There are three hobbies I have longer than I can remember: Photography, cycling and music.

All three have one thing in common: Traveling. My biggest hobby of them all. When you ride your bike you explore your neighbourhood. Photography means to me to cover trips to foreign places and finally music means to travel with your mind. I have been to New York last year for the first time but I have been there long before thanks to Lou Reed. And the same is true for many other places. Good music can take you everywhere.

I hear music at home at a very nice stereo system but recently I rediscovered my love for vinyl again and finally got a record cleaning machine. I should have done this a long time ago! Even 40 year old records sound like new and much better than CD or high res streaming. Now it’s time to upgrade my record player!

Which brings me to the pictures of this blog post. I have learned on the internet that you can adjust VTA (the vertical tracking angle or better the SRA (stylus rake angle) with the help of an USB-Microscope. I failed to measure it correctly and at the end relied on my ears for the perfect setting.

It was fun though and it leaded to some cool shots of the stylus of my cartridge (a Dynavector 20x2L, a low output MC from Japan) taken with an el-cheapo microscope for the price of a metal lens hood. I guess I will be out in my backyard next summer chasing bugs with my laptop.

But now I have to listen to some old records.

In the image below the stylus sits on a CD. So the thickness of the CD provides you with some scale. Those diamonds are really tiny.