How and when to check stylus condition.

Sent the carty back to Sound Smith. Spoke to Peter Ledermann. He cautioned that it is likely the carty may need a "re-tread" with that many hours. As mentioned above, playing the carty with a worn out stylus can damage my LPs. Will report back on what Peter finds.

Hello Glen- An OCD analog buff can even journal the wear on his stylus, by saving pics of it to a computer file. It's also nice to know if the stylus is properly aligned on the cantilever of a new cart. How about visually observing the stylus, in the groove of a record(SRA & azimuth, for yucks). Nifty gizmo! BTW- It's on sale, right now, for $45.00.

if you know anyone with a microscope, you can easily check the stylus. I recently checked mine after i saw this article and found that my stylus was ok, but had some strands of what appeared to be fiber. I used the magic erasure and carefully cleaned. No observed wear on the three cartridges i checked.

Peter Ledermann just finished the retip of my Zephyr cartridge. He said the stylus was approximately 80% worn, but for some reason that I do not understand, not in such a way that it damaged my vinyl. In any case, I should get my cartridge back in a few days. I'll report back on performance later.

Hi folks, reporting back on the retip. Short answer: dramatic improvement accross the board. You name the attribute, it sounds better.

Take away: DON'T trust your ears. The degradation in sound which occurs as a result of normal stylus wear is very subtle. In light of what I learned, I recommend checking the stylus every 1000 hours, unless something breaks. At least that was Peter's advice.

An aside: I drive all tube gear. Power tubes "supposedly" have a 2000 hour usefull life. Audio tubes have a 4 to 5000 hour life. It's almost impossible to keep track of tube and stylus life when I'm running so much gear. And this is even where my Ref 5 and PH-7 have hour meters. Any practical suggestions?