Is this stylus worn out?

Visually detecting stylus wear is a tricky business and your photos aren't useful for such an evaluation. You want to look for "cat's eyes." Shure has an explanation here.

Dear @marktomaras  : " After several years.."  after several years almost any cartridge needs service/re-tip or at least that be check by a professional about.

Several years could means several hours or not to many depending the every day average use and only you know about.

Everything the same and according what you posted a distortion at high frequency range could means the stylus tip is already prepared for a re-tip but only a pro can tell you for sure or contact directly to Lyra .

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

Have you tried cleaning it? Looks like there may be debris stuck on it. That'll mess up the high frequency tracking.

give that stylus a good ultrasonic cleaning, then play it again. alternately, see if you can discern an increase in surface noise on the record when the other stylus plays it, mistracking chips off little slivers of vinyl that can have this effect. 

The distortion caused by worn fine line contact edges causes linear distortion of a type that is not annoying, but works to decay the soundstage, imaging, detail, overall intelligibility and high frequency extension. The high frequency distortion can be several other things, but I don’t think it is a sign of a worn stylus and is NOT a sign of a misaligned stylus. The two most likely culprits are a very dirty stylus (happens sometimes if you use gel cleaners, extended use of the magic eraser in a humid environment or never wet clean your stylus) and problems with your tonearm (either not enough or too much anti-skating, horizontal forces generated by twisted wires or bad bearings). Third most likely cause is that you are listening to groove damage.

I’ve never seen a USB scope capable of resolving well enough to show fine line contact stylus wear - and I’ve experimented with many USB scopes. You need an optical scope for that.

In any case, "several years" suggests you passed the 1,000 hour use mark a while ago if you listen for a few hours a week. It is probably time for a re-tipping.

Moving coil carts should be cleaned quite often. I find that after about 2 weeks or about 20 hours of play, enough debris accumulates on the cantilever that it begins to deaden the sound a bit.

I use a 50/50 mix of distilled water and isopropyl alcohol to gently brush the stylus. MC cantilevers and output are so delicate that you’ll notice an improvement.

Also, you’ll be better able to see what’s going on with a clean stylus.

@sandthemall , that is too much alcohol! 10% will do fine.

wally is correct, no big surprise. You need an optical microphone to see it and you have to know what you are looking at. At higher magnification depth of field is limited making stylus wear difficult to evaluate. At 3 hours weekly that is only 300 hours. 

I agree about the microscope. My cheap usb microscope is not easy to use and even at maximum magnifying power, I cannot see much…

Thank you all for your input!

I am a long time Lyra Delos user (and before that Lyra Argoi). These are superb sounding cartridges if set up properly. There are a few points to consider here:

(1) the photos that you have shared are both labeled "Delos" so its not obvious what we are looking at ! .....I am surprised no-one else has noticed this.

(2) both photos show considerable cleaning needed. Lyra has a special Stylus cleaner (SPT). the easiest way to safely use is to place a drop on the red stiff stylus brush that comes with Delos and gently brush back to front. You could also use the brush that comes with SPT but be carful you don't get too much liquid on the cantilever. 

(3) As you probably know all Lyra cartridges are extremely sensitive to setup. It is worthwhile to recheck all parameters (VTA,VTF in particular) once a year as these may go out by just the use of the cartridge.

(4) last but not least make sure your records are clean. Nothing damages sensitive stylus as much as dirty records. 

If all fails contact Lyra (or the distributor) to evaluate the stylus. It may mean that you will be without Delos for some time but you have other excellent cartridges to keep you listening!

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

@mijostyn 

​​​​​​10% alcohol duly noted. Thanks for the correction! 

Hello,

Wally mentions groove wear. Does this happen on all records or just one or two. I bought the Hudson ultrasonic stylus cleaner with just distilled water. Works great. I only do this once a month. The rest is done with a dry stylus brush before each play. I thought about this a while back that maybe we should all take a pick of our stylus when we get it so we can compare later. If you are going to have it retipped or buy a new cart it might be a good idea. I use an Ortofon Quintet Black. I can see pics on the web. They do not recommend using solvents so I only use distilled water. I hope this helped. 

I have had the Delos for exactly one year and play it 2 hours a day

I guarantee you that if you haven’t cleaned it with Lyra SPT on the red stylus brush mentioned above you have build up on the back side of your stylus  

The SPT cleaning solution has no solvent in its ingredients and is water based so 

Little chance you will damage the bonding compound holding your diamond to the cantilever. I do a wet clean once a week

Also I recently quit using the Onzo stylus cleaner as well  

wet cleaned the cantilever and stylus and the Delos has never sounded better

please let us know your progress  

Good luck Willy-T

Another one for cleaning your stylus.  It only takes a couple of minutes and cleaning it should be part of your maintenance schedule. How often depends on usage, time and environment.

All the best.

JD

the stylus must be viewed from the front, looking at it on the side means nothing, it would be like going to the night club with mum.