How long does a stylus last?

Ecclectique...Because your observations are based on inspection with a microscope, I tend to believe you. The wear that I recall seeing was with less than the 5 gram VTF that Elizabeth suggests.

For reasons I suggest, (1) line contact stylus. (2) lower tracking force..1.5 gram or less. (3) Low stylus mass MC. (4) Very clean LPs.

Hey! This is good news for a change.

Eldartford. Yes,I would think clean records would be the primary factor here. On the other hand, I remember inspecting many friends cartridges on the microscope over the years and have seen a some real doosies,some with very low hours as well. My father in laws shure v15 with probably less than 300 hours on it was so far gone I couln't even clean the burnt carbon deposits off of the diamond! He used an old stacking dual table,filthy records and never cleaned the stylus.Thought that was the function of the little dust paddle on the shure. At the time I was using linn sondek with a sonus blue [anyone remember it?]mounted in a black widow. The sonus stylus was so compliant one was very fortunate to get even 100 hours on it before it collapsed. Never forget my him ragging on me about that one.....though the ragging stopped pretty fast once he saw his stylus magnified 100x.

Observation of stylus condition via microscope, while better than guesswork, is fraught with problems. I have done this as well, using the Shure scope and photos. See the parallel thread running on Vinyl Asylum. The whole subject is problematic in that styli wear, rather than breaking, so the point at which the stylus is unacceptable sonically, may occur before mistracking. And this may be a judgement call as well. Tales of styli lasting 4000 to 5000 hours seem extremely optimistic to me. I'm sticking with 1000 hours average. We all would like our expensive investments to last forever, but it just ain't so.

...and the bottom line is that no cartridge has an "odometer" and you certainly never know how many hours it served especially when you're buying it through the internet.

Viridian. You have a point however, inspecting a used sylus under a scope will tell you a great deal about it's use or misuse. Styli that are not regularly cleaned or used on uncleaned vinyl will surely suffer a premature fate long before those that are cleaned regularly, not to mention mis-alignment, improper tracking force,overhang or azimuth. Perhaps this is how you arrived at a 1000 hour average or are you speaking about your own personal experience. While I would concurr with 4000 to 5000 hours being very optimistic or even unrealistic....one should easily get more than twice your guesstimate if proper maintenance and cleaning proceedures are excercized. My good friends 11 year old shure v15 mr sounds teriffic and still tracks like a champ.