[net.audio] Stylus Timers

wjm@whuxj.UUCP (MITCHELL) (05/07/84)

The best advice I've heard about stylus checking is that a stylus should first
be inspected at 500 hours of use and every 100 hours thereafter.  2000 hours is
FAR too long until first inspection, given the damage a worn stylus can do to
records.  One simple, and downright CHEAP trick I use for tracking time is to
get one of those $1.99 counters they sell for keeping track of your grocery
bills - totally mechanical with four plungers, one for each digit and the
beastie counts to 9999.  Each time I play a side of an LP, I increment the
counter by one.  Since most classical LP's have about 30 minutes of music
on a side, I simply divide the reading by 2 to get the total hours logged on
the stylus.
Bill Mitchell
Bell Communications Research, Inc.
Whippany, NJ  (whuxj!wjm)

wjm@whuxj.UUCP (MITCHELL) (05/17/84)

<munch, munch, munch>

One problem with using an electrical elapsed time meter connected to the
turntable power supply is that it measures the time the turntable is on,
not necessarily the time the stylus is playing records.  This problem is
particularly significant if you have a manual turntable or one with auto-lift
(but not auto-stop).  On a fully automatic turntable it would probably work
fairly well.
Bill Mitchell
Bell Communications Research, Inc.
Whippany, NJ  (whuxj!wjm)