How do you tell your Cartridge needs replacing?


I know this is a stupid question but I don't know how to answer it. I have a Sumiko Blue Point No. 2 on a MT-2 player. Came with it. Probably , 4 years old now. The first 2 years I was not cleaning records but have been for the past 2 years. I have no equipment beyond my ears to measure degradation of the stylus. Seems to me that the intervals between cleaning of the stylus due to muffled sound are getting shorter. That is all I can say. Maybe my brain is adapting to the sound degradation over time and what I would not consider abnormal 4 years ago is now normal. Anyways, I suspect the easy answer is just to replace it and listen but was wondering if there is any other advice out there. Thx. 

ricmci

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Fun off topic story that comes to mind since I’m currently sitting here without a phono cart waiting for new styli to be rebuilt at Soundsmith.

It seems different designs yield vastly different hours. After about 3000 hours of use I sent my Strain Gauge stylus to SoundSmith to be checked since it must clearly be worn after all this time.  Peter got back to me that it was not worn, and I used it for many years after that until it started sounding as mentioned above, spitty and sibilant.   Peter in one of his videos mentions a customer that played his strain gauge approximately 6000 hours before needing a new stylus.