way...
(TL/DR: I am well aware of the many issues regarding JICO's website as well as the general lack of reliable information regarding replacement styli. Please PM or, better yet, send an inquiry through JICO's website if you have specific suggestions for what we can do better.)
Regarding JICO's website: The first time I saw it, I thought "Oh, this is not bad. Looks fairly well organised, usable, etc." (These were my thoughts in comparison to the average Japanese language website, which is about 20 years out of date.) Fast forward a few years and, well...even if it is only 10 years out of date, it is still rapidly aging.
The OP makes an excellent point about the information (or lack thereof) for each stylus. This is a point I have expressed repeatedly to the management. Unfortunately the amount of work that needs to be done in order to do this is a massive undertaking. A lot of cataloging and re-confirming on the back end and on the front end, basically an entire re-design of the website from the ground up.
Every chance I get I try to impress upon the management the need for better organisation, easier access to information, cross referencing, improved UX, modern GUI integrated for desktop and mobile platforms, etc. Essentially more efficient methods of serving our customers. I hope that my constant nagging will eventually bump some of these issues to the top of the priority list.
That about sums up the situation with JICO's web shop. If I were an unbiased customer looking to buy a stylus online, unless it was something special (like the SAS or maybe a Shibata or Hyper-elliptical) I would probably look elsewhere.
As far as I know, I can confirm that VividLine are not manufactured by JICO.
Additionally:
-All JICO elliptical tips are 0.3 x 0.7 mil
-All JICO conical tips are 0.6 mil
-Shibata tips should conform to one of the two Shibata patents, as far as tip radius dimensions and cuts/angles
-Hyper-elliptical tip dimensions vary by model. AFAIK, we try to match or approximate the dimensions of the original.
(There may be some instances where this is not the case.)
-All JICO styli, except the SAS, are bonded.
As I understand, this means the diamond tip is mounted on a substrate which is then inserted through the aluminum cantilever and then secured with adhesive. Some have speculated that the SAS is bonded because of the (very evident) use of adhesive/solder/bonding agent surrounding the tip. My understanding is that the SAS is nude mounted, meaning the diamond tip and/or cantilever are abraded and then the tip is bonded directly to the cantilever with adhesive. The additional material surrounding the tip is (and this is only my assumption) necessary to further support the tip and prevent torquing so that the facets of the diamond remain in proper orientation. Please feel free to challenge this assumption if anyone has other/more reliable information.
I cannot speculate on the quality of diamonds. As for quality control, I can say the every stylus ordered directly from JICO's web shop is individually inspected and tested before they are shipped. When they leave the factory, they should absolutely meet JICO specification. (Which is ostensibly why they are not offered under warranty. That's a whole other conversation though.) Manufacturers supplying bulk orders to wholesale customers cannot meet the same level of individual testing and inspection.
The other issue here is how these products are distributed, marketed, and packaged. There is a lot of speculation as to which brands or retailers are selling styli produced by which manufactures. There are 3 manufacturers of replacement stylus (that I know of) in Japan which distribute their products as "generic".
These products change hands several times before they reach the consumer. In the process, there is no universal method employed to track a particular item's provenance. Some distributors may source more or less identical parts from multiple manufacturers and group them under a single item/product number. Others may source only a particular model number from a particular manufacturer, or they may have multiple sources but maintain separate product numbers. I do not have enough solid information to back this up, so take that for what it's worth.
Either way, the product number may change from manufacturer to wholesaler to jobber to retailer. Or it may only change at one stage in the supply chain. Even if the product number is changed only from manufacturer to wholesaler and maintained down the line, every reseller after the wholesaler does not necessarily know the manufacturer of the product or their information may be muddled, obscured, or otherwise corrupted. It's a sort of telephone game, one that I personally find extremely irritating.
For example, a retailer who gets model X from a wholesaler may get products from Manufacturer A and B, but only have information from the wholesaler that model X is made by manufacturer A. Therefor they mistakenly market model X as manufactured by company A, not realizing the same model is also produced by B.
This isn't to say that rebranded "generic" styli are not good quality. Some are, others maybe not, as many people have experienced. Nor is this to say that particular brands or resellers are unreliable. The problem is simply that people do not know what exactly they are being sold. That information is either intentionally obfuscated or assumptions are made about provenance down the supply chain which are not necessarily accurate. Perhaps it used to be that the majority of end users did not care about the details. It seems that more and more, the end user requires a level of transparency that the industry is slow to adopt.
The other side of the problem, for JICO, is that among both resellers and end users, the lack of transparency and information causes confusion as to whether JICO is a brand of replacement stylus (it is) or a manufacturer of "generic" parts for private label wholesalers. So people equate styli reputedly "made by JICO" to be the same as JICO branded products. Nippon Precision Jewel Industry is the manufacturer, JICO is the brand, and anything sold as "JICO" that is not labeled as such on the package should be regarded with caution.
Mr. Jones: What information/specifications would you like to see listed for JICO's products? What suggestions do you have for a better web shopping experience? Feel free to cite examples if that would help.
Killer Fox: Any advice or help you might be willing to offer in your expertise as a web designer would be appreciated. I can't promise anything, but it is always helpful to have the voice of our customers to back up my opinions when appealing to the management to make changes.
bjlefebvre, boreas, and all the other posters: thanks again for your kind words, constructive criticism, insights and opinions. Any time you have questions, please feel free to ask. I sincerely appreciate any feedback I can get.
Sorry for the long rant...I really need to do more outreach and post on AK more often.
You would think that listing it would actually save them the trouble of having to answer a bunch of emails. They make sure to post positive reviews of their products right where you can see them, though.
