Stylus Wear Question

Dear @whart  : Years ago Ortofon made it its own research about and the results showed that a good stylus tip starts to have signs of playing degradation at early as 500 hours even that the lisrteners can't be aware of any single anomaly down there through the LP play, in that same research found out that close to 1K playing hours sympthoms  srarted listenable.

""  I think part of it may be stylus pressure- remember when the ultra light stylus force designs were all the rage? Maybe they had something there). ""

Not exactly because the VTF is determined by the overall cartridge designs where are involved the cartridge weigth, compliance and that coils been centered.

Some cartridges as the SPU needs high VTF figures ( not all models. ) but all is perfectly calculated by the designer not only in the SPU cartridges but in any cartridge for the playing hours the designer has as the cartridge design target about with out gone in detriment of accelerated stylus tip degradation or LP surface degradations.

Of course I can be wrong but that is what I remember and learned through reading designer point of views on that regards.

R.

The user reported that he had not realized how much gradual degradation occurs over time that you don’t really notice.

This is why it’s important to have more than one cartridge (or additional stylus in case with MM/MI) so you can compare used and almost unused sample.

The OP has the most advanced modern profiles in the history - The Replicant 100 

it's like car shock absorbers, you travel miles and miles getting used to driving and slow but inexorable wear and you don't notice it until the car begins to skid more and more with the passage of time.

I have been away for a while and am sorry that I missed this discussion last week.  I have a Wild-Herrbrugg M5 microscope, (actually I also have an M3), and use it religiously to check for wear on my stylii.  Wild-Herrbrugg has been absorbed into Leica, but is still very much in business and these microscopes, especially the M5 are the cats meow for our purposes.  We used one for years to check the condition of stylii for our customers when I worked in retail.  McIntosh encouraged their dealers to have an M5.  Audio Technica encouraged their dealers to have an M3.  These instruments are old fashioned, optical bi-focal microscopes.  Too expensive by today's standards I suppose, but I am used to using them and and fortunate to have them.  I wish there was a way to share them with you.