[zettelsm]

Originally Posted by For The Love of Music

What I’m not getting is the lower hours of cartridge yield, meaning performance.

<snip>

I have about 80 hours on my new cartridge and people say break in is between 100-200 hours, if that’s the case I’m at 1.5-2.0 cartridges per year? I don’t think so, but it’s a “think” statement.

With this being said, I’m very happy with playing my setup.

Well, it’s not as if cartridge makers, stylus manufacturers and rebuilders don’t have at least some interest in selling you a new product. . .

I have nothing to back up my sense that 500 hours is on the low side other than the fact that some of the LPs I have dating back to when I bought my XV1-S have been played with that cartridge fairly regularly over the years right up to this month and haven’t exhibited any increase in noise or inner groove distortion. But, I haven’t conducted anything remotely resembling a controlled study of this. I haven’t ever kept track of the hours on any of my cartridges, though going forward with the new Aeon I’ll be using a timer kept at the turntable.

Still, anecdotes don’t equal data in the strictest sense. It would be nice to have some more modern studies, or to see all the data the stylus/cartridge manufacturers haven’t disclosed.

Steve