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I don't pretend to understand all of this stuff...

Posted by EdAInWestOC (A) on May 3, 2012 at 13:03:42

In Reply to: RE: I did a bunch of reading on the subject... posted by dancingseamonkey on May 3, 2012 at 12:10:30:

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
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof

Edits: 05/03/12

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