Far off base? I think not.
In general when customers arrive at the store requesting a new stylus, it has either been mangled through customer abuse or is highly contaminated. In other cases, it is suffering from obvious cantilever failure.
Audio-Technica AT607 will generally clean up the stylus and provide clear sound.
Every once in a while, someone asks that a stylus be inspected to determine wear. I have long been suspicious of the "stylus wear" game, because in my city (San Diego) several prominant stereo retailers judged EVERY stylus worn, just as in the old days EVERY tube was weak. I try to run my store on ethics, not avarice, a paradigm that has stood me in good stead since 1973.
In any case, I have an exceptionally steady hand, and I have found that the irregularities in the wear, or normal wear in all but the earliest phases, can be successfully identified with 25x magnification. You need to have a good eye and a very steady hand -- and especially you need to control the incident light.
I will concede this point: that in the highest-end applications, where the owner is looking for optimal anti-skate adjustments based on comparative wear, and where the owner is willing to replace a stylus as soon as wear can be detected, and where the table and the arm are good enough so that any of these considerations makes a difference . . . that the higher power magnification may be necessary.
But I do not carry the elephant gun every time I go hunting.
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As for anti-skate, yes only an optimal value is achievable with a pivoted tonearm. For those interested in a detailed explanation of why, complete with mathematical proof, all leading to a strong case for the advantage of a linear tracking arm (no intermodulation distortion), there is a definitive article in the JAES, dated approximately 1979, by physicist Stanley Lipschitz.
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Best,
Fred Longworth
