When does a stylus need to be retipped?

[Shakedown]

This topic is a bit confusing to me, I have looked everywhere. It appears everyone is getting decades old old styluses retipped these days, so I ask why and when would you want this kind of service?

I have a D6800 Stereohedron that came with my 681 Stanton cartdrige, if the stylus never got any use the needle would be good as new correct? If my stylus has never been used, possibly I would be good to go out right of the box. Help is much appreciated!

 

[c_dk]

By the definition I was taught back in the 70s, when a stylus wear surface exceeds 40 degrees of one the ellipse's defined 60 degrees, there is two, it is time to replace. By 50 degrees the wear will start damaging the high frequency modulations of the record.

Observation of thousands of styli over the years showed that this was most often 1 1/2 years of use at 2 hours per day, 500 hours a year.

Keeping the records clean was paramount......

As for sitting in the box for decades, elasticizers dry out, the suspension becomes stiffer so the resonant frequency of the arm/cantilever system will go out of spec.

 

[Shakedown]

Got a good close up of the diamond off my GE cartridge.

 

[Shakedown]

Here is a good visual.