What is the life of a Grado Wood cartridge?

Ecclectique, I was pretty surprised myself. I had two Sonus stylus assemblies (not the bodies, can't remember why) in my junk drawer and went for a Sonus cart I saw on Ebay about two months ago. It sounded pretty good, but when I substituted the old styli, it sounded just about like you'd expect a 30 to 40 year old cart to sound: dead. So I figured I had nothing to lose by slathering the rubber suspension with some stuff called "Re-Grip," a rubber cleaner and "revitalizer" I use on reel-to-reel tape deck pinch rollers (yeah, you can probably guess my age). The stuff brought the old styli back from the dead and the cart sounds GREAT, definitely better than the ADC. No sign of cantilever sag, yet. These carts definitely love the SME III (mine is damped), by the way. Dave

I do believe the question of longevity of the Grados, like the ADCs and Sonuses, is more a question of suspension life than stylus life (all reports of dead Grados I've heard so far are dead suspensions): the heavier the tonearm, the lesser its lifespan, the lighter the tonearm, the longer the lifespan. I use my Grado Platinum on an ultra-low mass Black Widow for this reason, and Dave's SME IIIS is also an ultra-low-mass tonearm. Stylus life depends on so many factors the spread is probably quite large, from 500 hours to more than a thousand, depending on condition of records, stylus hygiene and so on.

So 2 hours of playing a day would put you at about 1year and 4 months for a 1,000 hour usage.If memory serves me correct my old AT20SL lasted way over 5 years plus.
Maybe we got more bang for are buck back in the 70's and early 80's.Just a Thought.

I am constantly amazed at the ridiculous low hours quoted by many.
I had a Grado Wood Reference on my last turntable. I spent a lot of time searching about it before I bought.
The grado website said I can expect 5000 hours. I do not see any reason why this should not be the case.
If the record has been cleaned properly (I mean wet and vacuum, not wiped with cloth) and the tracking weight is accurate why would it wear? Diamond is hard.
I would not buy a cartridge if I was told to expect 500-1000 hours only.

Impossible to say. Too many variables. Mine lasted 15 years. You either use it until it sounds bad, breaks or you see stylus wear under magnification.