If I had a replaceable MM stylus, I'd prolly change it after so many hours of use. Maybe 2-3 years of regular play (~4 hours a week).
How much difference does the (quality of ) stylus make?
- Thread starter Matonanjin3
- Start date
Here's where i may stray from my usual conservative nature on these things.
500 sides and I'm probably looking to replace it if it's in a critical (heh) listening setup. Maybe 1000 for one that only sees 1g and minty grooves.
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500 sides and I'm probably looking to replace it if it's in a critical (heh) listening setup. Maybe 1000 for one that only sees 1g and minty grooves.
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Yep. My AT turntable manual suggests 400 hours, and I put in a new stylus every six months. At about 2 hours per day, plus the fact that there are days where circumstances preclude my normal listening time, I'm sure I'm not using all 400 hours, but I like a safety margin, and just changing it every six months is easy to remember. At $36 per stylus, I'm not all that concerned about eeking out every last bit of stylus life.
N2552
Super Member
Assuming your TT doesn't rumble, WOW, has no noisy cables, and connectors grounding problems, and has a quite motor runs on speed. a healthy oiled tone arm with tracking force adjustment etc or none of that all;.A stylus and cart are 99% of the sound experience assuming you got a decent phono stage amp, or a shitty one! Everybody suggesting otherwise are just rolling you! The cart and stylus ARE THE SOUND. Your TT and arm just shouldn't interfere with the sound path, that's all.! Every Hi FI TT from 1975 and onwards should be good enough ghat only cart and stylus choice should provide the sound difference / output to phono amp!
For those (like me) who want to know how many hours are on your stylus, you can get a counter like this:
Just click it every time you play an album side. Divide that number by 3 and you have a close approximation.
For inspecting a stylus, this $170 microscope works very well:
Very useful, especially if you buy used styli, or ones that the seller claims is "new" or "low hours." But yes, you need to learn what to look for. There are treads dedicated to that on the www.
Just click it every time you play an album side. Divide that number by 3 and you have a close approximation.
For inspecting a stylus, this $170 microscope works very well:
Very useful, especially if you buy used styli, or ones that the seller claims is "new" or "low hours." But yes, you need to learn what to look for. There are treads dedicated to that on the www.
2$ you know where....
flavio81
Turntable technician
In the past, the solution was: go to the hi-fi shop, many of them had stylus inspection microscopes.
Year 2026, USB microscopes are inexpensive... and we have a thread here at AK on how to inspect styli using the microscope.
cafe latte
Addicted Member
There is something going on with his studies. His latest study with a conical was showing very little wear. Micro line is more narrow than Micro Ridge but that wear did not make sense so something else was clearly going on that is not happening in the latest study.
Chris
cafe latte
Addicted Member
You can get a used microscope from ebay for next to nothing so this is a very realistic option.
Chris
quite the interesting statement. The cart has a large effect. I would also argue the phono stage used has a large effect as well on the sonics of vinyl playback. If a person moves beyond the built in phono section in a typical integrated or receiver and begins to get into separate phono preamps, you can begin to hear the difference. And that does not include the world of LOMC carts or step ups.
The phono stage is where all the gain happens so almost anything that can be here to lower electrical noise will result in better sonic qualities. If a person moves from MM carts into the world of LOMC carts, then step options usually enter the equation, along with their bandwidth capabilities.
Matonanjin3
Active Member
I have to admit I was very ready to tell you how ridiculous your comment was. Until I did check eBay and found it is an entirely different environment from when I was doing my graduate work in Microbiology! I remain very skeptical about the quality of the image with those scopes but probably for what one uses them for....
Doug G.
Lunatic Member
cafe latte
Addicted Member
You can get very very cheap used compond microscopes and with a bit of searching you can get cheap stereo microscopes. I would avoid usb scopes.
Chris
I wasn't sure what a sound signature was, but I found this helpful explanation from Audio Technica:
A Simple Guide to Sound Signatures | Audio-Technica
A Simple Guide to Sound Signatures Every pair of headphones has a sound signature that supports many or fewer genres as well as activities from enjoying music to mixing and ...
www.audio-technica.com
Gigantic
A big, big love
it's worth noting that in terms of the average stereo listener, much less the average audiophile, never ever consider changing their tone arms, let alone have a TT where that is even a possibility. So for the average TT owner, the statement that the cartridge is responsible for 95% of the sound (quality), is absolutely true.
flavio81
Turntable technician
But their turntables still have tonearms, and thus the theory still holds true: No matter what cartridge they fit, the potential sound quality is held by the tonearm.
When the Linn Axis turntable came out in 1987, dealers were able to set up comparative auditions so you could hear the sound quality difference between the LP12 and the Axis even though both were fitted with identical arms and cartridges. You could also hear how much better that same cartridge sounded on the LP12 when you switched from the Linn Basik arm to the Ittok arm. A few years before the Axis came out, I auditioned, scrimped and saved, then finally purchased an LP12 with Basik arm because, by audition, I could hear that that combination with a cheap conical cartridge sounded better than my Thorens TD146 no matter how expensive a cartridge I asked the dealer to mount up for comparison. Later, when I wanted an upgrade, I first bought the Ittok arm, not more expensive cartridges.
More recently, Herb Reichert reviewed a number of budget cartridges (Stereophile's Gramophone Dreams #44). He had his own 1984 LP12 with Basik LVX arm and AT95E cartridge, a Dr. Feickert Blackbird with Schick tonearm in for review, plus a Technics SL-1200 MK2 he had purchased, and review experience with a Pioneer PLX-1000. While he's had high praise for both the SL-1200 and the PLX-1000, they couldn't match the more expensive turntables, "On the Linn LP12 and the Dr. Feickert Blackbird, the Audio-Technica AT95 sounded dramatically more controlled and powerful, more nuanced and sophisticated." Using the Dr. Feickert for much of his cartridge survey, he wrote, "On the Blackbird-Schick deck, these so-called entry-level cartridges played recordings with a layered, three-dimensional complexity that I thought was impossible at these price points. Quiet musical passages were not only quieter; they were filled with magic little details that got noised over, dulled over, or disappeared entirely on the Pioneer and Technics 'tables."
This doesn't mean a person needs a super-expensive turntable to enjoy records. Reichert enthusiastically recommends the PLX-1000 fitted with an AT-VM95C as a great way to enjoy records. I replaced my aging LP12 with a Rega RP3 and was perfectly happy. After losing all my gear and records in a cross-country move to another state, I spent the next three years with an AT-LP60X plugged into a Bose Wave radio, and still enjoyed the bargain-bin records I started buying at Half Price Books. But I also know from experience that better turntables and tonearms can extract better performance from a cartridge.