Testing stylus wear.
I have an Ortofon 2M Blue stylus that I’ve had for 3.5 years. They advise up to 1000 hours of useful life but that’s just a rough estimate. I have not kept track of my hours of play. I’ll go for 3 weeks with lots of use and then a few more weeks of very little analog use and mostly digital use with my DAC. I just bought a lot of mint vinyl LP’s and got scared that my stylus may be worn, even though it sounds fine to me.
So, I have a new stylus and usb microscope on order. I just found an interesting article (http://www.pspatialaudio.com/stylus_wear.htm) that suggests something other than a visual inspection, since the tip is the only part of the stylus that gets worn and it’s apparently too small to judge even with a microscope.
The new method is to make two identical digital recordings--one with the older stylus and a second one with a new stylus. Then you A-B the two recordings. Since I already have a new 2M Blue coming tomorrow and another one on my turntable with unknown wear, I think I’ll give this method a try.
Has anyone heard of this? Any better ways to test if i should junk the old 2M Blue or somehow test it?
What you're suggesting is a guess, not a test. That's because you're assuming that the new cartridge is undamaged and within spec. Styli can certainly be assessed for wear using a microscope, but you need to know what you're looking for, which are "cat's eyes." Shure has an authoritative reference here. |
I saw some of the Shure photos on the internet. It looks like it boils down to smooth tip surface for good styli and dented or non-smooth tip surface for worn. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see the "cat’s eyes" but the smooth tip surface should be visible. I’m also curious about whether there is any difference in recordings made with both. In any case, if my old stylus looks good I’ll be happy to wait longer before starting to use the new one. I don’t plan to test the cartridge with a microscope. The styli are pretty easy to just pull out and push back in again. |
Update: I got my new 2M Blue stylus from Fluance, even though I don't own their TT because most other outlets had the stylus on back order. They also gave me a $10 coupon which covered most of the tax (funny that a Canadian company has to collect tax for a state in the U.S.). I was surprised to receive not only the stylus I ordered, but a new cartridge too. I called them and asked what happened and it turned out it was a mistake. They said I could keep the cartridge (which I don't need anyway). I also got the Jiusion microscope, thinking that I'd check the old stylus. It turned out to be a huge pain to focus on the stylus and enlarge it to a reasonable size, so I returned it to Amazon, where I bought it. It might just be impressionistic, but the new stylus seems to be a slight bit more detailed than the old one. The best thing is that now I can stop wondering whether I have to change it for a long time. |
