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I want to buy a usb microscope to inspect my stylus and they seem to be all over the place in price. I probably won't be using it for any other purpose. What is your best recommendation?
"To Do Is To Be" Socrates
"To Be Is To Do" Plato
"Do Be Do Be Do" Sinatra
Follow Ups:
Listen! The first sign of a worn stylus is end-of-record distortion. While this could be an alignment problem, you will find that alignment won't solve it if is a worn stylus. One warning however, some records have end distortion due to prior damage. Check this by listening to a record you know used to sound fine.
For checking a stylus for crud, a hand held microscope from Radio Shack works just fine.
Enjoy!
Jim E
A USB Microscope would be useless for your stated purpose. See the link below for my recent post on the matter.
Dave
Thanks Dave. Maybe I should just send it to Sound Smith for evaluation.
"To Do Is To Be" Socrates
"To Be Is To Do" Plato
"Do Be Do Be Do" Sinatra
And from the stuff I read its not only a microscope that can really do 400x but you also need the correct type of lighting to see the facets of the diamond correctly.
The problem is that you need to see very small surfaces and that requires very good lighting. I forgot what the type of lighting is called (dark field or something like that???) but for reliable evaluation it requires lighting from underneath the stylus and some sort of enclosure around the thing to eliminate external lighting...IIRC.
That way you may illuminate the stone's surfaces properly and see the current state of wear. I believe the old Shure microscope that was found in some dealer service centers had all of this stuff. Finding one of those is difficult and probably expensive since it uses high quality optics made from ground glass.
I like a good old fashioned microscope,
Ed
We don't shush around here!
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof
I can se by reading your post and the one above yours that it is much more involved than I thought. I talked to a guy that sells microscopes and he said I needed a stereo microscope to evaluate it properly. Do you get good results from your regular microscope? How do you illuminate the gem?
"To Do Is To Be" Socrates
"To Be Is To Do" Plato
"Do Be Do Be Do" Sinatra
I have enough trouble keeping up with what I get paid to do. This is just a hobby and if it takes over a certain amount of effort I figure that's why there are other people in the business.I never bought anything. Each time I found something that looked like it was what I wanted, more reading led me to question what I was getting.
One thing was for certain, if you want to have a high quality microscope that is capable of high resolution photos of the stylus in order to evaluate wear patterns it will not be cheap.
You can get less expensive things that can give you an idea of what sort of condition the stylus is in but being able to magnify something as small as a stylus to a high resolution image and being able to direct a light source at the facets of that stylus is not as simple as we would all like.
Lower priced stuff is capable of OK photos of the stylus but if you want something that can show the beginnings of wear on one of the facets of a stylus...thats another animal.
It depends on what you want. If you want to be able to see that minute wear on a surface of the stylus and be able to track that wear it takes something with pretty high resolution. I'm not talking about a photo of the stylus where it is something in the middle of the photo. I'm talking about a photo of one of the facets of the stylus.
And what does a bit of wear on the facets of a stylus really indicate? The only way to tell that is to do the imaging and then spin a test LP to see how the wear relates to performance with the test LP. Seeing wear is not necessarily the end of the world.
Those cheaper USB microscopes are OK for go/no go type photos but by the time you can see the wear with a lot of those things it is already too late. Personally I think its cheaper to use a test LP and track the performance of your cartridge using that.
Once your cartridge reaches a certain point in performance its time to replace the stylus. IMO, thats a lot cheaper and a more direct route than a microscope. Its nice to be able to relate that to what it looks like but its how it tracks thats important. Of course a microscope is cool. And you could have your heart set on one.
I'd like one of those really expensive things that can zoom in on one of the facets of the stylus. So I can see something that small.
I want a lot of stuff,
Ed
We don't shush around here!
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof
Edits: 05/03/12
Thanks Ed. A test record sounds like the ticket, no pun intended, since bad tracking is what raised this question in the first place. On the other hand a microscope is pretty cool to have around.
"To Do Is To Be" Socrates
"To Be Is To Do" Plato
"Do Be Do Be Do" Sinatra
Would be cool. If we had a microscope capable of that resolution then it would be an exercise of running the tests with the test LP, recording the results and saving photos of the stylus with each side of the stylus saved.
All of that would only be relevant for the stylus type you have but the knowledge would be a cool thing to have. I suppose that would be applicable to your stylus type on your cartridge and mounted on your tonearm.
Different stylii in different cartridges mounted on different tonearms would be effected to a greater or lesser extent depending on the combination of gear. A lightly worn stylus on poor gear may exhibit its mistracking sooner than the same stylus on gear that can better deal with less than ideal situations.
As long as the stylus in question can track properly all is well. Figuring what type of wear causes mistracking sooner/later would therefore be a little tricky but the data would be relevant to your specific setup.
That would at least suggest what to look for as far as stylus wear is concerned on any setup. Guidlines only, no hard and fast rules I suppose. Like all things in this goofy hobby every time we think we understand any particular issue we find out how little we actually know.
I'm sure there are people out there that used to check out stylii using that Shure microscope years ago when vinyl was king. Those that had a great deal of experience in this would be very interesting to talk to. I would like to hear a description as to what to check for on different stylus types and the degree of wear that was considered a warning.
Ed
We don't shush around here!
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof
A stereoscope doesn't really make the stylus any easier to see, per se.It's just makes it easier to understand what you're seeing.
Once a person understands what they're looking at, mono microscope is just fine.
I use just a plain high intensity goose-neck light. I rotate the cartridge until the light is reflecting off the flat. Then I rotate the cartridge 180 degrees to look at the other side.
It's not all that hard once you get the hang of it.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 05/03/12 05/03/12
I found a pretty nice (in photos) binocular microscope with stage lighting and a built-in USB microscope camera, for sale on eBay for under $200. I hesitated to pull the trigger, because the magnification is "only" 80X (and also it seems too cheap to be good). However, I think 80X might be just sufficient for our needs. Any comments on how much magnification is needed to examine a stylus, at least grossly?
My old Olympus Elgeet mono microscope (similar to the one shown) is 100X and it's fine. 200X would be nice but not necessary.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
nt
I bought one on eBay for $34.00 from a Hong Kong seller. It has shipped (day after I bought it) and should arrive at my home by Saturday. I'll let you know what I think. I bought mine to set SRA, not necessarily check wear.
But I had to ask myself if I really knew what I would be looking for, regarding stylus wear. I decided that I didn't.
I just got back from the post office, mailing a "low hours" used cartridge I had purchased, off to SoundSmith. For $75, they'll inspect it and let me know if it is truly low hours, or ready to destroy my LP's. That's not cheap, but, on the other hand, it's inexpensive peace of mind. I'd rather someone who looks at ten of these a day judge it, rather than me guessing.
My 2¢
Well, I got one last weekend just to look at my stylus and took the photos you can see 6 posts below regarding my Koetsu. I got the Veho VMS-004D microscope, which allegedly has a range up to 400x. Its simple to use, worked first time out of the box, and cost £39 in the UK (about $60US). Its really simple to use if a bit fiddly to hold still but it worked for me. It also can take photos and videos which are good enough. I like it and would recommend it
John
go on ebay and do a search, there are a number of them, probably made all in the same place, that's where I got mine and it works fine.
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