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Loupes for stylus inspection etc

Think I am tempted, especially as I can get close to the stylus. the arm can be carefully lifted off its pivot and placed on the platter and inspected from there.

Bloss
 
Yay - my original Asaka OK, and sounding very nice on my PL-51 with RB250, especially compared to the 2M Red on there before - strangely I first listened to a charity shop WYWH title track first - was really impressed listening to it yesterday with the Ortofon, and not that impressed upon first listen with the Asaka in comparison. I then put a Joan Armatrading album on I also got and listened to yesterday, much better!
 
Dowser said:
Many thanks Tony - just ordered a 10x, but off eBay with free shipping here.
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Thank you for the link. Out of curiosity, did this item also got delivered to you by Amazon? I ordered on ebay from a third party seller, and received the item from amazon.co.uk, which took me by surprise.
 
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I’ve been using the same pair of Belomo loupes for a few years. Obviously, our researches followed a similar path, although I bought the 10 first.
 
I bought a cheap 20x chinese loupe for something else entirely, does a passable job of giving the stylus a once over, although I'll be honest and say I don't really look at it very often, if it's sounding ok I generally leave things alone.
 
rtrt said:
I wonder if a 15x might be the best bet all round. Has anyone tried the sizes other than 10x or 20x?
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It would be interesting to try one as the 10x and 20x are very different things. The former just so bright, clear and easy to focus, the latter being really hard work with a paper-thin focus plane and next to no depth of field. The 10x will tell you everything you need to know about how clean the stylus is, the 20x will show wear rather better. The 20x needs the stylus and your eye right up to it so forget it if your deck doesn’t have a detachable headshell, the 10x is usable to some degree with the cart still on the deck assuming you can get close to it (just checked that now). How the 15x fits between the two I have no idea.
 
Looks like there's some consensus around the 20x being very specialised- just spotted this-
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Please take note that 20x magnification is not the only magnification you should own. The magnification is too strong for daily use. Please click here for details on 20x
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Including this quote - 'It is mainly used by specialists such as tool manufacturers or professionals inspecting specialised objects such as phonograph needles as they get great detail'

I think I'll order a 20x for wear checking and for more general dirt / dust inspection make do with the much lower quality version I already have.
 
It would be a shame not to get the 10x, it is the more useful of the two by some distance IMO. Also bare in mind much of the Chinese junk lies about the magnification, the 10x is way better than an illuminated Chinese one I’ve got and seen advertised as a 20x!
 
Tony L said:
It would be a shame not to get the 10x, it is the more useful of the two by some distance IMO. Also bare in mind much of the Chinese junk lies about the magnification, the 10x is way better than an illuminated Chinese one I’ve got and seen advertised as a 20x!
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Food for thought there thanks - have to have a look tomorrow and see how it looks.
 
Being a bit of a fan of cool vintage engineering I couldn't resist this at £70 (plus postage):

32050749337_845af4313f_b.jpg


It's a late-50s/early-60s (I can't google the exact date) Olympus K Series microscope. A beautifully made and remarkably solid thing, there is no plastic here at all. It was really gunged up with stale solidified grease so the complex dual-gang focusing mech was pretty solid, but after a lot of work I managed to fully dismantle it, clean all the crap out and get it all back and working as it should. Optically it seems very good with no issues I can detect at this point. The reason I've put it on this thread is it is actually rather useful for stylus inspection:

46940301692_efd20d2ec7_b.jpg


Shure M95ED

This is the lowest magnification objective and just my iPhone held to the eyepiece. It barely gives a hint of what the 'scope can do as it looks *so much* better through the eyepiece (I was actually amazed I could get anything with the iPhone!). The next objective up is useful too, albeit with very little depth of field, but the two strongest are just too strong and need to be too close (I've not managed to focus on anything with them yet, but I have no prepared slides to try). I've figured out LED bike lights are a pretty good illumination source, assuming they aren't flashing!

Anyway, go buy yourself a vintage microscope! It is amazing how cheap good ones can be.
 
Note my comments above about focal distances.
For anyone not familiar with using a microscope, the object has to be incredibly close to the lens for high magnification. To be honest, I have not tried with the one here as I had assumed that getting close enough at a useful angle, at high mag', would be extremely difficult, quite apart from risky. From most angles, I suspect that the cart' body will get in the way, but I have not tried.

You also need really good, intense lighting too - the higher the mag', the brighter it needs to be.
 
Vinny said:
Note my comments above about focal distances.
For anyone not familiar with using a microscope, the object has to be incredibly close to the lens for high magnification. To be honest, I have not tried with the one here as I had assumed that getting close enough at a useful angle, at high mag', would be extremely difficult, quite apart from risky. From most angles, I suspect that the cart' body will get in the way, but I have not tried.

You also need really good, intense lighting too - the higher the mag', the brighter it needs to be.
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The objectives fitted are labelled 4/0.10, 10/0.25, 40/0.65 and 100/1.30. The eyepiece is a WF40X. I’ve never used a microscope before so I’m very new to the terminology and don’t as yet know what these figures mean, but I’m guessing the 0.10 is a ‘10’ in loupe terms, and that the eyepiece is 4x, so that’s 40x magnification total, but please correct me if I’m wrong. The objectives are all different physical lengths, but allegedly focus at the same distance, so setting up with the little 0.10 means the others should be in focus just by switcing them in line. The two biggest ones are too big physically and would hit the cart body, but there is loads of room with the 0.10 and sufficient with the 0.25. For looking at cartridge styli the 0.10 is really all you’d ever need, so this is certainly a functional tool for this purpose.

I need to find a neater method of mounting the cart, though there is plenty of room with the low magnification objectives, so it is doable. There were a couple of minor issues with this scope, I assume from a previous less careful repair attempt, so me being as picky/OCD as I am, I’ve landed another basket case example to liberate the couple of parts I need to make this one all but mint. The second scope cost me peanuts (under £15), but a fair bit more for shipping (it’s in the USA), but when it turns up I will have a whole spare stage that I’d not be adverse to modifying/hacking. I’d actually rather like to modify that stage so I can plug a SME headshell into it if I can figure a way, or maybe as I’m a MM cart user just a better way of mounting a stylus assembly rather than a headshell or whole cart body. Given one really wants to view a stylus head-on to establish wear (shouldering etc) this latter approach may well be the best one.

PS I suspect LED cycle lights are actually very good, mine are decent ones and I have several sets. Certainly far superior to the mirror and Lancashire daylight! For stylus viewing side-lighting seems far better than bottom through the platform, though I guess I should try both together. The iPhone pic was taken with one bike light clipped on a little mic stand to the side.
 
Edit: Just googled a bit and I think the first measurement is the strength, e.g. the 4/0.10 is a x4 magnification, though I’m confused by the eyepiece and how to calculate the total.
 
TONY, your pic. of the Shure stylus is superb. What kind of magnification is that, or, in other words, would you get that clarity and magnification from your 10X Belomo triplet?
 
Mike Reed said:
TONY, your pic. of the Shure stylus is superb. What kind of magnification is that, or, in other words, would you get that clarity and magnification from your 10X Belomo triplet?
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The Belomo doesn’t get as close, but it is very, very good and you can certainly see what you need to see. It is hard to put into words as I’m still not quite clear what magnification I’m seeing through the scope, plus the iPhone adds all manner of irrelevances to it, so I can’t say how much closer the scope on its smallest objective gets. The thing with both is that it is a live 3d view, so you can reveal huge amounts of detail by altering focus, position etc, i.e. the flat image in the page here is but a fraction of what you can visualise.

Bottom line is both are great and exceptional value IMO, I’m particularly impressed with my vintage scope, but chances are you’d end up paying *a lot* for the sort of servicing I’ve given it if you didn’t fancy doing it yourself. It took me many hours to get the focusing working as it should, and I guess most vintage scopes will be the same. I really enjoy doing this sort of thing, but I understand others don’t. As such my stock recommendation remains for the Belomo 10x, which really is amazing and just so usable (I use it to check my soldering too).
 
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