I am curious by what mechanism Timo supposes that a later pressing might 'damage' a needle more than an earlier one - I cannot see this factor making any difference at all.
I also wonder what Sean has in mind when he says that ticks/pops are 'bad' for amps or speakers. I could maybe see a scenario where a record is played just loudly enough that it doesn't clip the amp until a hard transient comes along, and I suppose that it's possible that such a transient could be a tick/pop instead of contained within the music - at least on a record mastered at a lower than normal level - but even so, the event would be so brief that I doubt it would cause driver failure at any volume below a level at which the music itself would induce more sustained (and damaging) clipping. And even if this could happen to a speaker, I don't see a tick/pop damaging an amp. Finally, I've got lots of old scatchy vinyl that I will crank up anyway, and I've never encountered any evidence of this alleged danger.
My supposition is that playing conditions which damage the vinyl the most - i.e., incorrect geometry and poor tracking - will also cause the quickest damage to the needle. Probably much lower on the list are less-than-immaculately clean records, assuming they're not disgustingly filthy (hey, some of mine are). On the other hand, for a record to decapitate your stylus, either the record would have to be cracked, or the stylus would have to be suffering from some prior defect like poor adhesion to the cantilever.
The bottom line is that your needle will likely wear out at a roughly constant rate, dependent largely on the cartridge/tonearm set-up and quality, but mostly independent of what records you play. IMO.
I also wonder what Sean has in mind when he says that ticks/pops are 'bad' for amps or speakers. I could maybe see a scenario where a record is played just loudly enough that it doesn't clip the amp until a hard transient comes along, and I suppose that it's possible that such a transient could be a tick/pop instead of contained within the music - at least on a record mastered at a lower than normal level - but even so, the event would be so brief that I doubt it would cause driver failure at any volume below a level at which the music itself would induce more sustained (and damaging) clipping. And even if this could happen to a speaker, I don't see a tick/pop damaging an amp. Finally, I've got lots of old scatchy vinyl that I will crank up anyway, and I've never encountered any evidence of this alleged danger.
My supposition is that playing conditions which damage the vinyl the most - i.e., incorrect geometry and poor tracking - will also cause the quickest damage to the needle. Probably much lower on the list are less-than-immaculately clean records, assuming they're not disgustingly filthy (hey, some of mine are). On the other hand, for a record to decapitate your stylus, either the record would have to be cracked, or the stylus would have to be suffering from some prior defect like poor adhesion to the cantilever.
The bottom line is that your needle will likely wear out at a roughly constant rate, dependent largely on the cartridge/tonearm set-up and quality, but mostly independent of what records you play. IMO.