Stylus under scanning electron Microscope!

This is very cool.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/stylus-photos-high-magnification.138956/

 

What makes me wonder in amasement is how advanced an electron-microscope is compared to the piece of engineering it is looking at

 

Great photos.
It's a pretty skanky bush mounted conical tip.
Doesn't need cleaning it needs replacing with something able to trace grooves!

You can get decent pics from a simple USB scope, though nothing on the scale of those shown.

This is what a stylus should look like:

 

Amazing photography. I agree with you Rob, those initial pictures are not of a stylus I'd want tracing the grooves.

 

Rob, I wish I had been able to take a photo of the original Dynavector Diamond we had at KJ W1 way back when as viewed with a Dual (of turntable fame) microscope. The cantilever was better polished than many diamond styli and the stylus itself was amazingly well cut and polished, an object lesson to others.

 

Hi Dave,

They've a good rep for fitting quality diamonds.
Looking at the DV17 today with it's tiny solid diamond cantilever and ridged stylus is mind-blowing. Especially so as they were doing pretty much the same thing in the late 70s with the original Ruby. That was a nice cartridge - Dynavector Ruby on Syrinx PU2 was the thing for a while, as I'm sure you'll remember.

 

These pics are the best I could manage with a cheap USB microscope.

This is an original Ortofon M20FL Super. The fine line is hard to see on the pics but was quite evident when viewing it.

At x20



Same again but at x80



This is also an original M20FL Super but is noticeably different with a much shorter diamond.



And this is an ADC VLM mk3. Very conical in shape.

 

Hi Mike,

Good shots.
Are you sure about the 20FL as it looks like a bush mounted stone when it should be nude, like the first pic.

 

I purchased my first TD125 from a family friend who had owned it from new. The TT came with an Ortofon M20FL Super cartridge and it had a stylus fitted.

As a precaution I bought a brand new stylus for it from Musonic and that's the nude diamond stylus you can see in the first images.

The original stylus which was on the cartridge when I got the TD125 is the one with the much shorter diamond shown in the third image.

The stylus certainly looks original, the plastic carrier is identical to the replacement and they are both marked M20FL Super. However the diamond is clearly much shorter in shape and the cantilever is at a slightly different angle.

I can only assume that Ortofon changed them at some point. Maybe they sourced the diamond from a different supplier?