The Finish Line for your Phono Cartridge- Stylus Wear by Mike Bodell

Mine is about $550.
I get that, but perhaps you are assuming they will agree with the 500 hour useful wear as presented on this thread.
If not, no harm done, just paying shipping both ways for them to inspect?
No way Soundsmith is going to lose money on this deal for sure!
Always bet on the house.

 

Right, they’re going to inspect it, I’m sure, and if it’s not worn enough to need retip, I’m sure they just send it back to you and tell you what they saw. I’m not assuming they’ll do anything based on hours, but on actual wear. The bottom line with that cartridge, as I see it, is $800 a year (plus some shipping costs, sure) gets you a super-premium cartridge for a decade. Soundsmith is certainly keeping a healthy profit margin on an $8000 cartridge, of course!

 

As I see it: how worn a needle is is very difficult to know. How worn a record is is very difficult to know. It will take extraordinary skills and means to know objectively in each case.

 

How do you know what manufacturers are capable of and not exactly? The hardness of their diamonds dont change over the years.
There has never been a set in stone standard, people have always had different beliefs about how long they last. Some keep theirs for decades.
This thread is using the available information and trying to reach and answer to when its best to replace the stylus.
Talking about the 1000 - 2000 hour rule that some take as the norm without any evidence behind it is just not very interesting to me.

 

Depends on where you get it. 300 - 500$ usually.
I dont see what this has to do with anything though.
No one is forcing anyone here to do anything. Were trying to reach the answer to whats the best time to replace and minimize wear and maximizing usage.
If you want to go longer because you dont want to pony up as often then thats up to you, but also entirely besides the point were trying to make.
For MC carts you could always try and use a retip service. Although I know a local guy who is not very into this sort of thing about in depth vinyl playback knowledge yet he replaces his 1500$ cart every year. Again, not that its relevant to how anyone else chooses to spend their money.

 

Some do replace their vinyl.
But again, the entire point is that were trying to reach the answer to what we should do to not have to replace our vinyl.
Of course, it wears too. Thats always been a fact of the format. With proper care you wont notice it however, as you know.
But Im really curious why dropping the suggested life of the diamond to half suddenly makes the format suck.

 

To answer the last question, because it's cumulative...the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
And it's more than half - 300-500 vs 1,000 - 2,000 hrs..
Over the course, of say 10 years, that adds up!
My concern lies in when can a cart cause audible (human range of hearing) damage to an LP.
My current plan is to pray for 2,000 hrs and expect 1,000 hrs., albeit now with a heightened sense of the possibility of a much shorter life.
Microscopic inspection is not an option for me, so will use any degradation of the highs as a guide.
I feel its served me well so far.

 

Yes it´s difficult to know at what time a worn needle is increasing vinyl wear; and how worn the needle has to be.

On the other hand I think it´s difficult to hear vinyl degradation without a reference, which might be a good thing for piece of mind.

 

Willie- I think there are a lot of variables. Since I buy mostly used, and older records, some are misgraded and have been chewed up by kludgey record players of past owners. This is not a surprise-- I think back to what I had (and what a lot of people had) in the late '60s as turntables-- portable units with ceramic needles or whatever (I don't think I got my first 'real' turntable until 1970- an AR Xa with a Shure cartridge). In fact, what surprises me is how well so many records have survived, including ones that had obviously been played.
Even in the early '80s, I wasn't really obsessing over my turntable set up. I still had my then long-in-the-tooth Technics SP 10, an Audio Technica arm and for budgetary reasons, was using a succession of Grados until I revamped the system in the late '80s.
How well did I set that up in the early '80s? I probably used the protractor and whatever was available to me at the time, but I certainly didn't have fancy set up tools then. A decent stylus pressure gauge (which I still have, one of those vintage Technics strain gauges, which is now a collectible, but I don't really use it much these days, except out of curiosity).
And those records are still fine. I guess they are more durable than we imagine. And perhaps these newer fine line styli are tracking a part of the groove that was unmolested, I don't know.
PS: I did buy a VPI RCM in the mid-'80s but many of my records at that time had been played before I got an RCM.

Missan-- Agreed that for most of us, it's hard to discern stylus wear unless we have the tools and know what to look for. As to record wear, it is often evident to me when I get in a used record (I do a lot of buying online of older records), clean it and play it. I've generally been pretty lucky, but if the record has been chewed up (and the distortion is not the result of contamination that can be removed with a good deep cleaning), I know it pretty quickly. Obviously, I'm not microscopically examining the grooves on most of these. I've had a few instances with new records where there is some 'spot' on the surface that isn't removed through cleaning-- no idea what this is. Using a digital microscope, I can see what almost looks like mold spore in a few instances- somewhat unusual for a new, out of shrink record. Those get tossed.

PS: Just saw your comment re degradation. Fair point. I was addressing more overt, audible damage to the records.

 

Not wishing to challenge the valuable information that this thread contains so I apologise if this causes any offence, it's not intended. On Friday I conducted the comparison mentioned in post #60. Purely subjective so of no real value to anyone but me.

I played the end of side one tracks 'Dreamboat Annie' & 'More Fool Me' at least 15 times each using the 1000+hr 'worn' stylus on one copy of each album & then played the same track with the hardly used 'reference' stylus. Immediately after each, I also played another copy of that album with the newer stylus to see if I could detect any damage to the first copy (I never want to play those tracks again).

I have a pretty resolving setup & concentrated intently but I must say that apart from pops and ticks I can't detect any difference in distortion, sibilance or other degradation on the LPs. However if I compare by listening to the older vs newer styli themselves on any LP, I can definitely hear issues with treble response on the former.

As I said, not remotely scientific but I am satisfied that at my time of life, few if any LPs in my large collection will be played anywhere near this number of times before my own platter stops spinning.

I don't see or hear any evidence of chiselling to the vinyl & will therefore continue to periodically compare used styli with the latest copy I keep of each & replace when I hear damage to the stylus itself, much as I have always done.

 

The Finishing Line article was “writing to learn” for me. To do little to no harm to my records was a primary goal, an archivist by nature. I learned quite by accident about high frequency distortion, manifest on my system. All dimensions of why that distortion was occurring consumed me as eventually I explored avenues of stylus tip wear. That work produced for me a much better understanding on what occurs at the stylus tip-vinyl record interface. And conclusions in now altered standard operating procedure guide what I do and how I operate on my turntable. A casual discussion with Bill Hart about this unwittingly produced the motive force to complete the article.

Little did I know the Finish Line would be a natural extension of an article I wrote last September. Bill Hart published that one too, entitled The Curious Case of Record Cleaning in the Quest for Sonic Perfection.” A link to that piece is here: The Curious Case Of Record Cleaning In The Quest For Sonic Perfection - The Vinyl Press .

In it read about how three different folks recognized early in the life and development of high fidelity vinyl records the limitations of the medium. One led to the vacuum record cleaning machine, one introduced the idea of ultrasonic record cleaning, and the third led to the development of the compact disc. The CD nearly killed the vinyl star, saved by fanatics such as us. Add to these recognitions of need the work of Harold Weiler, who understood the limitations of a diamond stylus tip, in work built on later by Shure and JICO and others.

We are here because we love vinyl. My interest in better preservation of my records produced both of these articles. Along the way, I’ve sharpened what I do to make that happen. I’ve learned something and felt it important enough to our community to share. Take away from it what you will, appreciating the place from which sprang the ideas.

 

I like your procedure. I'm six months into my main cart, and with my new rig, I now roll carts so keeping up with usage for each has become problematic for me.
I need to go ahead and order a stylus now and use it as a reference to compare against the one in use.

 

Don't know if it's tip shapes or amount spent do know that my Koetsu was cool for some three years then there was vague distortion on high vocals, end of side.
My Nagaoka lasts about a year then binned.

 

Thats absolutely fine. The hours apply to different styli though. The 300 hour mark is for Eliptical while 500 is for Finer shapes. Keep in mind that these are not the suggested maximum hours of use necessarily, just the point of detectable distortion in higher frequency grooves. If lets say someone only has 1 record in their collection, of a constant 100hz tone.
Then the necessary time for replacement increases quite a lot.
Perhaps a HF test record track could be useful to gauge distortions and wear thats audible.

 

A good reminder Bill, older records are often already played on poor equipment.
1 detail or nitpick I should point out however is that there are no ceramic needles per se. Its often confused, the cartridge internals are usually what have the ceramic, the stylus was often of ruby material from what Ive seen.
Although if Im wrong let me know.

 

I have the album. Its great. Does the last tracks have very high frequency or dynamic passages however? I dont recall.
Increased crackles and pops do count as part of groove degredation to me though.
Thats usually how the grooves wear, the music is still there, it just has more surface noise anomalies and distortions in it.

 

Another problem less fine styli face is of course a geometrical one, which no matter how new the stylus, causes distortions in grooves that the diamond simply cant track or fit in properly.
IGD and sibilance are the main offenders.
Its too bad Nagaoka dont offer better styli until the 500.

 

Are you on a mission to try and answer every post in this thread?

 

Regarding hearsay, I can only get the wayback machine to find the Ortofon site referencing stylus lifetime going back to 2001 (link here).
Prior to that, there seems to be nothing (on their site at least) about lifetime. You can see the whole FAQ there.

What it states if you don't want to click is:

Stylus lifetime

If normal attention has been paid on cleaning record as well as stylus as mentioned, we find that 600 hours up to 1000 hours is possible without degradation of performance. However, concerning PRO systems used for "scratching" and "back cuing", we have experienced stylus lifetime to be substantially less because of their unique application. As a consequence DJ`s will have to consider about 500 hours at the most.​

And, from a 1986 Stereophile interview with A.J. van den Hul (link)

Norton: There are many people who feel that the first thing to actually go in a cartridge is not the stylus, but the damping materials.

van den Hul: Damping materials do age faster than tips, but not when the latter is an artificial diamond. Artificial diamonds, with a lot of impurities, have a very short lifetime of about 400 to 500 hours. A very good, natural, crystal-oriented diamond—the type I use—has a life of around 2500 to 3000 hours. So it's worthwhile to replace a cheap tip with a better one, because your cartridge will last longer. If the damping material is an artificial rubber, or a good blend of artificial rubbers, yes, it will also last 2500 to 3000 hours.​

 

@Big Blue said:
I mean, I’m not buying a $3000 MC cartridge, either. My current replacement stylus is $150, and I’m in no rush to multiply that expense since it sounds pretty damn good to me. I just think if you are going to go four digits for a phono cartridge, and it turns out they do need to be replaced annually or even every two years, Soundsmith seems like the best deal on the market in those price ranges because of the relatively low maintenance cost. That’s all I’m saying.


Slick Willie said:
Mine is about $550.
I get that, but perhaps you are assuming they will agree with the 500 hour useful wear as presented on this thread.
If not, no harm done, just paying shipping both ways for them to inspect?
No way Soundsmith is going to lose money on this deal for sure!
Always bet on the house.

Soundsmith carts are a good deal because they can rebuild their cartridges for 10-20 percent of the original cost. The Hyperion gets free retips for 10 years. As @Slick Willie says inspection is involved. If Peter Lederman says the stylus is worn and not damaged by misuse, then you get the free retip. Peter Lederman is a straight shooter and takes pride in his product so he won't ship back worn styli. There are a couple of caveats here. 1. Shipping can be expensive if you insure the cartridge for full retail. I insured my cart when I sent it back. Insurance is about $10 per $1000 of value. 2. My rebuild took 11 weeks. I could see an inspection taking a couple of weeks or more.

 

This is how I do it as well. Now that I am using a tally counter it should be easier. If I start hear to degradation of the performance of the cart and the tally counter is showing a lot of hours, then it is time for a retip, for sure.

 

Tully - how long have you been using the counter?

 

This has been my experience. Stylus wear shows up before groove wear. Of course, I didn't keep using the worn stylus because I couldn't stand listening to distortion and I didn't want to chance damaging my records. I would get a new stylus and the records turned out to be fine.

 

Going on two years.

 

Yeah, to me, it seems like the biggest safeguard against customers trying to abuse the free retip service is the turnaround time. If I spent $8000 or even $2000 on a cartridge, I’m going to hesitate to send it away for two or three months unless I have good reason to believe it’s time.