Diamonds are not forever
 

Another thread reminded me of a well-researched article by my friend Mike Bodell on stylus wear and stylus life published earlier this year at The Vinyl Press.

If you care about sonics and, most importantly, about preserving your record collection, it's worth a look.


The Finish Line for Your Phonograph Stylus…

Thanks for the article tima. I have read several but not as in-depth as that one.

Makes you think twice about spending long on cartridges. Some opinions suggest retipping is no guarantee of SQ versus the original design.

It is challenging to hear firm degradation of your playback, especially when playing used records and even new ones since pressing vinyl isn’t what it used to be I have found. Some are noisy and some are dead quiet.

Jerry

good read, thanks ..... :thumbsup:

Thanks!

This information reassures the importance of precision, cleaning and keeping track of hours to assess.

Thanks, Tima. (I’m guessing my thread was the catalyst for your post)

Interesting reading and I appreciate you posting this.

I’ve addressed the possibility/probability of excessive wear on my current cartridge by ordering a new cart.

But you can read about that in the other thread.

Best regards,

Steve

Diamonds are not forever
 

Thanks Tim. I’ve been playing records for 50+ years and never thought to put a simple counter next to the TT to track playing time.

What did you decide on, Steve?

What will you do with the Dyna? Rotate it through from time to time? 2nd TT?

Dang, can you guys imagine replacing a $15,000 cart after only 500 hours? Or even a $5000 cart? I don't even like the idea of doing it with a $500 cart...lol. It certainly makes me lose desire to upgrade my vinyl set up. That's some seriously expensive per hour play...

Yeah, no kidding. I had to get my Koetsu Urushi Vermilion retipped back in 2014 and it cost me $2000. Then again, Koetsu completely rebuilds the entire cartridge in the process of installing a new cantilver and stylus.

Still...2 large is not chickenfeed.

And after how many hours was that?