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Since you've had it for 19 months...

Posted by EdAInWestOC (A) on November 28, 2016 at 05:37:53

In Reply to: Short Life For ART7? (longish rant) posted by Meatface on November 25, 2016 at 12:29:20:

I doubt there is anything to complain about. Yeah, I get it. It does piss you off when an expensive stylus wears out in what seems like a premature time frame but you got 19 months of regular listening out of it.

The math that you used may be an honest assessment of cartridge usage but somehow I believe that there is probably 1000 hours (or very close to it) on that stylus. Over the 19 months you had the cartridge some hours of usage could have gone by without much concern on your part. It adds up.

Even if your math is accurate you should understand that a stylus has no wear warranty associated with it. You may try writing AT customer support and explain that you believe your cartridge's stylus has worn out prematurely. Maybe they will step up and help you out.

Unfortunatley, the truth about stylus wear is that the diamonds used are not exactly the best quality stones and the projected number of hours may not be met. If your stylus happened to be cut from a stone that was close to perfect and had no weaknesses, you would get 1000 or perhaps more hours from the stylus.

We all have had stylii that lasted for much longer than 1000 hours. I have long suspected that the quality of the diamond for these long lasting stylii was superior to other stylii that last for only 1000 hours or less. I remember that stylii on cartridges that I bought many years ago lasted longer than 1000 hours (or maybe that's what I want to believe).

Anyway, the quality of a diamond stylus is not what we would all like. We are not getting the best quality stones and I can't help but believe that they should last much longer...if they were perfect diamonds.

Ed
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof

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