How Often Do You Change Your Cartridge?
 

Hi I have my Lyra Helikon cartridges over 10 years. I really couldn’t tell you how many hours on them. The stereo cartridge definitely more than the mono.
They are definitely not abused and look fine.

As I’m sure the aging of the cartridge and performance would be gradual so it might not stand out if it’s really time to move on to another.

So my question to all is how often do you change your cartridge?

If you play 1 hour a day for 10 years - then I would say could be time to send it to the manufacturer for a check up.

Thanks BigBlue. :thumbsup: Maybe I’ll do just that. I’ve gone months not listening to vinyl but then I would listen for 10-15 hours a week.

Get a magnifying glass or if you use a microscope and look at the stylus condition

Thanks....definitely going to do this over the weekend. I’ll take some pic’s as well and share.

Looking at the stylus under a magnifying glass is very problematic. There are several knowledgeable TT/TA dealers in NYC. Call around and find one that will not only examine the stylus under a proper microscope designed to do so, but show you what he is doing and explain same. If a new stylus is needed, high quality work is available at reasonable prices and time frames from SoundSmith, who is in Peekskill. Peter has done four cartridge retips for me over the years, including a Kleos two years ago, and always been pleased.

To answer how often.............. I usually inspect every few hundred hours. The original stylus on my Ortofon K-b 'chipped' for whatever reason (me, defect, whatever) after about 1500hr and was shaving vinyl 'fur' on a couple of sides before I noticed. Now I pay closer attention when cleaning the stylus between plays.

i track my hours by album side as an average of 20 minutes per side. Surprising to me how many album sides it takes to get to significant hours.

On my former cartridges I simply estimated, which was probably low.

I’m still waiting for my USB microscope to be delivered. I want to check the wear on my add on DL-304. It’s been on my TT for about 5 years now.

The darn thing must have caught the slow boat getting to me.

I tend to use my cart an average of 5 hours per week and extend its life by frequently cleaning the stylus with Onzow Zerodust along with only playing records that have been cleaned in my RCM. I usually change carts every 5 years. However, Lyra carts have a reputation for lasting much longer than that. My dealer has told me that if I get into carts in the $10k range that I can expect to get 10 years out of them. If I were you, I would take this as a golden opportunity to upgrade to a Lyra Etna SL if your phono stage has enough gain.

I have a spare VPI 3D arm with an Ortofon A95, plus another spare cartridge, a Grado Reference 2 as a fall-back in case anything terrible happens to my Cadenza Black on my Aries 3. I am set for life, provided I live that long.