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RE: Bonded tips...

Posted by flood2 (A) on February 18, 2017 at 19:57:41

In Reply to: RE: Bonded tips... posted by MWE on February 18, 2017 at 18:37:40:

Hi Mark

The life of the tips is quite soberingly short. At an hour a day, one would be looking at a new tip every 2 years typically!
To answer your question though, it depends on the grade of diamond - I have a large collection of Pickering/Stanton Stereohedron styli as well. With the exception of the (original) CS100 Stereohedron, all the rest appear to be industrial grade diamonds. The CS100 styli I have were the only ones that had an optically transparent diamond with a really "wet" look. Having said that, given the cut and reduced pressure in the groove, I would expect the "life" to be in the order of 600 hours+ for the D4500S, D98S, D88S etc . Maybe up to 800 hours. Remember the really short numbers I quoted are only when the distortion level exceeds 3% at 15kHz and not the actual "usable" number of hours - it all depends on how fussy you are (and whether you are a risk taker!). Consider them to represent a "half life". For a Stereohedron that is well treated I would say the equivalent "half life" would be about 350 to 400 hours. A spherical could be as short as 150 to 200 hours depending on VTF. For me personally, I was able to hear distortion creeping in around the 300 hour mark with the bi-radial ellipticals like the D680 and D6800EEE so I choose to ditch them early rather than persist.
Ortofon typically recommend 600 hours for a basic tip like the Sty10. From memory AT recommended something like 500 hours for the 100E. I've misplaced the datasheet so maybe someone will correct me on that. However, using the AT cartridges as an example, it did suggest to me that buying an elliptical tip (eg 120E) over a MicroLine (ATN440ML) was a false economy given the price differential over the life differential unless one genuinely preferred the sound of the 120E.

Regards Anthony

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats

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