New Ortofon claim on stylus life expectancy

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ack

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From their newsletter:

We have recently observed a number of discussions about stylus life time on HiFi forums. We have therefore decided to bring clearance in this matter and come with Ortofon official response:
With proper care we find that up to 1000 hours is possible without degradation of performance. The stylus does begin to exhibit changes after 1.000 hours, but the stylus life as a whole is expected to top 2.000 hours.
Proper care comprises the following:
1. Cleaning of record by means of carbon fibre brush before and after every use. Cleaning of record by using record cleaning machine once in a while.
2. Cleaning of stylus by means of a fine antistatic brush. Please remember to remove dust from the diamond tip before and after playback of each record.
3. Proper adjustment of antiskating, azimuth and tracking force
A photo of the Replicant 100 was next to this updated claim
 

ack

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Previous claims (from their site) said 600-1000 total life expectancy, hence the correction/clarification
 

Steve Williams

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To me they were saying the same thing with some sugar coating. Previous claims IIRC were 600-1000 so now they say 1000 and "maybe" 2000 with proper stylus care and record cleaning. I really don't read any difference in their comment except for the word "maybe"
 

ack

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Perhaps, but life expectancy means exactly one thing to me: it will live that long. This figure '2000' is the first time it appears anywhere, with proper care perhaps, but I still consider this a new claim.
 

ack

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Good news ack. I guess it pays to discuss these things on HiFi forums.

Well, you probably know what I am going to say next... Is it really _true_ news, or a poor attempt to fix a tarnished image? Because this 600-1000 hr claim came from their FAQ... Do we really believe the new claim? I guess there is only one way to find out...
 

ack

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I don't believe that discussion on hifi forums has caused them to change statements. Rather I think all they are doing is embellishing the stats to improve their image.

Exactly - damage control, but perhaps too late.
 

Mike Lavigne

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we know that the physics of a diamond stylus and record playing is that wear shows itself around 1000 hours. period. the only question is how symetrical it might be....which is a matter of precision of set-up and arm type. a diamond is a diamond. there is no evidance that shapes of the stylus influence this wear rate for the stylus.

some very low cost cartridges don't use actual diamonds for their stylus, but most do.

therefore the variable is quality of build and suspension of the cartridge.

the confusion about the Ortofon life span does not come from users telling us about failed cartridges, it comes from previous broadly applied info on the Ortofon website applied specifically to the Replicant 100 stylus. so called direct communications about this subject from Ortofon that were said to support reduced life span for Replicant 100 stylus said nothing of the sort. in fact, they said the opposite.

this new communication from Ortofon seeks to remedy their contribution to the confusion. many Ortofon cartridges are used for DJ scratching. not so for almost any other high end cartridge maker. so Ortofon previously tried to make sure that buyers did not have unrealisitic expectations. but that corporate decision did come back to bite them.

you are correct. these days especially, it is hard to un-ring the bell.

it did not help that certain users of other makes of cartridges repeatedly mentioned their viewpoint of the Replicant 100 lifespan issue whenever they possibly could....however void of evidance that they ended up having.

that's the web world we live in i guess.
 

Mike Lavigne

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microstrip

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Mike

Out of my own personal ignorance are there other types of styluses that will last longer than 1000 hours

I know Van den Hul claims 3500 hours for his longer lasting styluses. From their phono FAQ:

In our company it is a good habit to adjust the suspension with a bit extra tension so that after the running-in time (100 hours) the frequency response is just flat. For the rest of the 3500 hours of stylus life this produces the best quality possible.
 

Mike Lavigne

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I know Van den Hul claims 3500 hours for his longer lasting styluses. From their phono FAQ:

In our company it is a good habit to adjust the suspension with a bit extra tension so that after the running-in time (100 hours) the frequency response is just flat. For the rest of the 3500 hours of stylus life this produces the best quality possible.

i owned 7 vdH Colibri's. his top-of-line. i had 'issues' with a few of them, and sent them back and forth a few times trying to resolve these issues. unfortunately, in some cases these issues could not get resolved from my perspective. every one of these 7 cartridges had a cantiliver not in alignment with the body, and different length cantilivers. and even though three of these cartridges were identical in model, they all sounded different.

i respect that Mr. vdH is an icon in our hobby. but the ultimate authority maybe not, only from my personal viewpoint. so i would interpret his FAQ with a healthy degree of skepticism.....and more a sales perspective than fact. and any FAQ should be viewed that way to some degree.

to be fair; when these Colibri's were at their best, they sounded phenominal.

i've owned 4 Ortofon cartridges so far. 2 A90's i used for 2 years, 1 new A90 i never took out of the box, and 1 Anna i'm now using.

perfect alignment, and zero issues on all of them. and the 2 A90's sounded identical. two other A90's have been brought into my system and they both were also perfect in alignment and sounded identical. one of those 2 had over 1000 hours and sounded identical to the others.
 
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XV-1

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I find the Ortofon statement meaningless.

Ortofon use at least 7 different stylus profiles. Spherical, FG-70, elliptical, fine line, nude shibata, replicant and replicant 100.

They are stating that all their stylus profiles have the same stylus life. Do they really expect us to buy that?
 

slowGEEZR

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Since diamond hardness is a know quantity, doesn't the tracking force applied have a lot to do with the wear? In other words, wouldn't the diamond of a cartridge designed to track at say, 1.3 grams last longer than the diamond of a cartridge designed to track at 2 grams or more?
 

ack

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I would tend to believe so, as well as the shape of the tip - the Gyger, tracing with just two edges as we saw on another thread, may be more susceptible... But I also believe Mike that his over-1000-hr A90 still sounded identical to younger ones.
 

MylesBAstor

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Since diamond hardness is a know quantity, doesn't the tracking force applied have a lot to do with the wear? In other words, wouldn't the diamond of a cartridge designed to track at say, 1.3 grams last longer than the diamond of a cartridge designed to track at 2 grams or more?

Partly but would also think that proper relationship (alignment, antiskating, turntable being level) of the stylus in the groove has a lot to do with wear too.
 

ack

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