Macro photos of phono styli

[ray_parkhurst]

Hi...anyone here interested in discussing photography of phono styli? I've been doing this for several years and have developed some interesting lighting and framing techniques to evaluate stylus wear. I saw in another thread from a year ago where folks were saying that styli don't wear. They're made of diamond, you know. But I can say for sure that they do wear, and have taken hundreds of photos of the various types to evaluate the level of wear and to understand the impact on playback. Below are a few examples of the work I've been doing. Hoping folks have some interest and it can generate some discussion:

The very tip of a 2M Blue with heavy wear after ~500hrs

A full stylus view of a NOS Sumiko Andante P76 showing its amazingly short and wide contact region

A composite view of an Empire 480LT I used for a stylus wear test:

 

[Chrispy]

Maybe 30 years ago....

 

[sam_adams]

Hi...anyone here interested in discussing photography of phono styli?

While I'm not an aficionado of vinyl, I would be interested in what equipment and techniques you use to make photographs of this nature. Please share.

 

[USER]

Welcome Ray! Glad you are here. Your thread at Audiokarma is great. Hope you find some of the cartridge discussion here interesting.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

Maybe 30 years ago....

Lots of interest in vinyl these days. GenZ is crazy about retro stuff.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

Welcome Ray! Glad you are here. Your thread at Audiokarma is great. Hope you find some of the cartridge discussion here interesting.

Thanks! I certainly hope to.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

While I'm not an aficionado of vinyl, I would be interested in what equipment and techniques you use to make photographs of this nature. Please share.

In a nutshell: I use a photomacrographic system with an automated stepper rail to adjust focus, and various microscope objectives, typically 20x. The depth of field is shallow so I use the focus stacking technique to achieve sharp focus across the subject. All of the examples above are framed and lit with my "45-deg" technique, with the stylus held at 45-deg such that the each contact patch is parallel with the camera sensor, and lit with a ringlight also at ~45-deg to give good contrast on the patches. This allows me to measure the contact patch size and shape with less than 10% error.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

Sadly so

So cynical! Why even waste time posting?

 

[ray_parkhurst]

Doesn't mean it means much

Sure it does. It means that lots of folks are interested in vinyl playback, and related to the present discussion, in whether their stylus is worn out to the point of degrading audio quality or even doing damage to their records.

 

[USER]

Mods, can we remove the troll?

 

[ray_parkhurst]

Thanks, I reported him. He edited my response to make it look like I was being abusive, but I see he edited back, maybe thought better of it.

 

[Doodski]

@ray_parkhurst can you orient me as per what that first image is. I see a side of a stylus and I also see a tip of a stylus. Could be two things.

 

[restorer-john]

Hi...anyone here interested in discussing photography of phono styli? I've been doing this for several years and have developed some interesting lighting and framing techniques to evaluate stylus wear. I saw in another thread from a year ago where folks were saying that styli don't wear. They're made of diamond, you know. But I can say for sure that they do wear, and have taken hundreds of photos of the various types to evaluate the level of wear and to understand the impact on playback. Below are a few examples of the work I've been doing. Hoping folks have some interest and it can generate some discussion:

The very tip of a 2M Blue with heavy wear after ~500hrs
View attachment 286453

A full stylus view of a NOS Sumiko Andante P76 showing its amazingly short and wide contact region
View attachment 286454

A composite view of an Empire 480LT I used for a stylus wear test:
View attachment 286455

The Ortofon 2M blue picture shows nothing useful. It's just a blurry blob photo.

We (my father in his collection and mine) have literally many hundreds of cartridges and many more styli of all different ages, pedigrees and use. He has been looking at styli under his medical microscope since before I was born and he's 90 now. I look at mine under both an electronic 'scope and an Olympus optical scope.

I have never seen 'wear' like that supposed 2M shot. It is likely just internal reflections and/or shadows. Styli are not polished like a diamond ring. You get some clear ones, particularly with say the likes of Shure's MR or some nice Japanese high end MMs and MCs, but the majority are just a dull stones, when they are new and remain so all their life.

It's easy to photograph or 'see' wear on a brand new stylus simply by illuminating it to show what you want.

Now, on to record wear caused by a worn stylus which you brought up. This is another area where there is little to no actual evidence. What specifically (with evidence please) does a worn stylus do to a record to cause wear? How can anyone demonstrate the same stylus on the same record worn and not? They can't. As an aggressive profile wears, it becomes less aggressive and in turn less damaging to the groove. The contact patch widens, forces are more distributed and diminished. Sure, the electrical performance of the cartridge as a whole may diminish somewhat, but actual record damage? I don't believe it when all other factors remain the same.

A hyper elliptical must cause more groove damage than a conical as the contact 'patch' is less and the forces greater on the groove walls for the same tracking force.

 

[Hiten]

Excellent work on capturing macro photographs. The First one I suppose is from top view of stylus. Some information about stylus and record groove wear can be found at diyAudio. Member Billshurv has posted some SEM pictures from the book 'Pickups, the key to Hi-Fi by J. Walton 1965' and discussions follows after that.
LINK
Here are some stylus pictures I took with mobile phone and CD player lens.
LINK

regards.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

@ray_parkhurst can you orient me as per what that first image is. I see a side of a stylus and I also see a tip of a stylus. Could be two things.

Below is a graphic showing the orientation of the stylus vs the Objective/Sensor, and the incident and reflected light paths. The worn/polished contact patch is at the very tip of the stylus, and is "flat" vs the objective. It shows up as a dark area since no light reflects from it. The areas around it, especially those at 45-deg vs the objective, will show a bright reflection. Areas with intermediate angles will show partial reflection, enhanced by the textures of the un-polished diamond surfaces.

You can see this whole "scene" most easily on the second photo, the Andante P76. The contact patch shows up as a dark "line" at the tip of the stylus. That dark line is the only part of the stylus that makes contact with the groove. The third photo, the collage of the 480LT images, is zoomed-in to show the tip with more detail, and also a front view to illustrate the orientation of the contact images. The first photo, the 2M Blue, is zoomed-in to just the very tip of the stylus, showing one well-worn contact patch as a dark area.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

The Ortofon 2M blue picture shows nothing useful. It's just a blurry blob photo.

We (my father in his collection and mine) have literally many hundreds of cartridges and many more styli of all different ages, pedigrees and use. He has been looking at styli under his medical microscope since before I was born and he's 90 now. I look at mine under both an electronic 'scope and an Olympus optical scope.

I have never seen 'wear' like that supposed 2M shot. It is likely just internal reflections and/or shadows. Styli are not polished like a diamond ring. You get some clear ones, particularly with say the likes of Shure's MR or some nice Japanese high end MMs and MCs, but the majority are just a dull stones, when they are new and remain so all their life.

It's easy to photograph or 'see' wear on a brand new stylus simply by illuminating it to show what you want.

Now, on to record wear caused by a worn stylus which you brought up. This is another area where there is little to no actual evidence. What specifically (with evidence please) does a worn stylus do to a record to cause wear? How can anyone demonstrate the same stylus on the same record worn and not? They can't. As an aggressive profile wears, it becomes less aggressive and in turn less damaging to the groove. The contact patch widens, forces are more distributed and diminished. Sure, the electrical performance of the cartridge as a whole may diminish somewhat, but actual record damage? I don't believe it when all other factors remain the same.

A hyper elliptical must cause more groove damage than a conical as the contact 'patch' is less and the forces greater on the groove walls for the same tracking force.

Well, you need to know what you are looking for in order to see the wear. Most folks don't realize how small the contact patches actually are, and miss them even when looking directly at them! Lighting is also super critical, as diamond is a difficult subject to view and photograph.

That 2M Blue has ~500 hours of play time, and is pretty well-worn. A new 2M Blue has a "minor" radius of 0.3mil/8um, implying it will form a flat contact patch length of ~0.4mil/11um after ~100 hours or so of play. The 2M image above shows a contact patch length of 0.5mil/13um.

You are correct that "wear" can be mimicked by poor lighting. I've been fooled by this, and had to develop lighting systems and analysis techniques that would discriminate true versus phantom wear. I show a diagram above that is one aspect of this, and the composite view shown in first post is another aspect. True wear is most difficult to distinguish early in the stylus life, but later (like the 2M Blue) it is much easier.

Record wear is still a mystery to me. I brought it up since it often comes up in forum discussions, with folks worrying that their worn stylus is causing record damage. I've seen SEM photos of grooves with damage from playing, but I've never seen a scientific study to show wear vs hours of play or condition of stylus, let alone effect of stylus type. I can't agree with your statement about hyperellipticals causing more damage, as I don't know of any data to show the effect of one stylus type vs another.

 

[ray_parkhurst]

Excellent work on capturing macro photographs. The First one I suppose is from top view of stylus. Some information about stylus and record groove wear can be found at diyAudio. Member Billshurv has posted some SEM pictures from the book 'Pickups, the key to Hi-Fi by J. Walton 1965' and discussions follows after that.
LINK
Here are some stylus pictures I took with mobile phone and CD player lens.
LINK

regards.

By "top view" I think you are referring to looking at the tip straight-on, like with the Shure Stylus Microscope? The 2M pic is taken with the 45-deg technique I described above, so you are only looking at one contact. The advantage of the Shure method is you can see both contacts at the same time, but quantitative analysis is more difficult due to the bright reflections and reduced contrast. My 45-deg technique gives much better contrast, allowing accurate quantitative measurements of the contact patch size, but the disadvantage is I can only view one at a time.

 

[sq225917]

That p76 shot is amazing, some day I'll get to making some.

What app do you use for stacking the images? I used to one from Microsoft, no longer available

 

[ray_parkhurst]

I use Helicon Focus. Some folks use Zerene Stacker. Both are excellent. Lots of other programs (eg photoshop) can stack but none are as user-friendly as Helicon.

 

[JP]

Hi @ray_parkhurst