How do tell when my stylus is too much worn?

Dear @don_c55 : "  I have old records played many times on cheap old MM cartridges from the early 70’s that sound "mint" with expensive properly setup MC cartridges of today. "

in those old times cartridge stylus tip was conical that let the deep information recorded in the grooves " untouchable " , so are as " new " and with line contact shapes that information comes alive for the very first time. Yes, LP surface is resistent to the stylus tip very hard friction. Now, that for whatever reasons we are not aware either the stylus tip wear levels or LP surface damages does not means is happening each time we use that cartridge and any LP.
My take is to try stay " always " in a safe umbral.

Btw, @boxer12, I listen both sourcves but a little more on analog. I own 100+ MM/MC cartridges and normally I don't stick with one of them but more rotating . I still own cartridges that I never tested yet.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Raul

The MM cartridges that I referred to from the 70's were Shure M97 and were elliptical not conical!

It is more about the size of the diamond tip than shape.

Dear @don_c55 : Yes,but M97 came with different stylus shape and inside the shape different dimension. They came: conical, two different ellipthical and hiperellipthical too.

Anyway, microridge or replicant or VDH2 goes deeper in the grooves and this helps in the quelity of listen levels. Of course that with today stylus shape the cartridge parameters for the set up has no " margin " to error if we want top quality performance levels.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

I just got the CBS STR-100 test record which has some tests purported to reveal wear and excessive VTF. I haven't pulled out a worn stylus to see if it works yet, though.

It has been 18 plus months or so since this thread was last updated. Poster "rauliruega" is spot on with his comments, observations and recommendations. However, he mentions that Ortofon published data on stylus tip wear. I have never been able to find such a document and I called Ortofon asking for it. So I think he means Shure and JICO, both did similar research on stylus wear hours. Their work pointed toward 400 to 500 hours of life for advanced tip shapes.

I recently took the same journey that Poster "rmm" took. What is codified in this thread is the reason why I was so confused also about critical stylus wear and hour of play life. All of the opinions expressed here are not otherwise supported by empirical research. They should be, while current cartridge manufacturers give conflicting answers to the question on critical stylus wear.

A record of my sojourn to learn how long stylus tips last is in print. As "rmm" did, I asked questions, and searched forums, looking for an answer. When I found, as in this thread, opinions that ranged all over the map, I did a deeper dive into the subject. This dive was driven to find out if my cartridge tip was worn to the point where it could damage my records. And I have a lot of records that I do not want to damage. I did not do any original research, while I am setting up to monitor my cartridge stylus tip with photomacrography. See this link to understand what that means: http://www.micrographia.com/projec/projapps/viny/viny0300.htm.

I compiled everything I learned along the way into an written piece that was published in late May (2019) on The Vinyl Press. I found a lot of material on the subject that I believe will help answer your question.

See the link to my essay or discussion or article, whatever you want to call it, here: https://thevinylpress.com/the-finish-line-for-your-phonograph-stylus/.
Also, see this thread for a number of terrific responses to this article: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-finish-line-for-your-phono-cartridge-stylus-wear-by-mike-...