inagroove, thanks for the suggestion. My system sounds great. I play all kinds of classical music, string quartets or bombastic pieces like Scheherazade that also has a very musical violin. I have pieces with fat-sounding violins and thin-sounding violins, and they all seem natural. Part of the challenge is I recently purchased new Sonus Faber Olympica Nova 5 speakers which portray a much more lifelike sound than my last speakers. I guess I am worried about a slow diminution that I have just gotten used to. But what I am taking out of this forum is that at least by 2,000 hours I should have the cartridge rebuilt. If I were feeling rich (which I'm not right now) I would have wanted to jump up in pricee to perhaps the low-end Koetsu, but I am very happy with the EMT. I think it's very good for its price range. Well, maybe just plain very good. I've never experimented with cartridges over $2K.
When to change a cartridge?
I currently own an EMT HD006 cartridge that cost about $1900. That's as much as I've ever paid for a cartridge. Previously I was in thousand-dollar territory. I can't imagine spending $5K for something that's assured to wear out. I play my turntable (VPI Prime Signature 21) every day for at least a few hourse. I guage that I put about a thousand hours a year on my cartridge, which is now at about 1500 hours.
I have read forums in which people talk about putting their cartridge under a microscope every few months. I don't own a microscope and I wouldn't know what to look for if I did. After reading forums in which people talk about cartridges wearing out before the manufacturer's recommended hours, I began to hear my cartridge slowly declining. I thought perhaps the attacks weren't as crisp.
I called my online dealer to discuss replacing mine, telling him that I thought I heard deterioration in the cartridge's sound. He said it doesn't work that way. I will know when my cartridge is ready to be changed. It will not be subtle. Often the suspension collapses.
My reaction was that a dealer wouldn't talk me out of spending about $2K unless that expense was foolish. So, I am still playing my EMT HD006 and not worrying about subtle changes as it wears down. The dealer said it might be fine for up to 3,000 hours.
I'm curious to know what other people do about their cartridges. Wait for the suspension to collapse and the thing sounds terrible, or monitor it more closely and perhaps even change the cartridge before the manufacturer's recommendation?
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Audio memory is notoriously short. For those that want an empirical (sonic) solution, which is actually quite subjective, it is best to just make a recording of the stylus after it has broken in, and then record another sample, with the same record, at 400 and 700 hours. That way you can compare them directly, back to back without relying on memory. Since stylii wear like tires, the decline is gradual and, in some respect, the finish line is somewhat arbitrary. Some set it at 3% IM distortion, which should be measurable, and this typically comes at 500-800 hours with a fine line stylus. Not sure where the forum has recommended 2000 hours as I do not see a consensus. Dogberry suggested 2000 hours at a max, Mr. Newcomb suggested 1000 hours, I suggested 500-800 and the paper that I linked puts it around 400 hours, but if you averaged it out, it would come to under 1000 hours. Another way to look at it is, if you have a $2500 cartridge, and retire it 20% too soon, which really shouldn’t happen, as it should be professionally inspected, you throw away $500, and if you waited too long you have compromised every record that you have played. It’s a lot easier for one to replace a cartridge than replace 2000, or 3000 records, probably cheaper, as well. |
This is a great post & thread! Another big thank you to viridian for that vinyl press link on stylus wear! I was under the impression that 1000 hours was about right for a Micro-Line diamond stylus like the MoFi Ultra Tracker MM. However, seems like 500 is probably more realistic. Now, I've got something else to worry about! While I don't mind sending the cartridge off to MoFi for re-tipping, I don't trust myself anymore to deal with remounting a new cartridge and dealing with the tracking calibration issue, which I think is Baerwald for my TT. Anyone care to weigh in on just how difficult this would be to do accurately and properly? Years ago, I changed out a bunch of cartridges with my old Phillips TT but that wasn't a very sophisticated TT. It had a detachable head, which made the process relatively easy, and I used a paper template or protractor in those days. Nowadays, there are much more sophisticated tools, which I don't have. Anybody know what I should expect to pay for a real expert with the proper tools to mount/install a new cartridge? Depending upon all the costs involved, I'm wondering if it might not be more cost-effective, in my case, to maybe just buy a new cartridge. |
P.S. FWIW, this is what I use to keep track of stylus/cartridge play hours: StylusTimer (Stylus Timer) | LP GEAR All you have to do is get into the habit of remembering when to turn it on and off. Even so, a few seconds or minutes missed, here & there, isn't going to be a big deal. |
Viridian, thank you for the in-depth article on stylus wear. There are a lot of variables involved, but one that is important to me is $ per hour a stylus costs, and also what my ear is hearing. The article mentioned female vocalists and how sibilance can be heard from a worn stylus. I played Joni Mitchell's live album "Miles of Ailes" this morning and my God her voice just hung in the air clear and pure. This is on a super fine line stylus with about 1500 hours on it. Am I damaging records? I can't really hear it. So, does it kind of become a tree falling in the forest thing? I have put an awful lot of money into my system lately, and a very big variable is a grouchy wife. She very much wants to believe the salesperson who told me the change wouldn't be subtle when I needed to replace my stylus. I started this forum to try to understand better when I would need to change my stylus with all variables considered. I have forty-year-old records and older. I have played them on pretty cheap cartridges I never changed. I have only begun to pay attention to that in the last ten years or so. Do I hear wear on my old records. Yes. Do I hear wear on all my old records? No. I really don't hear the wear on some of them. I do get pops and clicks that I hear, but I find that cleaning records in my Degritter gets rid of a lot of them. The grooves are picking up gunk the Degritter cleans out. Back to the money, which is an important variable. If I can't hear change, does it matter? I'll give you an example. When I buy a new cartridge do my newer records sound better? In other words, could I hear the damage on my old cartridge? The last cartridge I changed was a Sumiko Starling which I would have bought again but it's too difficult to mount. The pins are small and the wire leads slip off. It began to sound distorted like it had dust on it at around 2,000 hours. And it could have damaged records, but when I put the new EMT on those records, they didn't sound damaged to me. Judging subjectively, the variables are ridiculous. I have old records that never seem to wear. The newer 180gram records seem to wear quickly. I think the vinyl is softer on those records. They sound worn after maybe even five plays with a new cartridge. I know it sounds stupid or ignorant to put my subjective judgement up against in-depth studies, but from a money-per-hour perspective, I wouldn't want to buy a $2,000 cartridge and have to change the stylus after 500 hours. I'd probably stop playing records. So, I need to take that into consideration. And I'm looking for a kind of middle ground that also sounds reasonable to my pocket book. So, as far as the record wear variable, does it matterr if I can't hear it? Again, I'm thinking in dollars. If I had the money and an audiophile wife, I would happily change my stylus after 500 hours, but that's not my real world. |
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