Real world life expectancy of a high end cartridge?
While I know they’re supposed to last 1000 hours how many make it all that way?
Question prompted by my brushing a knuckle on my AS Palladian this afternoon and trashing it ... lesson learned not to try tonearm adjustments without full access to the table (normally I move the table off the wall shelf to a more convenient location to make adjustments, but not this time 😬)
And doesn’t it just happen that the cost of a recipe/trade is exactly my deductible so even insurance is no help 😲
Anyway just needed to vent ... but anyone playing with these expensive baubles better be prepared to reup on a replacement at any moment 🤪
A Company that has a very healthy turnover can carry out a lot of R&D and Testing on their products.
I don't live and breathe Stylus Life, I accept that if I get close to 1000 Hrs without a catastrophe having occurred I am home and dry, from this point on, I will be wondering how my maintenance of the Vinyl and Cart' and my overall usage has affected the Stylus.
From a few hundred hours of usage, my experiences of undertaking a inspection has shown there is unwanted Micro Debris collecting and entering the Cart' Housing, by a 1000 Hrs when viewing the Stylus and as far into the Housing as can be achieved, the collection of Micro Debris is very concerning, as their is no doubt it is collecting on parts with a critical function that the Cantilever is attached to.
I have spoke to professional services about this contamination collecting, and it said to be lifted from the LP and airborne.
I know one case where a metal dust has been responsible for one channel being detrimentally affected by the contaminant being on the Coil and was not a repairable condition using the original coil wire as the rewind material.
Stylus Wear is only one consideration that can be detrimental to a Cart' maintaining a high level of performance, if the Cart' has been placed as a device with a importance and value, it is worth having the Cart' inspected by a professional service at 500hr intervals and cleaned if required, at 1000hrs this can also include a stylus inspection. It would be great if a professional service made this service a well known option with a accurate overall fee offered inclusive of shipping and insurance, it might encourage others to budget it in as part of Cart' ownership.
If a Company were to make claims for a usage life of a part that is beyond the commonly seen guideline for the part in questions usage life, it is quite possible they can back this up.
What might be the case is that the Testing is planned to be a success and the figures being made known, are not produced from a everyday usage scenario, the failures of the Cart' owner might be eliminated and exposure to airborne contaminant might also be a factor to be eliminated as a impact.
A Cart' Stylus could be tested on a perfectly cleaned, purpose produced Test LP, with a Groove produced that enables a continuous play.
The environment the Test is carried out in can be controlled and filtered to ensure the airborne contaminant is not present.
It can not be said that the Stylus was not in contact with a Groove on a rotating Vinyl LP Pressing and that the Stylus could not last for a period of time as being suggested. It might have lasted longer, but the Company chose to reduce the figure allowing for real world scenario's
A literature review and survey of stylus life was published on The Vinyl Press in mid-2019. Lots of detail, research, etc., in an article entitled "The Finish Line for Your Phonograph Stylus…" Reasonable reference to keep at hand. Interestingly, cartridge manufacturers have all gone to longer stated life than they did 30-40 years ago. Proof positive of this is with Ortofon (have used them since the 1980s) that back then in their owners manuals (see the VinylEngine) stated definitively 500 hours of life, now for the same diamonds, 2000 hours life. I personally find that disconcerting. Ortofon has refused my requests for research to back up their longer hour claims and other details when I have pointed this out to them.
Whether a stylus is high-end or not makes no difference. They are all fabricated from diamond (unless you use ruby stylus tips). Diamond is the hardest known substance on earth. The cut stylus can be from "aligned" diamond, meaning that even diamond has vector properties. Aligned along an internal crystal lattice face, a diamond will last a bit longer (spit-balling 10% longer) than those cut without that alignment. High-end cartridges are more likely to align their cut stylus in such a way.
A crucial aspect is VTF. If a cartridge is designed for 2.3 grams of VTF, it will not last as long as one designed for 1.8 grams. Shure back in the day did measurements on that, if you do a search. Finally, a diamond stylus has only a small contact with the vinyl, and I’ve seen it calculated what the force is for that small cross section. Its reported to be a surprisingly large load, actually.
Maintaining very clean records also prolongs stylus life, since the diamond is not "track grading" thought dust, including diamond dust, oils, and other debris. Ultrasonic cleaning and vacuum cleaning and resleeving is recommended and its how I do it.
Based on all that I have read, I am dubious of claims of stylus life beyond 1,000 hours of play on very clean records. I’m in the 700-800 range myself, tops, and I use high end cartridges. So I might recommend having the stylus examined by someone who knows what they are doing at that time of play. The change in sonics is ever so gradual, and we are used to it, how does someone really know their kit lasts 2,000 hours if they don’t have the stylus periodically examined?
Finally, I use Stylast. I have never seen published research that validates the 10x in extended stylus life. The best way to vet that is to show a photomicrograph of a worn diamond stylus at whatever hours that did not use Stylast. Then to show the same type of diamond on another life tip at 500 hours, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, and so on to 10x life. While I use their products, that company has never really backed up their claims in a meaningful way. If I am wrong on that, please whomever knows post something to support their claims. My point, I want to know definitively.
Here is what the company says, this write up is fine, but in my view they need to publish the proof.
I've had cartridges that made it easily to 2,000 hours. I keep my records clean, which might, at least partially account for the lifespan. Much of my collection has been treated with LAST. Anyone who has used LAST knows that it is not true that it is merely composed of freon and will evaporate completely. Put some on a record and you will see the residue. At the first play of a record, you might even see fine "dust" that is the residue from deep inside the groove. A LAST treated record will be less prone to building up a static charge, and if you run any sort of brush against the surface, you will notice a much lower level of friction--it has lubricating properties. Having not done any sort of rigorous testing, I have no idea on whether or not LAST improves record life or the life of the cartridge, but, to say it does nothing is flat out wrong.
Thank you wqgq_641, This means so much to me to see. I am getting ready to buy a $4000 ML Cartridge, and was hoping the Last Stlylast, will help me maintain and maximize its' life. This will help me rest better! Not saying they are the only game in town, but I think one that is reliable. I'm older and this helps me; thank you for posting.
My SoundSmith Helios is guaranteed for 10 years. Anything goes wrong and he'll rebuild it in about 10-14 days at no charge. He'll even re-tip if it needs a new stylus. Rollin
According to Dynavector, my DV20x2H would last at least 1500 hours, and if it is well maintained, 2000 hours. I also use Last or Nagaoka stylus treatment, every 10 LP, and stylus brush every LP, and vinyl brush at every side. I also keep a record all my listening LP session. Mine still sounds good at 1300 hours
@wqgq_641, did you see my post on 7-4? Even after that, mijostyn continued to say Stylast is Freon. Repeat a lie enough and people will believe it? Works for some people, even those in high places.
ZYX R100 states 2000 hrs. I keep a log book of hours giving each album 0.75 hours each; assuming 45 minutes per album. Keep your needle, albums clean and alignment dialed in. I currently have 1100 hrs on a SHURE V15Vx MR mounted on a VPI Scout original model.
I love the way people argue rather than taking 5 minutes to check the facts readily available on line, e.g. Google for Walter Davies's patent on Stylast ...
As a funny coincidence the patents expires today July 6th 2019. This is his only patent in his name in this field and is quite easy to read. It seems to describe the product he went on to sell in rather different terms to those used in prior replies here and reading it may add fuel to the fire.
Pleased to find out that when my Dynavector DV 20X2L cantilever finally died after 3000 hours and alcohol induced fumbling that Dynavector dealer gave me a good discount on a replacement trade in. Not sure if this is WW?
When I was in high school I worked for DBx in Waltham. I constructed the chassis for 32 channel noise reduction units. We had a large bath that cleaned the flux off of circuit boards. We filled it every morning with a Freon. I lived with that smell for a year. Most Chlorofluorocarbons smell pretty much alike. I did not say brake cleaner was Freon. It is another Chlorofluorocarbon that smells pretty much like a Freon. Last is a Freon and nothing else. Its your money. Neither Iso propyl or Ethyl alcohols will attack the adhesive used to fix styli in place. You can use Ethyl (denatured) alcohol to clean up uncured epoxy but once the epoxy has cured the alcohols won't touch it.
Benjie, You see the cat eyes when you look straight down on the stylus. The eyes will be adjacent to the very tip, one on each side, not 1/2 way down unless you have a stylus that is smaller than anyone knows how to make. The Windfeld is a great cartridge. You would have to spend a lot more to get anything that sounds appreciably better. In terms of tracking you can not find a better tracking cartridge at any price. Send it back to Ortofon and have them re-manufacture it.
I use the golf clicker too, but have settled on 20 minutes a side. I keep two cartridges, an SPU Synergy and Benz Micro LP and have re tipped them both once.There seems to be two issues regarding cartridge life, sound quality and record wear. Of the two, record wear concerns me most, my ears are too old to notice sound degradation anyway.
Anyone care to comment, assuming no damage, which would tend to come first, sound decline or record damage? I have always assumed it's sound degradation.
Wow, I simply just replace the stylus when I notice it doesn’t sound right. Usually a year maybe two? My favorite is the ancient Nagaoka MP11 Boron. Love the fact that I can switch between elliptical, and conical depending on what I am playing.
A few years ago I re-tipped my 1966 Denon 103 for the first time. I must say that after the re-tipping I noticed absolutely not one bit of difference. My Decca Red still has it’s original stylus and sounds fantastic.
Most of my cartridges are from the 70’s and 80’s and most still have their original stylus. I never thought of counting playing time, I just simply listen. Works for me.
1) brush the stylus diamond before side one 2) apply Stylus Cleaner #4 3) brush the stylus diamond 4) apply Sylast Preservative #5 6 play side one 7) brush the stylus diamond 8) apply Stylast Preservative #5 9) play side two 10 repeat with next Lp
Without using Stylus Cleaner #4 and Stylast Preservative #5 together, you will not get the longest stylus life!
The analysis in the link below is most interesting. Empirical data and research is the best to get to the truth of matters. I have a partial bottle of Stylast but not used it in years; will start using what I have left.
Rather than relying on someone who obviously knows very little (if anything) about the products of The Last Factory, head over to the company’s website and have your questions answered. Neither Stylast nor Last Record Preservative (used by The Library of Congress to prevent the deterioration of their historical discs) contain any alcohol or other solvent, and certainly not Freon. That statement is absolutely false, and if I were Walter Davies (owner of the company, and one of the three chemists who developed their Patented products (ever tried getting a patent on Freon? ;-), why I’d.....
David Wilson did a study of Stylast when he was a reviewer at The Absolute Sound (he was at that time primarily a recording engineer and record company owner, very concerned with LP playback gear), measuring the improvement afforded by Stylast. His findings were published in Issue 32, the measurements validating the improvement in LP sound provided by Stylast as reported by Tam Henderson in Issue 20.
Last Record Preservative and Stylast reduce wear to both the vinyl of LP’s and the diamond of stylii. Neither contains Freon, alcohol, or any other solvent. Stylast not only doesn’t in anyway harm the elastomer suspension of cartridges, the Stylast fluid that makes it’s way up to that suspension is absorbed into the rubber, keeping it from drying out. Davies reports the use of Stylast can prolong the life of a diamond stylus by a factor of ten. Last Record Preservative is just as effective at reducing wear of LP vinyl.
Mijo, Besides your insistence and your claim that the Last products "smell" like Freon, you have presented no evidence for your claim beyond your observation that it evaporates without leaving a residue. I guess we're going in circles, but many solvents evaporate, leaving no obvious residue. I think there is a very old thread where someone claimed Stylast was an alcohol, which is why it might harm the adhesive used to bond the stylus to the cantilever, in that person's way of thinking.
By the way, I think brake cleaner, as sold in spray cans, is ether or closely related chemical, not freon. Ether also does evaporate leaving no detectable residue. I don't doubt that Stylast is a re-packaging of something not too exotic, and that it is very expensive on a per ounce basis. But we have lots of testimony, including my own, that one small bottle lasts for years if not decades. There are much bigger rip-offs in audio. Of course, I stopped using it a few years ago because of those rumors about damage to the glue or the migrating-up-the-cantilever story. Plus the fact that Magic Eraser works so incredibly well while avoiding any danger that might be posed by any liquid cleaner. It might be a volatile substance diluted in water, suggesting that after a certain amount of time, the volatile active ingredient may evaporate, leaving only water.
I think the only thing we demonstrated is your touchiness on the subject...lol.
TBH Freon is a bad term to use anyway as I think you realise with the description in one of your posts.
"The term "freon" is a common descriptor or proprietary eponym (similar to a generic trademark) like "xerox" or "kleenex." It is commonly used when referring to any fluorocarbon refrigerants. "
Oh Uberwaltz there is absolutely nothing funny about Freon. In making comments like that you just demonstrate your ignorance on the topic. Freon is a large molecule. All you have to do is keep the top on and very little will escape. If you want to have fun just leave the top off over night and see what happens:) Let us know about the results. Millercarbon, you ever use brake cleaner? It costs maybe $2.50 a can.
Benjie, Freon is now a very loose term. There are many types that have different vapor pressures. Chlorofluorocarbons are also used as solvents not just refrigerants. They have a unique smell, the smell of Last products and cleaning agents like brake cleaner. They are excellent solvents, evaporate very quickly and are electrically neutral. So, you can spill the stuff in your amp and nothing will happen unlike water or alcohol. There only major problem is that they deplete the ozone layer. Chlorofluorocarbons will not chemically change anything. They are inert. There is nothing in Last products that does not evaporate. Anyone can prove this to themselves with a microscope slide. Don't believe me! Last products are great but extraordinarily expensive cleaning agents but nothing else. Keeping your stylus and records clean is important and it will allow them to last longer. I have never worn out a stylus and I watch them under my office microscope. All the cartridges that have failed on me have done so electrically.
I would say that sounds about right. My first bottle is maybe just over half empty and likely bought a pair of bottles about 6 years ago or so. And I am not as diligent about applying it every side as I should be.
Freon? Great laugh. Oh sorry that would be nitrous oxide....
Re bending it back -- surprisingly given it's a megabucks cart it's a simple Aluminum cantilever so could be bent back -- but not sure how that would affect my trade value! And "audiophile nervosa" and all that 😖
Cantilever bent 90 degrees! I actually had that! Stanton 681EEE. Needle-nose pliers bent it back. Straight as I could get it anyway. Still had a kink in it. Seemed to play just fine. Now, pretty sure if that happened with my Koetsu it would not sound the same. But it is all relative. Which is my point.
Like this whole thing about hours. What a lot of hoo-haw. As opposed to Hee-Haw, which at least had Roy Clark going for it.
@millercarbon I think there are two sorts of problems caused by dirt on the stylus. In the long term build up of baked up crud is of course a problem and a good thorough cleaning regimen is needed to prevent that. But more problematic and more annoying is the quick build up of a ball of fluff. My hypothesis is that this little ball actually interferes with the ability of the stylus to ride the groove and is often audible as a halo or buzz around the sound -- like mild mistracking. Some stylus profiles are more prone to this than others but pre brushing each disc and a quick check/clean after each side keeps this under control. I use a tacky pad for the quick cleans and the magic eraser for deeper cleans but checking with a scope after each couple of plays allows me to get on top of issues before they arise.
That's all assuming you haven't bent your cantilever 90 degrees -- which was the point of the thread after all. Arguing about 500, 1000 or 2000 hours is besides the point if your expensive jewelry has bought it along the way!
My point would be, how much can it really matter? Pressure on the stylus contact patch is on the order of a ton per square inch. Pressure like that, whatever dirt is on there, ain't gonna be on there for long. Add to that, no record ever is perfectly clean. Cannot be. Even if it were somehow absolutely clean going on the platter, the second the stylus touches down it begins microscopically scraping and shaving and scattering tiny little bits of vinyl all over the place. So forget about that.
This is yet another one of those areas guys fret and stew and fuss over what don't amount to a hill of beans. You clean enough to get the obvious crud off. All the rest is marketing.
Freon boils at minus 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Freon at normal room temp is a gas. But that's probably just the cheap freon everyone else uses. Obviously, Stylast uses the really good room temperature liquid freon.
Moreover to benjie’s comment, how does the suggested experiment “prove” that stylast is Freon? There are any number of liquids that evaporate without leaving a residue.
I haven’t used stylast for several years. I was skeptical of the idea to use magic eraser. Then I used a microscope to look at Styli before and after a careful magic eraser treatment. That experiment converted me to magic eraser for cleaning my stylus. No liquids. It’s quite remarkable. I have no beef with stylast. I certainly never had a problem with it. But where there is smoke, there is sometimes fire. So I prefer not to take a chance.
I'm going to be the creep again. Stylast like Last is nothing but freon. A great solvent for non polar substances like oil but nothing more. You can prove this to yourself. Put a drop on a glass slide and let it evaporate. Do it again in the same spot. Do it a thousand times and what you will be left with is absolutely nothing on the slide. Zip. Zero. Nada. If there is a positive gain it is just from keeping your stylus clean. But, you can get freon a lot cheaper. We are easy targets for crap like this. By all means keep your stylus clean. The best way to determine stylus life is looking for wear under magnification. Everything else is just guessing. Click away Elizabeth.
I also use the Elizabeth method. Learned about it (possibly from Elizabeth) many years ago. Click counter on my Ortofon Jubilee shows just over 4,100 sides, and the cart. still sounds good. My rule of thumb for clicking - any side played over 1/3rd merits a click, as does each side of a 45 rpm 12" disc.
I've got a dealer demo Ortofon Cadenza Blue waiting in the wings when the Jubilee is retired.
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