Cartridge life really only 3 years??

Hi Kk. I too am a long term hobbyist except I never abandoned vinyl. As suggested by other posts here, I believe three things can happen to a cartridge, other than accidental physical damage.

Stylus wear - The normal use expectancy for a diamond stylus is 1,000 hours, although some (example van den Hul) claim up to 3,000 hours. If you assume a generous average play time of 20 minutes for one side of an LP, that means 3,000 sides played. So long as the stylus tip and the records are kept reasonably clean, the age of the stylus should not be a consideration, rather it is the amount of use. Eyeball or low-powered magnification are not adequate to evaluate tip wear.

Suspension - I have no idea how many different suspension materials may be used by cartridge manufacturers but I do know the life expectancy can vary significantly. I've owned at least one cartridge (purchased new) where the suspension failed in less than three months. Another (that I still own) is now 20 years old and plays beautifully. The good news here is that mounting and playing a cartridge should indicate if the suspension has failed - the cartridge body may nearly (or actually) touch the record surface - or not. I don't believe failure is a slow, long-term occurrence. Rather, I think when it fails it happens rather quickly.

Alignment - If a used cartridge has not been mounted correctly or if anti-skate has been over compensated for an extender period of time, the cantilever/stylus may no longer be centered relative to the end of the cartridge body. This should be obvious from a visual inspection. This is critical for two reasons. Modern, narrow profile styli will not read the two channels correctly if not set perpendicular to the axis of the groove. And inside the cartridge body, the alignment between the magnet and coils will likely be incorrect if the cantilever is not centered.

So in my opinion, time in and of itself is not the determinant factor of when a cartridge should be repaired or replaced. But these three factors are.

BTW, I don't think I would take advice on analog playback from a dealer who does not sell analog components.

Yikes, my 34 year old Signet TK7SU lasted 31 years more than it should have.

It could go any decade now.

I'd better start looking.

HI,
Having the advantage of using a purpose designed stylus microscope for many years and having run a high end repair shop, I have an opinion about stylus life. On the average a stylus will last about 1000 hours. As the the stylus gradually wears, the points of contact against the groove walls develop flats, called wear facets. These first become visible under high magnification at about the 1000 hour mark. This hour count remains true no matter the stylus shape or brand. After all, a diamond is a diamond and they are all the same as far as wear resistance is concerned.

As the facets become more prominent, you will start to hear distortion similar to inner groove distortion. The wear facets have sharp edges and act as a chisel on the groove. Continued use will damage the groove permanently.

A good stylus microscope is the only way you can see the wear facets. Forget about hand held and low power magnifiers. They just will not work. I designed and built a DIY stylus microscope which is capable of clearly showing the facets at the early stages of wear. I wrote up this DIY microscope project and it appears as a sticky on the Audio Karma forum. Here is the link.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=225960

After you use one of these purpose designed scopes you will never again be tempted stretch the life span of your stylus. You will replace it promptly. Your records will thank you.

Sparky

HI Viridian,
I think you are being overly conservative where there is no practical reason to be so. I have never seen a stylus show wear under the microscope at 800 hours. However, in this game, being conservative is better than pushing the stylus past the point where it is causing record damage. So, I will just say that you are wasting some of the useful life of your stylus. If that's OK with you then it's OK with me. It's a bit more of an issue when we include very expensive moving coil cartridges in the discussion. For example, I would not want waste a single hour of life of my $3500 Clearaudio Discovery cartridge.

BTW, my hours count (1000 hours) is strictly based on experience with my own styli. They are the only ones I can keep close track of use. While in my repair shop, where I examined thousands of styli under the microscope, I had no way of knowing their hour count. But based upon the 1000 hour standard, the vast majority of the styli I saw in my shop were worn far past the point of prudent replacement and had many more than 1000 hours on them. I always pointed this out to my customers but left the replacement decision to them. I know their styli were causing audible distortion and damaging their records. But as is said, you can lead a horse to water but you ..........!

Sparky