Hi Raul,
All I can say about Mr. Allaerts’ claims is that he must use the same diamonds from the few diamond manufacturers that everyone else uses. Without any explanation as to why his diamonds last 20x longer than anyone else’s diamonds there is not the barest evidence to support a claim of 10,000 hours. I have removed worn diamonds from Allaerts cartridges and they appear to be the same diamonds others use and they seem to wear at the same rate based entirely on customer estimates of usage hours. It’s kind of disappointing as I would love to be able to ask Gyger, Namiki or Ogura to produce for me a diamond that lasts 20x longer than anyone else’s. I would pay at least 4x for a diamond that durable. My college physics professor says this is not possible though so who should I believe?
I can tell you that if Mr Allaerts was capable of preparing a diamond to last that long compared to all other diamonds, he wouldn’t be in the cartridge business. He would be working in aerospace selling diamond ball bearings that never wear down.
The stylus manufacturers don’t make any such claims and there certainly isn’t anywhere in their sales materials where longer or shorter lasting diamonds are offered. As far as I know, Mr Allaerts sources diamonds from the very same manufacturers I do. Perhaps they have special diamonds that they make just for him. It’s possible, I suppose. There are many exclusive arrangements. Where does Audio-Technica get that beautiful gold-plated extremely fine tapered boron cantilever that no one else has? I assume Namiki because the MicroLine version of the Micro Ridge is found on it. But I cannot get these cantilevers from Namiki and they do not appear as an option.