The jury is out depending on who you talk to. the line contacts on the XI have been known to be good for 2000 hrs.
Here's what Audio-Technica says (the XA is Shibata) ... note that AT has a tradein program for their MC carts, which is a pretty good deal on the mid price models, but maybe not so much on the ART9 ... Every cartridge diamond stylus becomes worn after a period of play. Around 500 hours for a conical stylus, 300 hours for an Elliptical stylus, 1000 hours for a Microlinear stylus, and 800 hours for a Shibata stylus.
This is misinformation. Styli don’t last 2,000 hours. Especially if tracking near 2 grams. This belief around here has to stop. Seriously. This kind of careless advice will end up with people damaging their records. If anyone has the proper magnification equipment and see that there isn’t enough wear to damage a record after 2,000 hours then I will gladly retract my comments here. This is from the bottom of page 29 from the Audio-Technica 2019/2020 phono cartridge catalog: “Lifetime of the replacement stylus is approx. 300 to 500 hours for Conical, 300 hours for Elliptical, 1000 hours for Microlinear, and 800 hours for Shibata and Special Line Contact.” Are the people claiming 2,000 hours checking the wear on a purpose-made stylus microscope? I have never read of anyone who has one saying that their line contact styli last 2,000 hours. It’s seems more like it’s people who are stretching their budget with a very expensive cartridge and wanting to feel better about their investment by believing it will last a very long time. In my own experience with MicroLine styli tracking at 2 grams there’s the possibility of one side being completely worn down at 800 hours if the anti-skate isn’t perfect (which is an elusive setting with varying and even contradicting advice from cartridge manufacturers themselves). Please, let’s keep the advice on stylus life conservative around here. Most people don’t have the equipment to be sure their styli are still safe to use, and it’s not a good idea to wait until you hear your records sounding bad. Let’s stick to what the manufacturer actually recommends and if you have a microscope and know what to look for then that would be the time to prove them wrong.
Having now seen AT recommendation on it, which I hadn’t seen previously, I might be tempted to go to around 1,000 hours. But I think you would have to assess the situation at least when it gets to 800 hrs. I don’t think you would cause any damage to your records up to this point.
800 would be likely the time to replace. From my experience looking at styli with a Shure microscope I would highly recommend looking at any Shibata/Line Contact/MicroLine at 500 hours. There will be some wear (and possibly some minor audio degradation with Shibata and line contact) at that point but doubtful it would be enough to cause damage. It’s also a good time to see if one side is wearing more than another. This is the real indication of proper anti skate for a particular turntable/VTF set up. Proper anti skate is the key to maximizing the life out of styli.
There are some manufacturers that claim longer life, for instance Van den Hul claims 3000 hours is possible on their VdH 1 and 2 stylus shapes due to the diamond crystal orientation (they say the hardest zones are at the groove contact areas). Audio Note makes the same claim but that's because they use the VdH stylus on their cartridges. Lyra makes some claims that you can get 2000+ hours on their cartridges, even though they are using a regular Namiki MicroRidge on the lower cost models. Anyway, the 1000 hour life expectancy is kind of the current industry standard for the advanced shapes in lieu of careful inspection.
So much conflicting info ! My own personal experience with a Dynavector DV20-X2L "Micro Ridge" was inspected at ~ 1300 hours and not knowing the amount of hours that were on it -the inspector said it had 600 to 700 hours of life left. There are other examples as well as manufacturer's guidelines. My personal bottom line is to start inspecting ~ 1000 hrs. and this has not once led to a stylus being critically worn.
That’s good that you didn’t experience wear that would harm your records. However, I had a Lyra Delos (MicroLine) that I played for 1,200 hours. It started to sound really bad. I looked at it under a microscope (the reason why I bought one) and both “fins” were worn all the way down. I was tracking at 1.8g if I remember correctly. I had a Dynavector 17D3 (MicroLine) that wore out in less than 500 hours, tracking at 2.2g. So, VTF (and possibly compliance) will affect wear. I still stand by my recommendation of checking any fine line stylus at 500 hours and to never expect it to last beyond 800, especially if it can’t be checked under proper magnification. I’d consider it fortunate if it does last longer.
Had to have been at least a decade ago I did some back-of-napkin analysis of the 20-minute side due to a thread somewhere on stylus life, and the wildly varying claims. It was also a method I used to use. The punchline is that I found actual average length of a side to be just about 15 minutes in most cases, so a ~23% error right there. I then used some basic extrapolation to figure out all the times I'd logged plays later and erred on the side of caution, times I'd not listened to a whole side, etc. IIRC at the end of the day I figured my actual use was around 40% less than I'd logged.
Guys just work out an average of use per week and use that as a guide. As long as you’re in the right ballpark you should be fine.
That is what I do. Perhaps 10 hours/week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But 500 hours/year average. But within the 2 years (1000 hours) I'll want to try something new. So that is the limiting factor.
the majority of LPs are between 15 and 22 min per side average 17.5 min per side. i bumped it 8 percent to a 20 min side to fudge in things like being distracted and letting the run out groove play for a few minutes, demo plays of tracks for sound evaluation that are not counted as well as distractions preventing logging every side. this could possibly result in under counting the actual hours according to the ways i play records.
Of course I can't speak to what's in your library, only mine. My numbers were the actual average length per side of what I'd been listening to the previous ~12 months. When I calculated the average for my entire library it wasn't materially different.
yeah, lots of blue note and jazz labels records have shorter playing times but many are at least 35 min.
Yes, that is what I use too & I also jot down in a notebook as well, in case the clicker dies or something. OCD again..................
Okay…I’ve put some more hours on my ART9XA and feel like I am through the break in period. So here are my thoughts: The cart has now settled in a bit and has lost the harshness and bright edge it had when I first installed. I have very few records that I play now that I would say are noticeably bright. The negatives for me are that I feel I would be better off with a microline stylus now and I think this will be my next move. It’s not that this tracks badly….it doesn’t. It just isn’t as effortless as a micro or fine line stylus. My previous cart was the AT33SA and I feel this is the sweet spot for value in the range. Having said that, you do get more detail from this cart. I feel that the surface noise on the ART9XA is a little more than I am used to. It’s not bad, just reveals more surface noise than the AT33SA and PTG. But then it reveals more to end detail generally. Fortunately, my records are largely new and pretty clean so im used to little noise. There was just more than what I am used to, particularly the usual start of records where noise is usually most prevalent. I feel this is a fairly neutral, maybe a hair towards bright. I may keep hold of this for a while but I am wondering whether Dynavector may be the sound I’m after and may be a good balance for my system? Anyway I’d give this cart an 8/10. So all in all, can be very impressive…but just feel it’s not my ultimate 10/10 cart. If you have a system that will make the most of it though, the AT33SA is really nice. Not quite as good in some areas like fine detail but it’s not hugely inferior.
At 300 hours, most elliptical cartridges, save for the cheapest MM ones, would become economically unviable. An elliptical SPU Silver Meister is over $2,500 - good luck making that sale, if it's only meant to last for 300 hours.
