Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, worn or badly misaligned needle/cartridges did do damage to a fair amount of the 33’s and 45’s in my collection. In particular I wonder if my meticulously set up but lousy tracking Denon 103 carved a few little nasties in my inner grooves. But in the past 30 years or so my high-end turntables/tonearms/cartridges have done essentially nothing to my precious vinyl. Sure, an occasional click or pop will show up. But gone are the days where hashy string sections or spitty sibilants would eventually make an unwelcome appearance.
How many plays can you get out of a good record?
I haven't seen this question posed in the Audiogon forums, but I have seen many answers on generic audio sites, that say a record can be expected to last for "hundreds" of plays before any sonic degradation is noted, if well cared for.
I'm wondering if they might last even longer with modern audiophile styli / styluses, which track at around 1.8 grams. Does anyone have any real experience or knowledge about the longevity of records in such a scenario? (If records only last 100-200 plays before some degradation, then this means that playing a record once a week could be at least partially deteriorated in two to four years, which is a real shame.)