How long does a stylus last?

That is how I arrived at my educated guess. And that is what an average means. I believe it was A.J. Van Den Hul who said that the life expectancy of his cartridges is 2000 hours, though I may be misquoting. These are expensive cartridges with line contact stylii that are babied by their owners, so really I don't think that, as an average life, I am that far off. The Shure is an unusual example, it tracks at 1 gram with a micro-ridge stylus. Name another cartridge that does. By the way, the suspension on my V15Vmr collapsed well before the stylus was shot. Personally, I would err on the side of excess conservatism, my Blue Notes and Riversides cannot be replaced, my cartridge always can. Remember, if I am wrong, I am buying new cartridges too early. If those who subscribe to the 2000+ hour lifespans are wrong, their record collections are compromised. Judge for yourself. Clearly, many who have weighed into this thread disagree with my thought process. To each his own.
Marty

Hey Marty. Well said,and your educated guess may even be much lower if one factors in all the variables in the real world. Hell,once upon a time I tore the sylus off a brand new denon 103d while cleaning the record with a brush! Cartridge life averaged out to be a big fat "ZERO" hours!!!!!! Lost a couple of good nights sleep over that one.

Marakanetz...Hey! Neat idea for a stylus odometer. All you would really need is a timer (such as commonly used on machinery) wired up to the TT motor. Cost would be about $15, but with Cryo treatment it would sell to the vinyl crowd for $200 easy :-)

Ecclectique, I did that with a Denon 301, perhaps we are living in parallel universes that are mirror images of each other. This Sunday, another Audiogon member has asked me to come to his house and install a Dynavector XX on a VPI Scout. Ya think that I'm sweatin' a little?

If only I kept a cartridge long enough to wear it out. I get itchy feet after a year and want to move on, but my latest is a koetsu Rosewood Signature, so hopefully as some of the respondents intimated, I've reached my destination. Good advise though on the central importance of record cleaning.