Playing vinyl records is a demanding physical process that involves your stylus traveling a great distance. (Around 1,500 feet across each side of an average LP).
It’s no easy task. Your stylus will confront, dirt, dust, debris, and even scratches as it traverses miles of grooves over the course of its useable life.
Not surprisingly, a stylus needs to be tough if it’s going to last the distance. But despite the fact most styli are made from diamond (one of the top ten toughest materials known to man), your stylus will eventually wear out.
When Should I Replace My Stylus?
There is no simple answer to this question, as it depends on a number of factors.
Asking how long a record stylus will last is much like asking how long a set of strings will last on a guitar. There are many factors that influence the life of a stylus, from the condition of your records to the quality and material of the stylus, and much more.
Either way, a worn stylus will damage records, so you definitely want to maintain it well and replace it regularly.
As a stylus wears, flat spots form on the surface that make it harder for the stylus to track grooves accurately. This wear manifests itself as a light, fuzzy distortion in the high-end, and becomes more obvious as wear increases.
We should not use distortion as the main signal of wear, however, as by this point, the stylus is already causing record wear.
As a guide, a diamond stylus should be replaced after 800 to 1,000 hours of playing time.
However, hours are a difficult metric to measure when we consider vinyl playback, so I like to convert this into a rough number of albums. If we take the best possible outcome and an average playing time of 40 minutes per record, 1000 playing hours works out at 1500 album plays. If we then take this number and split it between all 52 weeks in a year, it works out at approximately 4 records per day.
In all honesty, while this sounds like a reasonable amount, I make a habit of changing the stylus once every year as a matter of caution.
Some vinyl collectors will claim that sticking strictly to the 1000 playing hours guideline is excessive and that with proper care, setup and maintenance, your stylus can live on for much longer. This view certainly holds a lot of merit. If you set up your turntable correctly, clean your stylus religiously, and only play records in good condition, it is highly likely your stylus will outlive the average. How far you want to push it will depend greatly on how brave you feel.
How to Tell if Your Stylus Needs Replacing
If you want to push your stylus beyond my admittedly overcautious annual replacement (or the 1000 playing hours rule), you’ll need to check carefully for signs of wear. Here are some of the basics:
- Check your stylus using a USB microscope or magnifying glass for signs of wear. Look out for changes in the stylus profile, be they flat spots, edges, or other mutations. Also, check for any residue that won’t come off after cleaning.
- Listen carefully for audible signs of wear. As stated, if the audio starts to degrade, your stylus is almost certainly worn and you should replace it as soon as possible. Failure to do so could result in damage to your precious records. The most noticeable degradation is a light, fuzzy distortion in the high-end, but you should also listen out for any loss of clarity across the frequency spectrum. As the loss of sound quality is so gradual, you will find these defects easier to hear when listening to music you’re very familiar with.
- In some extreme cases, the stylus may start to jump out of the groove through passages of music where previously it was stable. If this happens, stop the turntable immediately and cease playing records until the stylus is replaced.
- If you purchased a turntable secondhand, change the stylus as a matter of good practice; you don’t know how long it’s been in service, or how well it was handled.
How Do I Replace My Turntable Stylus?
Fortunately for your bank balance, you will likely only need to replace the stylus component, not the main cartridge body – although, in many cases, a replacement stylus can cost almost as much as the entire cartridge. What can I say? Nobody ever said record collecting was going to be cheap!
The vast majority of moving magnet cartridges allow you to replace the stylus, which normally just clips into the front end of the cartridge.
If your cartridge is a moving coil design, then you may have the shell out for an entirely new cartridge – unless the manufacturer offers a re-tipping service.
How to Look After Your Stylus
- Good stylus maintenance starts with clean vinyl records. Be sure to dry clean your records before and after each playback using a carbon fiber brush.
- Despite your best dry-cleaning efforts, your records will occasionally need wet cleaning to remove dirt and grime that may build up over time.
- Avoid playing damaged or very dirty records, and always clean any used records before you allow them to grace your turntable. Any dust or dirt will act like sandpaper on your stylus, speeding up the process of wear.
- Clean your stylus regularly. You should dry clean your stylus after each record (some folks go as far as cleaning after each side). Occasional wet cleaning using a specially formulated stylus cleaning solution will help to remove any stubborn dirt.
- Be sure to correctly set up your turntable, as poorly configured anti-skate, azimuth, and tracking force can easily contribute to excessive or uneven wear.
An excellent article on replacing a stylus from most phono cartridges. I recently mounted, and aligned a used Denon DL-80A Moving Coil Cartridge in very good condition; bought from ebay.ca, on a harman kardon T25 turntable, circa 1983 in good condition.
HK T25 Turntable came with an Audio Technica AT70 MM, so I installed a new stylus. Later I replaced that original AT cartridge; I mounted the DL-80A MM cartridge. Seller said it has 100 hours left on the stylus. It still sounds very good. I also purchased a Hi-Fi Analogue Test LP from ebay.ca; and conducted the test.
An advantage with this Denon MC Cartridge – the DL-80A – is that the stylus can actually be replaced! From what I’m aware any other Moving Coil cartridge requires a re-tipping of the stylus. Replacement of stylus is a Denon DSN-80A. Certainly a very convenient advantage.
Furthermore, Anti-skate goes further than what is supposed to be for tracking force. However, as I’ve researched from YouTube demonstrations, a slightly different tracking force to a anti-skate setting can be a normal occurrence, for the most part.
Thanks George. Yes, on the anti-skate topic, I too often find the anti-skate weight needs to be adjusted. Matching the tracking force is a good starting point though.
I check my force gauge every week and it’s almost always off one way or the other. We live near an Army installation and they practice shooting tanks. They are about anywhere from 10 to as much as 30 miles away and it has caused pictures to fall off the wall. There also a lot of foot traffic in front of my turntable. I purchased a good quality digital force gauge from ClearAudio, as I own a ClearAudio Concept with the Maestro Ebony 2 cartridge. I have had it replaced once and I let a AV shop do it as the stylus was $1,200. It’s not like most where you can swap out just the stylus, but you have to change the whole cartridge. I was also using a brush to clean it and the AV guy who swapped out my cartridge recommend that I buy an electronic stylus cleaner as they aren’t as harsh as the brush cleaning method. I have a simple anti-skate weight and I can’t really make adjustments to it. I’m sure there are some people who change the weight or something similar, but everyone should check their force gauge more often than many people probably do. I’ve owned vinyl since the early 1980’s and there’s a lot more to owning and maintains a very good vinyl collection. A lot of people don’t realize the other hidden cost like a cleaning device, I prefer a good VPI vacuum cleaner over a high maintenance the ultrasonic machines any day. Then you need a few good brushes, and other things that aren’t considered by most newbies to vinyl albums. It’s like getting a pool, you will need an assortment of stuff that you don’t get upfront.
Theres a lot more to owning a well maintained collection of vinyl and keeping it in its best condition possible than just buying a turntable and a hand full of vinyl albums from some place like Amazon. Every single album I purchase gets a good cleaning on my VPI vacuum machine, then a MoFi inner sleeve and I only keep printed inner sleeves. Then after drying on a custom built rack, they go into the MoFi sleeve, then the jacket and finally into a Japanese style resealable outer sleeve which is the best way to keep out dust particles. I discovered that this method has worked very well and helps maintain a very clean and consistent sound as well as keeping my collection in its best shape possible. I also use a Milty gun as they work very well. Most people don’t realize that actually playing an album will build up static, so I hit my turntable with the Milty and then I flip it over and it doesn’t try to take the cork mat with the album. I’m constantly amazed at how many negative reviews I’ve read on Discogs about sound quality and I always respond with “check you’re stylus”, as most are probably going to fall into the really low end of quality range and it’s worn out already.
A great,detailed,and very informative post! Thank you for posting that advice about checking, “force gauge every week” for assured accuracy. Thank you for sharing, and explaining that adjustment on tracking force, James.
By the way, above, I was not able to correct what I wrote, and I tried to correct it, but could not because of the Web Site’s allowances. In the second paragraph, first sentence of the second line after the semicolon I posted “MM”. Correction: it is actually a DL-80A MC for the DENON Moving Magnet Cartridge. Anyhow, I think most vinyl fans, and spinners caught that small, but important mistake.
Furthermore, there should also be a lengthy topic on this Web Site of Sound Matters on the concerns, and challenges of static electricity; especially during the Winter months. It is at the Winter Season that pops, and clicks pop up more often; or at least those annoying sounds are amplified more. However, you have explained most of what can be done to remove Static Electricity; on your second paragraph. That Milty Zerostat, now a third version called the Milty Zerostat 3 is proven to work well; available, and sold on the Canadian Amazon Web Site. That, “Milty Zerostat 3 Anti-Static Gun, Blue” got very high, positive ratings.
Stylus timer is a cheap $20 timer for keeping track of the time the stylus is engaged in playing a record. Check it out online and read about at analog planet.com
john
I started writing down every album i play and which sides ( ABCD) in a notebook, at the end of each page i total up the number of sides … for me 3 sides equals 1 hour and i replace my cartridge at 1000 hours, this also gives me a journal of what i have played and listening habits
[…] Despite the durability of diamonds, the intense job of tracking record after record eventually takes its toll, and the stylus will ultimately wear out and require replacement. If your records are dirty, the stylus will wear out quicker; similarly, if your stylus is clogged with dust and gunk, this will also speed up its demise. (To learn more about how often you should replace a stylus, check out our previous article). […]
The wear of the tip is only part of the problem.
The suspension also wears out.
Cantilever damage from raising and lowering the stylus as well as foot steps can lead to damage as well.
Good point well made. All parts like this will wear out over time. For the abuse they take, they hold up remarkably well! Happy spinning, Tom.
Sir no need to say “Vinyl” records. Simply saying records, or Albums is suffice.
Yep, “records” not “vinyls.” [shudder]
Actually, not all styli can be replaced; Lyra is one brand that does not provide for them, instead you trade in your cartridge for a new one.
Good point. These require “retipping” – a specialist skill, of course 🙂
If you are like me and use vintage cartridges, It is not that easy. It is not always possible to get ANYONE competent to retip the cartridge, sometimes they will only replace the stylus/cantilever as a single item.
Some cartridges (eg., certain Technics, B&O, Microacoustics, etc.) use technology that has never been equalled, let alone bettered, so trying to replace a stylus on these cartridges almost becomes an act of vandalism.
I once tried to get a very respected retipper to retip a Technics EPC-310MC. I will not disclose the price except to say that it was substantial. What stopped me going ahead was the warning that there was a greater than 50% chance that the cartridges would be irreparably damaged! I got the distinct impression (the price!) that he just did not want to do it. Perhaps a disaster and the resultant feeling of failure just wasn’t worth it unless there was a lot of money to compensate.
I don’t guess I have heard of having these type cartridges retipped. I’m sure that Austin has someone who specializes in this type of work. I’m glad I kept my old cartridge, I might try to find someone who does this and have a spare cartridge for when mine starts to become worn out.
Worth looking into if you love the sound of the cartridge! Hope you get it sorted. Happy spinning
Agreed, MoFi cartridges have to be exchanged
Good point, BillK. Same thing for a Rega MM cartridge. I recently bought a Rega Bias 2 Moving Magnet; the stylus cannot be replaced. Stylus requires it to be re-tipped as a MC cartridge.
My ClearAudio Maestro Ebony V2 is like this. You have to change the whole cartridge out. When I had to replace it, I confided going with a much cheaper model and a brand that you could change the stylus on. The AV sales guy put one of his best Ortofon (not sure that’s spelled right), and the sound was nowhere near as good as the Maestro Ebony 2 cartridge. He said that the biggest improvement in sound quality, even on cheap models is getting a much higher quality cartridge that is compatible with the player it will be used on. I’m considering trying to upgrade my turntable to one with the linear tracking tone arm instead of the standard one. I upgraded my original tone arm when I bought the turntable, but the linear tracking arm was way to expensive at the time. I had been using a vintage Sansui turntable that was brought back from Japan by my stepfather along with a still mint QRX 9000 receiver and those enormous wooden speakers which have been in the original boxes since 1980 or longer. It was originally a quad turntable and I had the stylus changed out to work with a much more modern receiver for the 90’s era. I had an Adcom preamp and two 555 series amps that were bridged. I moved to Texas and found a shop here that replaced the capacitor’s and basically rebuilt the Adcom amps and added cooling fans to them. They sound great and I’m running them through a DAC system and using a four speaker set up where I’ve got a chair in the middle of one of our spare bedrooms. It sounds really good and you’re completely surrounded by sound. Still haven’t done away with CD yet and actually have a large collection of Japanese MQA CDs. I started having problems getting parts for the Sansui and it needed a new motor and stylus. So,I decided it was time to go turntable shopping. Luckily I bought my new turntable before the vinyl resurgence started and it is like 4Xs the cost I paid for mine in 2010 or so.