I actually wondered the same thing - perhaps it’s as well the brush has solidified on mine!
From other posts, I read that some fluids deteriorate the stylus in long term.
I have a Lyra cart, and this fluid , on the pic.
Anybody knows if that fluid can damage?
Normally I use a carbon fiber stylus brush from Pro-Ject “Clean-It”. But sometimes I use AT607 from Audio-Technica after the brush.
A dirty stylus:
After a couple of strokes with the brush:
And finally, after the wet cleaning with AT607:
The cart here is a Rega Apheta 3.
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Looks more a record cleaner to me, than a stylus cleaner.
What are the ingredients?
I’m no chemist/metallurgist, so no idea if it may be harmful/harmless or just ineffective for styli, sorry.
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Is the AT617 not a gel thing? I have the AT637, which is a vibrating carbon fibre pad. When I lower the needle into it with volume on, the frequency is a mid-range frequency that occurs in any music, and the volume is not much louder than a record. So I always figured that the vibration is not too different from the vibration that the record itself transmits to the stylus, which is of course its whole purpose 
Also it seems more gentle than dragging a brush along the stylus with shaky hands.
Inspired by this thread I finally purchased a Carson pocket microscope with LED light, thanks everyone for the ideas
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Those magnifiers with a light are really good. I assume yours is similar to this (seems to have many brands), which apart from the white also has a blue light for “currency detection” as is stamped on the other side!
Yes, originally a record cleaner. Can’t find what’s inside.
I will better throw it away I feel. I mostly use a little brush, but sometimes that fluid.
I use this little Project brush day to day…
I the the AT637 buzzy cleaner every couple of weeks…
and occasionally put some AT607e liquid on the buzzy pad…
I have an ART9 cartridge which I think has a boron cantilever.
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Sorry, yes. I guess I meant the AT637 if that’s the one with the vibrating pad. I don’t know what frequency it operates at, but if it’s going to vibrate enough to make the crud fall off, then it’s clearly shaking the stylus quite a bit more than running through the grooves of a record does ? 
I saw that one too but in the end got the Carson MM-300 MicroBrite Plus, 60-120x magnification, for 19 Euros:
Carson alone has a gazillion different models
It vibrates at the frequency that you hear if you turn it on, and more clearly hear when you put the stylus on it with volume not off 
And I believe that if its vibration amplitude was much more than a groove, then volume would be much higher at the same position of the volume dial. This is all analog after all.
(Edit: and as I said, it is definitely louder, but not all that much. And the frequency is rather higher than bass)
What is an optimal magnification for viewing a stylus, and photographing it to measure VTA? Carson has a 60-120x and a 100-250x that are only a few $ apart in price.
…same as me, with the exception that I do not use any fluid on the vibrating tool. I agree that it sounds only a little louder than playing a record. I have used it for years with apparently no damage to various MCs. I use it for perhaps 10 seconds for every 3-4 hours of playing records.
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No idea, there are so many different models. Some can be attached to a smartphone so you can paste pretty stylus pictures in his thread Someone above wrote that they used a 60x one to good effect, so I thought 60-120 can’t be wrong and picked the one whose design seemed useful for the task. Plus they can be returned to Amazon and are dirt cheap anyway, so not much that can go wrong
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How good is the Carson ?
It arrived today in the mail but I was up until 6 in the morning and am not feeling today like I should go anywhere near a stylus with any kind of device. I will post tomorrow
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I have that Carson too! Only I use it for bugs and other tinies, flowers and whatnot, looking at printed stuff etc…tbh, I never thought about using it for the stylus.
Interesting, I should give it a go!
Let us know what you think. I haven’t yet decided between a 60-120 and a 100-250x. I have an old cheapy 45x and it’s not very useful.
@Guinnless @steviebee @JosquinDesPrez
Not working very well. 60x would suffice IMO (though going by the Amazon reviews it seems that the magnification rates of these cheap ones are always exaggerated, anyway). However, even at 60x, focusing the object means that you have to get so close that I don’t dare. Of course, hand movements are much exaggerated and the image is mirrored, so I was having a hard time getting anything in view, and then not sharp. (It works reasonably if you can rest it on the object carrier and also hand-held if you don’t care if you touch the object, but neither is our use case of course)
Maybe someone with steadier hands can do it, but I will try with different loupes, e.g. a cheap jeweller’s loupe and reading loupes. Their magnification of course tops out much lower, but focusing and lighting should be easier and maybe it suffices.
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I think the problem with Carson scope is that it’s designed for using placed on a flat surface. Holding it up to a stylus could be difficult, I can see!
I also have a small Audio Technica magnifier, a little non-illuminated tube about +/- an inch long. It’s pretty good and the lowish mag means you don’t need to get as close as the Carson or indeed the one I posted a pic of. Not sure they still make them.
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