Grace F9L Under the Microscope

chaz

chaz

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So I [Mod Edit] thought I'd see if I could get some shots of it under one of the Microscopes from my school. Unfortunately I could only get good shots from the sides. I figure some here may be interested in seeing what the "l" stylus looks like up close.so here are the pics i took.
F9l2.jpg f9l3.jpg f9l4.jpg f9l5.jpg f9l6.jpg f9l7.jpg f9l8.jpg

Might try cleaning it up a bit more and getting some more shots.
 
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Great shots Chaz — but definitely a clean-up next time. It's pretty basic — like combing your hair before a passport or DMV picture (which will look unflattering anyway).

And lucky you for having that Grace, especially with the OEM stylus in such sharp shape.
 
Well I thought it was cleaner, but that was before I blew all the dust off the microscope.:(:dunno:
 
Yes, those are nice shots Chaz, but they are totally meaningless. Why? Because as beautiful as a diamond tip may appear in colorful shots, the actual part of the stylus that goes in the groove is just a miniature tiny itsy bitsy part of it that is not materializing into view in this type of photography. Wanna see an example?

Isn't that beautiful?

bkLOkbL.jpg


That is my Denon DL-103 stylus when I got it brand new. Quite an impressive crystal clear nude diamond tip - right?
Nope! The only part that matters is that miniature round dome at the end of the tip. Remember it's a spherical stylus.
The tip actually looks like half a ball. Can you see half a ball? No one can! Here's a different angle, this time from the top:

Ij53s0S.jpg


Can you see the tip? Does it tell you anything about the stylus?

Here's another one:

TZEksLe.jpg


Would you buy this Denon DL-103 from me? No! You won't. This is not
a Denon DL-103, it's an Ortofon VMS20E. See? Meaningless! All this nice
photography, however beautiful, is just meaningless for stylus condition evaluation.
 
Yeah, I often see these kinds of pictures on Ebay, The sellers say "look how pretty it's hardly used", or some other nonsense. Completely meaningless BS!

Jon
 
Umm, I'm not asking, nor am I expecting anyone to evaluate the condition of the stylus from these photos. I simply thought since I may be parting with it I would try and get a few shots of it 'cus there isn't a lot available on the 'l' version of the f9. Grace calls it a 'liminal trace' stylus (whatever that means), I thought perhaps anyone interested in the differences between this and the other F9 styli might find some use for images of the 'l'.
Thanks for the tip none the less though. I'll keep it in mind in the future.
 
The big question: Why? Why are you considering getting rid of it?

The other big question: How many hours on it? That can tell us more than the photos.
 
chaz said:
Umm, I'm not asking, nor am I expecting anyone to evaluate the condition of the stylus from these photos. I simply thought since I may be parting with it I would try and get a few shots of it 'cus there isn't a lot available on the 'l' version of the f9. Grace calls it a 'liminal trace' stylus (whatever that means), I thought perhaps anyone interested in the differences between this and the other F9 styli might find some use for images of the 'l'.
Thanks for the tip none the less though. I'll keep it in mind in the future.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean to imply that what you did was BS, I take similar pictures of some of mine too. If nothing else you can see if they need to be cleaned.

Jon
 
I'd rather not talk about that outside of barttertown as per forum rules. No I dea of the number of hours on it.
 
There are other good reasons to take and share pictures of a stylus, apart from evaluating its condition. Thanks for taking the time.
 
Yeah it's the first time I've done it and I think it's really neat. Definitely gonna clean it up and get some better shots. Might do all my other styli too eventually. Maybe print them up and frame them or something. They are interesting images, well to me anyway.
 
chaz said:
Umm, I'm not asking, nor am I expecting anyone to evaluate the condition of the stylus from these photos. I simply thought since I may be parting with it I would try and get a few shots of it 'cus there isn't a lot available on the 'l' version of the f9. Grace calls it a 'liminal trace' stylus (whatever that means), I thought perhaps anyone interested in the differences between this and the other F9 styli might find some use for images of the 'l'.
Thanks for the tip none the less though. I'll keep it in mind in the future.
Click to expand...
Yes it's an "L" version which stands for Advanced Luminal Trace, I happen to have the Grace-F8L'10 10yr anniversary edition. If you have a Grace arm give it a try, real synergy, but I prefer the anniversary cartridge with the "Custom" stylus from the Grace F8-C installed.
 
So what's different about the anniversary edition of the F8L compared to the regular?
I mean I could Google it I suppose, but maybe you could elaborate?
 
The F8-L uses the Luminal Trace, the anniversary the Advanced Luminal Trace as in the newer F9 like you have, what exactly the difference is your guess is as good as mine.

Oh, good luck finding this on Google lol.
 
bimasta said:
"Umm..." is right, Chaz. There's no problem with beautiful photos of beautiful geometries. They weren't meant to "diagnose", and the complaints are misguided.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I have no idea how much wear is on the B&O MMC2 nude contact line stylus shown as my avatar, but I sure do think it's a thing of beauty!
 
Chaz just about any Grace cartridge is a keeper, you might want to give it a listen after a cleaning before you part with it.
 
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