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In Reply to: RE: Stylus life and shape of diamond posted by RealStereo on February 15, 2017 at 20:18:04
Have a look through the archives because this has been covered many times before in quite some detail.
It is nearly impossible to estimate a specific life of a tip since there are too many variables to consider. So the 2000 hours is somewhat meaningless in general. At what point would you consider the tip to have "failed"?
2000 hours would only apply to nude styli made from grain oriented jewellery diamond such as VdH Type IS which is reputedly the longest lasting cut. The Replicant 100 might be close in life as well. For this to be achieved, you would need to have pristine records and not play the same record too often - for example if you wanted to estimate life of a tip and chose to play one record over and over, you would actually get a shorter life than if you were to spread the same number of "plays" over a larger selection of discs. This will be due to the buildup of diamond particulates which will accelerate the wear on the tip.
The metric used by manufacturers is to specify the number of hours before you exceed 3% distortion at 15kHz. If you do that, then you would get something like 1/3 to 1/2 the time to "failure" at which point you are running a high risk of permanent damage to your discs.
Your list is pretty much in the correct order for wear time to failure: Microridge/MicroLine would last the longest depending on the bearing radius specification. Shortest is spherical. Spherical tips and simple bi-radial elliptical tips will start developing audible distortion after about 250 to 300 hours. A 0.2x0.7mil biradial will probably wear faster given the higher pressure in the groove compared to a 0.3x0.7mil at the same VTF. MicroRidge should see you through to about 500 hours before any noticeable/measurable degradation can be discerned. However, when it fails it fails catastrophically and will tear your groove apart if the ridge is chipped. AT specify 1000 hours and you are running a significant risk trying to get to your mythical 2000 hours quote. I say mythical because it will depend also on your VTF and AS settings plus alignment accuracy. Someone tacking at 1g will get a longer life than the same tip at 2g. You wouldn't expect the 2000 hours to apply to both just because they have the same tip design.
Bonded tips have nowhere near this life. Chuck them after 500 to 600 hours. I ditch them after 250 hours or so.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Follow Ups:
nt
"Our stereos do not add any distortion to your music, and they do not take any away!" Sony ad.
That doesn't make the information wrong! You didn't read what I wrote properly. The low number is NOT the time to failure. It is the point at which the measured distortion at 15kHz exceeds 3%. There is a safety factor of about 2 and those numbers when doubled very closely match the manufacturer expected life numbers. Ortofon quote about 600 hours for their cheaper tips (or "about 2 years"). You are taking a risk by stretching the time.
You are quite at liberty to try and push 1000 hours out of your DL103 spherical tip (for example) using Stylast or whatever makes you feel comfortable, but the physics doesn't change and stylus wear is a fact and occurs at a much greater rate on the simpler cuts and industrial grade diamond. Someone using a bonded tip such as an Ortofon Sty10 of AT100E is never going to get 1000 hours without signficant levels of distortion becoming audible and groove wear becoming a real concern.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
"It is the point at which the measured distortion at 15kHz exceeds 3%."LOL!
Just how is this measured, and with what record/arm/cartridge setup????
Do you trash a $2000+ cartridge after 1000 hours?
Does slight stylus wear "REALLY" damage Lp playback to an audible degree?
TOO much SPECULATION IMO!
"Our stereos do not add any distortion to your music, and they do not take any away!" Sony ad.
Edits: 02/23/17
Not speculation at all.
The CBS test disc STR-110 and STR-112 has test tones for the purpose. Obviously not everyone has this disc and nothing similar is produced these days, but that is the metric used by tip manufacturers and cartridge designers and why you should actually listen to the manufacturer's recommendation and not the Alternative Facts on the internet.
Remember, IT IS NOT THE TIME TO FAILURE!!!!! It is the time at which the distortion is going beyond an acceptable level at a specified frequency but there is a safety factor of about 2x.
I presume that you DO understand that the recorded wavelength decreases towards the spindle centre and that the effect of tracking error etc is magnified as you get to the inner grooves? So if your stylus wears beyond the acceptable level, you will get reduced bandwidth and increasing inner groove distortion coming through compared to a fresh stylus.
"Do you trash a $2000+ cartridge after 1000 hours?"
Err, you DO have the choice of retipping you know! AT specify the Microline at 1000 hours. If you push it past that point, you are taking a massive risk. If the ridge breaks off you are going to be gouge out the grooves beyond playability.
You have to accept that there are running costs in playing vinyl! If you choose to pay $2000 for a cartridge, then you will obviously have a higher running cost than a $200 cartridge with the same tip (and VTF requirements yada yada). Do you seriously expect the $2000 cartridge to last 10x longer???! It is tip design dependent and tip quality dependent, not to mention dependent on how fastidious you are in keeping your vinyl clean.
FACT: A spherical tip has the shortest useful life.
FACT: An industrial grade bonded tip won't last as long as a jewellery grade nude tip.
FACT: A grain oriented nude tip will outlast a non-grain oriented nude tip.
FACT: A manufacturer telling you that a tip will only last for 600 hours (Ortofon's recommendation for their consumer grade cartridges such as the OM10) or 1000 hours (AT recommendation for MicroLine) is probably giving you better information than the internet based information of 2000 hours!! The ONLY tip that is likely to get close to that figure is a grain oriented Van den Hul Type 1S.
Hey, don't let me stop you going to 2000 hours because you like the idea of 2000 hours. Just let me know your eBay or Discogs moniker so I make sure NEVER to buy anything you've played!! LOL
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Re-tip and you get a different sounding cartridge, even with the original manufacturer. I throw away old used cartridges and never re-tip.I get hundreds of hours of play on a Lp, and my Lps can still sound great!
Try being practical, you jerk!
"Our stereos do not add any distortion to your music, and they do not take any away!" Sony ad.
Edits: 02/24/17
"I get hundreds of hours of play on a Lp, and my Lps can still sound great!"
We were talking about stylus life not record life, but OK...good for you!
"You are a psuedo technical hair splitter theory guy!"
LOL! How did you reach a conclusion of "pseudo" technical? I'm really curious to know!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
you'd best settle down and apologize to Anthony, who has been most (excessively?) patient with you. And you should likely be banned for calling ANYONE here a jerk.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
Thanks for the backup :)
BTW, it could have been worse.... he could have classified my information as Fake News!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Anthony- would your guidelines be the same even for "good" bonded tips such as Pickering/Stanton Stereohedrons? If so, all I can say is, "Ouch!".
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
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
to cover it, somewhat reassuringly. At the same time, I probably should mix up playing my XSV/4000 ( have three NOS D4000IIS's recently acquired from a couple of European vendors ) with some other newer cartridges. Or plan on expensively sending boxes to Expert Stylus.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
I'm a big fan of Pickering/Stanton and currently enjoying an XLZ3500E. I don't know about you, but the large proportion of my acquired styli have wildly variable alignment quality as far as tip azimuth and cantilever skew go. I have cherry picked the "correct" examples, but even then, the other thing I'm not convinced was correctly set is SRA. The majority seem set for <1 deg with quite a few at 0 and some that are even negative. For pop and jazz material this hasn't been too noticeable to be fair, but certainly for classical material it has highlighted some issues. I'm hoping that Expert will fix that and I should hopefully hear what the cartridges are REALLY capable of!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
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