How do tell when my stylus is too much worn?

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.



 

Raul, Thank you. I have no emotional attachment to being right here. At the end of the day, I don’t care what other people do to their records.

Yet unlike others who offer free advice, I did do the research to learn for myself what was what. As noted in my piece, I was driven by a desire to do no damage to my records, and obviously to get the best playback my system can deliver. What transpired in my case was confirmation through all the research I had done. Folks today who know, others who work this industry, and people I trust, told me stylus tips do not last as long as these otherwise unsupported claims. They were in fact quite frank that at about 500-600 hours, advanced stylus were worn out, and at least at that point needed to be examined. To make it personal, I learned that my Shibata-tip, a line contact stylus, was "badly worn" at 800 hours. That cartridge had never seen even one revolution on a record that was not first cleaned on a VPI17 or in an ultrasonic tank cleaner. I suspect it was worn at 600 hours to the point where it should have been retipped.

If stylus tips truly last 1,500 to 2,000 hours, all the folks who claim that, please do the necessary research to prove that. This request is simple enough. A friend of mine noticed that my sojourn of discovery left me with a touch of cynicism over any long-life claims. He is correct. Clearly, there are two camps here, one you and I are in where we believe advanced stylus tips have shorter rather than longer lifespans, and the second operating under the assumption that lifespans are 3 to 4 times longer. I’ve laid my cards on the table in as transparent and honest a manner as possible. All I wanted to understand was the truth. The narrative I used walks an interested reader through the research and experiences of others. I interviewed many people, users, cartridge retippers and manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, I looked at the AES entire library for pertinent articles, did a deep dive on many papers written on the subject, I read thousands of posts on the subject.

Now it is time for the long-lifers to show why all that I presented is nonsense. Just saying so does not make it so. They’ll need to lay it out for me, as I have done, and prove it. I’ve learned the hard way that talk is cheap.

Thank you for your interest.