The stylus is average quality. I suppose if you want to pay a lot more you could pick up a better stylus. Overall I have had pretty decent results. Early on, I noticed a lot of distortion, caused by too high of input levels. The manual is a little unclear, leading the reader to assume it is only applicable when using the analog RCA output to a standard receiver, but I experimented and found that by default the unit ships with the gain at full... turn it down and it should solve the distortion caused by the volume level being too high. The other difficulty I have has is occasional skips on the record which only seem to occur for me when playing a disc with a strong kick bass, especially on 12' singles which have louder volumes as a rule. It might be as simple as adjusting the balance on the tonearm. Finally, I haven't yet been able to successfully get a tape to digitize via the 1/8' stereo input jack yet... it comes out mono and very low volume. However, again I will experiment as I did with the gain before concluding that it is the fault of the Ion -- might be me. Overall, a decent product. If you want better quality, you will pay for it.