How do tell when my stylus is too much worn?

Dear @rauliruegas, Thank you for your post. And the heads up about Ortofon research. I may inquire again with them. You have been there before, and so have I and as reported in my essay, so have others. Even after I posted a link to my article, which others tell me is well researched, folks assert that retipping at say 500± hours is "nonsense." That is the main reason why I say at some point in my article in reference to me, "People generally believe they know far more than they actually do, and as a consequence, they can be highly skeptical of new information." As Bill Walton is famous for saying, "You can’t teach someone what they don’t want to know." That noted, my recommendation is simple, at about 500 to 600 hours, have your stylus tip checked for wear. If the 500 hour marker is nonsense, the check will reveal that.

I have not done original research on stylus wear. I know that. I only report what Shure and JICO and Harold Weiler and many others actually learned though empirical research. If that is insufficient to get folks to at least check their stylus tips for critical wear, you can’t do more. Advanced tip shapes are designed to maximize the contact with a vinyl groove across the tip and groove. That is why they are so good at high frequency reproduction. And they exhibit distortion only at the point they are damaging record grooves.

But these shapes are still made of diamond. And diamond wears. Shape matters not on the rate of wear; it is VTF per unit area of tip exposure. A lot of that wear comes from grit embedded in the record groove that defies our ability to remove it. Some folks believe that dirt begins to abrade the diamond tip, creating in the process diamond dust. The additional of diamond dust is even more abrasive thereby accelerating tip wear. This is supposition on my part yet I have made an inquiry of someone who knows to see what the precise process is. However, I was told point blank by someone with many, many decades of direct observation that stylus tip shape makes little or not difference is stylus tip life.

Coming from me, I understand that is hearsay. I’m sorry. So that brings me around to the simple recommendation to have your tip examined at about 500 to 600 hours so that you can learn from yourself if it has critical wear. If that examination proves your tip is barely worn, you now have a strong reference point. But if you do not check it, and insist they last for 1,500 hour or more, well, they are your records. On the other hand, maybe on some systems, 500 hours is too soon, it is nonsense. Just check it.
Again, thank you for reaching out and I am glad you enjoyed the piece. It took me a lot longer to put together than I originally anticipated. But I did it to learn, and learn I did.

Some styli must be replaced not after 500hrs, but after 200-300 hrs max, it is all depends on the stylus profile (conical or elliptical dies fast). There is no universal rules for all stylus profiles. Diamonds are not alike, look here.

I have original user manual for ZYX Premium 4D cartridge in my hands right now. What i can read about Micro Ridge (0,07mm) stylus lifespan is 2000 hrs at 2gr. (contact radius 3 um x 60 um). Do you think the manufacturer cheating us claiming the life span is 2000 hrs with 2gr. tracking force ?

If every $5000 MC cartridge must be retipped every 500-800 hrs it is a nonsense to buy them at such high price, because the original manufacturer does not provide a retip, but provides only exchange to a new cartridge for 60% of the retail price.

If you can’t hear the difference between 500hrs used and brand new stylus on MM cartridge with advanced stylus profiles like MicroRidge (1500hrs life span at least) there is absolutely no need to exchange the stylus. You can also compare two samples of the same model of MC to make sure.

The best indicator is our records, if the story with worn styli is true (i mean some high-end diamonds) then all our records must be thrashed already after 500 hrs, but they are not, and some records are 40 years old already.

P.S. With a macro lens on my iPhone i can’t get closer to the stylus than this or that, easier with huge diamonds like replicant-100 or fineline  

@chakster, I have read that you believe these advanced tips may last longer than 500 hours. I’m fine with that, actually. I have not done the research necessary to say otherwise. I do agree with you that stylus life may be dependent upon shape, and that is what JICO discovered, as published now by SoundSmith.

The high centering issue, I think, is recommending life over 500 to 600 hours. Do the advanced tips last 1,500 to 2,000 or in some cases 2,000 hours? Honestly—I admit—I do not know. I can say I do not believe so, but I am not that knowledgeable to say that absolutely. As a consequence, I advise folks to have a look see, get their stylus tip examined at 500 to 600 hours. In my case, I would not say it is "nonsense" that advanced tips only last that long for the simple reason that I have not performed primary research myself to confirm that conclusion. Again, I don’t know. I do know what the case was for my Ortofon Cadenza Black MC played on only very clean records. And 2,000 hours for that tip was not good advice.

So in my case, from what I have learned, I recommend that folks send their kit to a qualified person to pass judgement, if they are not in a position to examine the stylus tip themselves. If someone prefers to operate in the dark, to believe otherwise based on whatever, I’m okay with that because in the end, it is their records. Yet I sure hope I have not been party to their damaging their record collection based on my call.
What I have done clearly in my essay or article or whatever you want to call it, is to appeal to cartridge manufacturers or stylus tip manufacturers (they are/can be different) to publish data on critical stylus tip wear. Yes we have the Shure experience from the mid to late 1970s. Yes we have the JICO reference from whenever, while the primary work is not available to the consuming public. Yes, at one time Ortofon has research out there. Harold Weiler had a great approach, that no one has followed up on. Shame.

What we have is opinion. Thoughts and prayers. Guesses. Subjective this and that. We have so little to really go on. But again, every single system is different. No one has the same turntable, with the same cartridge, and in the same alignment and set up, playing the same records. Given that, how do we know what is what unless we look.

That is why I lay out a whole bunch of stuff to narrow the path. But at the end of the day, we have to be willing to get our kit examined to ensure we have not reached that point were the diamond stylus tip, regardless of its shape, is not doing permanent damage to our precious records. And it is for that reason I am not willing to say it is "nonsense" to take the time and resources necessary to have an advanced tip examined for critical stylus wear at 500 hours. Only then can a user know for certain.

You look at the very tip through a dissecting microscope. If you see oval shaped flats at the sides of the very tip you are done. There is no other way. I have not tried a USB microscope yet but some use them. The dissecting microscope is nice because it is 3D. Everything else you hear here is one assumption on top of another. Looking at the tip is the only way which you can do for a fraction of what Raul spends unnecessarily retipping  cartridges.

Dear @aspens  : Only a small group of audiophiles own true accurate and high resolution home audio systems and if they have its own proved full evaluation system could be the only way that by listening way canbe aware of a worn cartridge stylus in the 500-800 hours of playing range.

The massive other audiophiles have " average " resolution systems where is impossible to be aware off.

In the other side no one of us, normal audiophiles, are true experts to say through any kind of microscope if a stylus tip alredy started to walk in the degradation stylus tip proccess to make very small/tiny damages to our LPs. So your advice to send the cartridge to a true expert is the real alternative about.

Our opinion on that regards that we can do it or that the stylus tip in a top LOMC cartridge can have a life of over 2k hours makes no sense because there are true evidence is not that way.

One thing is the stylus life span and other : after how many hours the stylus tip starts to damage our LPs and here we are talking exactly on that: when starts to make the damages it does not matters if we are or not aware by listening tests about.

The fact is that makes a damage. What any one of us can think against it is totally useless and as you said those LPs are not mines or yours.

We can think whatever but we can't change the fact only because we think in a different way.

At the end all is up to each one of us about. If any one of us think that true experts like Ortofon, Shure or Jico and others are wrong be that way, that does not make any damage/harm to no one but him.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.