HI All,
When I had my repair shop I used a stylus microscope purpose designed for the job. It was a Swift laboratory microscope which was modified and marketed by Shure. It was 200 power. It’s no longer offered but I have talked to the engineer at Shure who designed it in the early ‘60’s. I was looking for a used one. He did not have any leads but was really enthusiastic about the microscope as a diagnostic tool. I finally found one, no longer being used, at a high end hi fi store. They were happy to find a silly person willing to take it off their hands.
I have used, I think, every consumer grade "stylus magnifier" available in hi fi shops. They are useless. You need much more magnification. To determine stylus wear, your ears are a much better guide if you know what to listen for. Most vinyl junkies know exactly what stylus wear sounds like.
The Shure microscope was a serious and expensive instrument. It was set up with a special lighting fixture that provided light at just the right angle to view the wear facets on the tip. In order to hold the cartridge at exactly the right angle and to position the stylus exactly in the field of view, it had a precision micro adjustment stage. The stage was equipped with a generic cartridge holder. The single eye piece provided a zoom feature. For set-up you would zoom to a low magnification, center the stylus, then zoom to 200X to check wear. It took a bit of practice.
I checked every stylus that came into my shop. After a little experience, you could visually determine the life remaining and if the wear was damaging records. The facets appeared as bright spots on the inside and outside edges of the stylus. The larger the spots the more wear.
The first time someone viewed through the microscope, they could not tell what they were looking at. At 200X the stylus shape itself is not visible. It's much, much too big. Only the wear facets are important.
What I found most interesting was the symmetry of the wear spots. ALL styli used on ANY pivoted tone arm, even the best, had non-symmetrical wear meaning one spot was obviously larger than the other. And the largest spot was always on the inside edge of the stylus. OTH, the wear spots on ALL straight line tracking arms were symmetrical meaning they were the same size. It was a dramatic visual indication of the presence of skating force on pivoting arms and the lack of skating force on straight line tracking arms. Pretty neat.
This is the only visual device that I found that was even remotely useful for checking stylus wear. Thed, save your money for a Shure if you can find one.
Sparky
When I had my repair shop I used a stylus microscope purpose designed for the job. It was a Swift laboratory microscope which was modified and marketed by Shure. It was 200 power. It’s no longer offered but I have talked to the engineer at Shure who designed it in the early ‘60’s. I was looking for a used one. He did not have any leads but was really enthusiastic about the microscope as a diagnostic tool. I finally found one, no longer being used, at a high end hi fi store. They were happy to find a silly person willing to take it off their hands.
I have used, I think, every consumer grade "stylus magnifier" available in hi fi shops. They are useless. You need much more magnification. To determine stylus wear, your ears are a much better guide if you know what to listen for. Most vinyl junkies know exactly what stylus wear sounds like.
The Shure microscope was a serious and expensive instrument. It was set up with a special lighting fixture that provided light at just the right angle to view the wear facets on the tip. In order to hold the cartridge at exactly the right angle and to position the stylus exactly in the field of view, it had a precision micro adjustment stage. The stage was equipped with a generic cartridge holder. The single eye piece provided a zoom feature. For set-up you would zoom to a low magnification, center the stylus, then zoom to 200X to check wear. It took a bit of practice.
I checked every stylus that came into my shop. After a little experience, you could visually determine the life remaining and if the wear was damaging records. The facets appeared as bright spots on the inside and outside edges of the stylus. The larger the spots the more wear.
The first time someone viewed through the microscope, they could not tell what they were looking at. At 200X the stylus shape itself is not visible. It's much, much too big. Only the wear facets are important.
What I found most interesting was the symmetry of the wear spots. ALL styli used on ANY pivoted tone arm, even the best, had non-symmetrical wear meaning one spot was obviously larger than the other. And the largest spot was always on the inside edge of the stylus. OTH, the wear spots on ALL straight line tracking arms were symmetrical meaning they were the same size. It was a dramatic visual indication of the presence of skating force on pivoting arms and the lack of skating force on straight line tracking arms. Pretty neat.
This is the only visual device that I found that was even remotely useful for checking stylus wear. Thed, save your money for a Shure if you can find one.
Sparky
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