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How long will a cartridge generally last?

F

Future Man

Member
I've got the original Music Hall MMF-5 turntable with the Goldring 1020x (?) cartridge. How can you tell if it's wearing out? I've always cleaned my records (new and used) on the VPI cleaner before playing them, and I use Disc Doctor stylus cleaner weekly. It would be hard to guess how many hours I have on it other than to say "a lot". I've had the table since '03. I'm just curious how long these cartridges generally last. Can you look at it under a microscope to tell? (I have one in my lab here at work)
 
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You're confusing the cartridge with the stylus (the "needle"). Cartridges essentially don't wear out. A stylus does have a useful life, though, because over hundreds/thousands of hours of playing it will slowly wear on the sides that touch the inside of the groove, until the tip of the stylus eventually becomes chisel-shaped instead of elliptical. The cleaner you keep your records the longer it will last, but it won't last forever if you play it regularly.

If you've been playing it for several hours a day for seven years, you certainly might need a new stylus. This is generally a matter of opinion, because playing conditions are always different in different situations, but as a rule of thumb after 1,000-2,000 hours at most you should replace the stylus. The only way to be sure is to examine it with a microscope intended for that purpose. And, you need to know what the wear patterns look like. Take a swag estimate of how many hours you have on yours.

Or, you could just be safe and buy a new stylus.
 
HI,
Everything fisherdude said is basically right. I'd like to elaborate a little. Yes, the only sure way to know about stylus wear is with a stylus microscope. I'm a big advocate of the stylus microscope for the serious vinyl lover. I wrote the DIY Stylus Microsscope sticky above.

However, I have learned that not everybody is serious enough to invest in a microscope. So, without a stylus microscope you basically have two not very good options. You should keep track of the hours on your stylus, at least approximately. Almost everybody underestimates the number of hours on their stylus. Long experience, with a microscope, has shown me that a stylus will last about 1000 hours before the first signs of wear show up. At that point the stylus should be replaced to avoid record damage.

Next, you can tell by ear. A worn stylus has a sonic signature. You will first hear the wear in the left channel on loud passages and with high frequencies. This is pretty reliable. It sounds a lot like inner groove distortion which, in fact, it is. The biggest trouble is you don't know for sure if it is wear or tone arm set up causing the distortion. The only way to know for sure is with a microscope.

But if your cartridge has been working well and you then start hearing distortion, and you have not made any tone arm adjustments, and you know that the stylus is clean, and it happens on more than one record that have been performing well in the past, you should suspect stylus wear.

Seven years is long time if you have been using it regularly.

Sparky
 
Yep, I meant stylus...not cartridge. Thanks for the input guys. I've been wondering this for a while and then the other night I was for once just sitting and listening. Usually when the records are playing, I'm sitting on the floor playing with the kids. I was listening to the Classic Records pressing of Led Zeppelin 4, Stairway. When Robert starts wailing, "and as we wind on down the road..." I really noticed the vocals being slightly distorted. I've been wondering for a while how long my stylus would last. So when I heard that distortion it made me question it again. I've gone through the TT setup both before and after getting Michael Fremer's set-up guide. So I'm fairly confident it's not a set up issue. Since buying the table and having only my collection of Rush that I couldn't part with when I dumped all my records back in the 80's, I've bought or acquired over 300 records (maybe closer to 400). I've played them all. Some have only been used to play a song or two (putting it on reel to reel) and some have been played multiple times all the way through. They should really put an hours counter on the TT, like an odometer. :D

A friend gave me an un-used Ortofon cartridge that he's had sitting around since the early 90's. I've thought about throwing that on the arm and seeing how it sounds.
 
Heck yeah, throw the Ortofon on there and see how it sounds!

At two hours an evening, three days a week, for seven years, you're at 2,000+ hours. Time to change something.:yes:
 
Somebody else somewhere in AK developed a formula for this. But basically I figure I play about 10 records a week, on average. Each record I average to be about 60 minutes. So that's 10 hours of stylus wear a week.

So...

1,000 hours of expected stylus life / 10 hours per week of play = 100 weeks (or about 2 years) is when replacement due.

Just a simplified calculation of course. In actuality, play may be heavier or lighter some months or some years, depending on what else is going on in my life. And most records are shorter than 60 minutes. So 2 years a rough guess, and I could probably safely go 3 years before the stylus got unacceptably worn.
 
One other factor is the cantilever suspension. Rubber hardens over time even if not used. Shure estimates that any stylus over 10 years old probably needs to be replaced even if it hasn't been used. If the Ortofon displays mistracking/distortion issues, it could be the suspension has issues even if the stylus is pristine.
 
dumptruck said:
All records, pretty much. A 12" record with 60 minutes crammed on will sound just terrible. 40 min is still a conservative number to do this math with.
Click to expand...

Got that right. I have a record that was mixed in with some garage sale stuff and there's seven songs per side. Sounds like complete garbage.
 
Food for thougth ...

$100 for a new fancy stylus (Shibata, SAS, ect.).

1000 hours of play time.

Equals 10 cents an hours.

That's about 100 times cheaper than going to the movies.
 
dumptruck said:
All records, pretty much. A 12" record with 60 minutes crammed on will sound just terrible. 40 min is still a conservative number to do this math with.
Click to expand...

True. I was keeping it simple for my math-challenged brain.
 
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