Make sure you replace it before it starts doing damage to your records. Stay tuned for more blog posts about how to care for your stylus correctly, the different types available, as well as different types cartridges and how to pick the right one for your turntable. Sign up for an account, subscribe to Discogs newsletters , and discover music articles, exclusive news, limited-edition offers, and more. Return to Discogs Blog Tags: Turntable. With discs containing 45 minutes of sound, the real point of these tests was to find out if a certain production run of discs had a much shorter lifespan than the general average.
Testing styli and record wear was secondary. But the idea we should take away is that disc deterioration is so gradual that we will NEVER hear it happening. If you can actually see stylus wear with a 10x or 20x loupe, then you are certainly damaging your discs.
The fact that a new stylus doesn't sound any different, means that the damage has reduced the highs forever, no matter what stylus you use now. I use a xx stylus check. For me the key is to protect the vinyl, because that can never be replaced. The stylus can be replaced easily. Sometimes I can use a slightly worn stylus for really damaged records or even 78s, depending on how the diamond has worn down, but the first time I see that a stylus is no longer properly shaped, it has become a hazard to my precious vinyl.
I've don't this testing using a x stereo microscope for many years. I've noticed that some manufacturers use quality diamond that are unflawed, and straight with the grain, and mounted nude. While others use diamonds with any kind of "salt and pepper" inclusions, mounted in any direction on a bushing. Some manufacturers use high pressure plastic coatings to prolong stylus life and others don't.
Worst of all, sometimes a company with great diamonds and mounting will cheapen a product and if you don't check it right out of the box, it may not have any life in it at all. Usually the better diamonds, with the best polish, and the best glues and coatings last much longer than those without. Light tracking styli have been good in some slight ways, but really bad in others. But even the slightest amount of reduced tracking force that allows the stylus tip to lose contact with the vinyl surface even inaudibly allows the sharp diamond stylus to crash back to the disc surface, usually cutting a tiny notch where it remade contact.
On perfectly smooth disc grooves, or cut with a single frequency, when the stylus breaks contact with the groove due to dirt or overmodulation, the stylus is resonating and the wave has not been fully damped out so it may remake contact with a "soft landing".
But since real music has constantly changing groove modulations, breaking contact for even an instant will often send the stylus tip back towards the groove modulations in a direction that is perpendicular to the vinyl and with a very high force depending on tip mass.
This tendency to bounce on and off of the vinyl itself is extremely damaging to vinyl. Better to always track at the top limit of the tracking force to keep the stylus firmly planted on the vinyl surface than to risk the stylus ever leaving contact and bouncing around on the disc surface.
Additionally recent developments in stylus design like the Ortofon Replicant, Shure MR, AT ML, Garrot MicroTracer, Stanton Stereohedron, Gyger and VdH full contact multifacet styli, allow the disc to be played properly in spite of some stylus wear, because the worn stylus tip has exactly the same shape as the new stylus tip, until it is catastrophically worn.
These styli can play a disc for or hours and show no problematic vinyl damage in spite of substantial wear on the stylus. Unfortunately spherical and elliptical styli may not have even half that much stylus life before they start creating substantial unfixable by a stylus replacement damage to vinyl.
Since the range of stylus lives is so different, it is best to err on the side of safety and dump any stylus with any visible wear, unless you have a really powerful inspection microscope that you use often. I know that Denon tried very hard to use the best diamonds and their spherical styli seem to last much longer than any other spherical styli. Polishing expertise and quality diamonds seem like the keys to Denon's success here. Decca also uses great diamonds and older Ortofon diamonds were incredibly good as well.
But most spherical diamonds aren't in that class, and will show wear at hours and most ellipticals will show substantial wear at hours.
More than that is risking vinyl which can never be fixed and often cannot be replaced , against styli which can always be replaced if you by cartridges with available or spare styli, or you get your MC cartridges retipped at the first sign of wear.
Post by danmanch » 05 Mar I think most companies suggest inspection or replacement at hours. Probably could squeeze a bit more but in the long wrong not cost justified. As you know my woes with some inner goove distortion issues may be directly related to previous owner cause. I know I've bumped the counterweight on accident a few times.
I have the tables setup battle style, so I have to be careful not to hit the tonearm after adjusting the pitch. Looking at the dead needle, there's still a little bit of it left. I did notice earlier that day, that if I turned up the gain on the phono input, that the timecode signal sounded dirty, like it had distortion.
The other deck sounded clean. At any rate, I ordered some new ones. Have you cleaned the needle? Sounds obvious but I shit it a while back when this happened and all it was just dirt that had accumulated as I was playing a dusty record and hadn't noticed. Mine are 44gs so might be worth checking before you bin them. Yeah that was the first thing I did, thought it was a dust ball. The new ones arrived the other day, night and day difference.
I'm surprised the old ones still worked after comparing them to the new ones! In the past i would have to replace them every 6 to 9 months due to heavy use and heavy handedness. I've not replaced them for ages now. I have a question how often if ever do you replace the actual headshell?
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