How do you know when a stylus is wearing

[oceanobsession]

My cadenza bronze seems to dig out muck from the groves and this eventually lifts the needle out the grove , i hope its not vinyl and the needle acting
as a turning tool , i dont think so , i think its down to the design or angle of the diamond , if i clean the record with a vac drawing the liquid from the record it seems to do the trick but if not it can happen on 2 tracks , im thinking about sending it in to expert stylus for a check and buying something
else maybe a secondhand phase tec or shelter . ive had at33ptg but my techno arm had been sent to johnny audio origami who puts locktite on the threads of the horizontal adjustment , i could never get the arm to sound right so dont know about the at33ptg , my cadenza bronze sounded poor also
i give up on records for 2 or more years , until i found the problem , the locktite had glued the bearing to the cup , so i cleaned it all from the threads
etc and used thick silicon which stops the adjustment moving , all sounds well again . so ive purchased a valab lcr phono which is fab , and now thinking
about another cartridge , phil.

[Jimbo]

Best indication of stylus wear is listening to how it sounds which is a cure and a curse. When it is worn you will loose top end information and general micro detail and air around notes. It will become thicker and coarser sounding but when it gets to this point it maybe also damaging your record or increasing wear on the record.

The acid test is to pop in a new stylus and listen back to back. This is how I determine wear on my 2M black although I do actually have 3 stylus, one new, one worn to the point of needing change and another with a bit of wear.

Second method would be to view under a microscope but you could again do with a new one to compare it against of the same make. Visual assessment in my book is not as good as listening /sound assessment.

You mention that your stylus digs out lots of muck. Not sure if this is good as it could be either very worn or poor angle. My stylus does throw up a lot of dust and debris but this is just stuff floating on the surface of the record which then gets thrown onto the front of the stylus body.

I did have a 2M Black that did not sound correct once that was very new. It cause distortion in one channel which is also a vey good determination of stylus wear. Distortion causes by the stylus is usually a guarantee of significant were. However in my case it was a poorly engineered diamond. It went back to Ortofon headquarters and was assessed. It took weeks but they eventually agreed there was an issue. They would not tell me what the issue was but they did send be a brand new stylus!

[Slawts]

Doesn't sound right but doesn't sound like worn stylus.

If there is loads of gunk have you cleaned your records and are you playing them wet?

The bottom of the cartridge should be approximately parallel with the record. If so the stylus angle should be right.

[YNWaN]

Jimbo describes it very well IMO - a bit dulled, ‘shut in’ and lacking fine nuance.

[struth]

Might be your records are not clean enough. Perhaps it's not sucking enough crap that's there

[oceanobsession]

Cheers steve , for your thoughts , eva cassidy songbird original was the record i was playing , so i cleaned it and played it again and everything was ok , but ive always thought the suspension to be weak , probably due to me dropping the old tonearm on my pioneer pl71 , ive also bent the cantilever slightly and bent it straight again , sent it back to tt world who thought the suspension ok , but if the arm is perfectly horizontal the back of the cartridge is on the record , so you need to lift the arm higher than it need to be , to keep that gap right , instruments sound great natural tracking is quiet , but bass is a bit soft , i always thought i should have bought the blue with valve amps and phono stage , but now i have the valab lcr which has lifted the sound quality , i think im going to trade it for a cadenza blue , most think it betters the art 9 , ive always found AT to lack body , always thought shelter spu and ortofon sounded right , needs to be more sharp and precise , hope it dont lack the refinment of the bronze , phil.

[YNWaN]

Regarding the pickup of stylus fluff/grunge/general crap. I’ve run a number of ‘radical’ stylus profiles - the last two being a Gyger tip (that looks rather like the tip of a chisel) and the Expert Stylus Co ‘Paratrace’. Neither of these tips have accumulated junk and I can’t remember the last time I had to remove such stuff (yes, I do check). To further compound matters, I never clean my records either - I just take them out of the sleeve, play them, put them back into the sleeve.

[oceanobsession]

Hi mark , thanks for your thoughts , damaging my vinyl bothers me the sound quality varies so much between pressings , you will see my previous post , im going to replace the cartridge thinking i should have bought the blue instead of the bronze, my phono original was the long dog audio moving coil which still sounds great , just
cant compete with the valab lcr , to be honest to many valves in a system makes it soft sounding , still using a mk1 xerxes with technoarm , still a good deck, £402
off a new cartridge , if i purchased another arm it would be artemiz , what do you think of the blue . phil

[oceanobsession]

Hi grant , you may be right , but ive got the feeling the suspension is at fault plus the cadenza bronze must be 8 years old now , i think the suspension being weak puts the needle at the wrong angle , bit like a ramp , phil.

[YNWaN]

To reassure you, I'm not saying a worn stylus doesn’t harm records but it does so in quite a subtle way. The only thing that really obviously harms records is mistracking and this is usually the result of poor alignment or insufficient tracking weight (always track at very near the absolute maximum recommended for a cartridge - in fact I would set the maximum as the default and adjust by ear up (( yes, even potentially up from the maximum recommended)) and down from there).

[Ammonite Audio]

Hi grant , you may be right , but ive got the feeling the suspension is at fault plus the cadenza bronze must be 8 years old now , i think the suspension being weak puts the needle at the wrong angle , bit like a ramp , phil.

At that age, I would have it checked and re-tipped and the damper adjusted as necessary. I would recommend Holistic Audio in the Netherlands - very quick service, reasonable pricing and he does know Ortofons inside out (he rebuilt an SPU that I managed to destroy, to very good effect).

[walpurgis]

I never clean my records either - I just take them out of the sleeve, play them, put them back into the sleeve.

I do the same and have no issues with stylus picking up dirt or surface noise or static.

[jandl100]

The generally accepted rule back in the day was that if you can hear stylus wear then it's too late, you've already fecked your vinyl.
From comments here, though, from folks still into deep-analog, it seems that thinking on the subject has changed,

My old fashioned advice would be to stop using it and get it checked out by J7 or similar.

[Ali Tait]

As a friend has proved with a Fozgometer, levelling your cart by setting azimuth with a bubble on the top as we all do does not always give the best result, as the diamond may not be quite straight in the cantilever.