wjm@whuxl.UUCP (MITCHELL) (07/16/84)
<gulp> In reply to Mark's question: Its possible for a stylus to show some wear at 220 hours, although not that common. <Caveat - improper tracking force can cause premature stylus wear as well as record damage - too light is generally more damaging to records (due to mistracking) than too heavy> The conventional wisdom is that a stylus should be inspected after 300 hours of use and every 100 hours thereafter and that the expected life is 500-750 hours. If you don't have a timer on your turntable one conservative rule of thumb is that a classical LP side runs 25-30 minutes, and a popular LP side is 15-20 mins, so I count the number of sides played and divide by 2, to get hours of use (I listen to mostly classical records). Bill Mitchell (whuxl!wjm)
jeff@tesla.UUCP (07/17/84)
From: jeff (Jeff Frey) I think it's quite possible to hear stylus wear quite early in its lifetime, e.g., after the first few tens of hours of play. I've never replaced a stylus with more than about five hundred hours on it in my various Shure cartridges (currently an M95ED in Philips GA212 tt/arm, tracking at an indicated 1.25g) and have always been surprised at the immediate reduction in audible distortion on good records. But, I notice that this pleasant experience lasts only a few more hours. OF course, the records get worn too, but I still believe in frequent stylus replacement. Naturally I use a Dust Bug, ZeroStat, and Toshiba (nee L0-D) disc vacuum before EVERY play, and play with the turntable covered. ANd naturally, I'm overjoyed that with my cD player I don't have to go through that crap any more. J. Frey