Hi,

Planning to buy a new cartridge, I have decided on a Lyra Helikon regular (SL too low output for my preamp).

Anyway, I asked this on another topic but it got buried. What I'm wondering is how long I can reasonably expect from a modern, high-end cartridge such as this.

I've a VPI so my records are usually very clean, and I promise not to abuse the cartridge and get it setup optimally...

So, 1000 hours? 1500? 2000? What's reasonable? Anyone made it past 2000?

John

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

I was always told that the region between 700 and 1000 hours is optimistically what you should hope for. Also expect a gradual loss of performance to occur over the final 20% of the cartridge life.

How on earth do you know how many hours you've used it for?

I simply play records when I feel like it and certainly don't keep a log!

Or does one assume that if you play records for about 5 hours a week, that's 260 hours per year so it should last about 7.6 years........

Computers are supposed to work on 1's and 0's - in other words "Yes" or "No" - why does mine frequently say "Maybe"?......

I don't keep a log either - can't imagine anything more nerdy, to be honest - but it would be good to know how long to expect out of a cartridge...

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

I think you should expect a bit more than 700 hrs.

I roughly worked out how much I'd used my last Lyra Lydian for when I changed it and got 1400 hrs, though it probably should have been changed 100-200 hrs earlier, basically when it doesn't sound as good or the tracking isn't what it should be then either a good clean or a change is in order.

I used to go about 3,000 hours but now rebuild after 2,000 hours. ES recommends 800-1000 hrs but I'd be retipping every 6 months if that was the case. These numbers were when using LP12, Ittok/Ekos, Troika/Klyde on level purpose-built supports. YMMV

It might be useful if somebody sold an elapsed time clock that could be connected to the T/T to keep a track of the hours it was running. Better still, the makers could build one into the deck or into the external PSU

David

Top Cat, this is a piece-of-string question. It depends primarily on optimum turntable and arm set-up. The less 'noise' your cartridge is subjected to, the longer it will last.

... apparently cartridges mounted on unipivots such as the ARO last significantly longer than those mounted on dual bearing arms such as Ittok/Ekos. Can anyone confirm or deny this assertion?

James

David

Someone - Goldmund, Basis, Rockport Systems, one of those guys, can't remember which – actually did make a T/T with a cartidge life clock. If you want to find out more, type "turntable lust list" into Google.

Kevin

The longevity of a cartridge depends to a major degree on the operating environment, including cleanliness of LPs and stylus, matching with tonearm mass, installation alignment, and whether the elevator mechanism is damped or undamped.

With a top-quality stylus and reasonable care given to the operating conditions, a cartridge lifespan in the vicinity of 2500 hours should be eminently within reach, which works out as 3 years use when listening for 2.3 hours daily (without any holidays). This figure can be extended somewhat with a more meticulous degree of care - but each situation will be somewhat different. With a well-designed stylus, the extreme treble and detail resolution will gradually taper off over time, but the cartridge should remain quite listenable.

The use of lower-grade styli will result in cheaper initial costs but a shorter lifespan overall.

Setting custom stylus designs aside, among the generally available stylii designs, I can personally vouch for Ogura's PA, Namiki's Microridge (MR or ML), and Fritz Gyger's Type 1.

BTW, the tracking performance (which affects stylus longevity) and sound quality will be influenced by the operating temperature - and the measured frequency response may also change. I would recommend 22~23 degrees centigrade as optimal. To offer a somewhat broader range, no lower than 20 degrees, and not much above 25 degrees.

hth, jonathan carr

Jonathan,

Would I be correct in making the link that you are the guy responsible for the Helikon? I'm fairly sure some of my web cartridge research threw up your name before.

Anyway, just to confirm - I will be buying a Helikon; either a new one or a nearly new one - probably new. It will be mated with a Naim Aro on an LP12/Armageddon. In other words, a wobbly arm on a wobbly deck

Most of my records have been VPI cleaned - though not all, as record cleaning is a bit of a time-sink. The deck will be setup by one of the country's foremost decksmen - by reputation, at least (I have never met nor heard a deck set up by this individual, but he is legendary in the UK). Operating temperatures will be within your range.

2500 hours? Doesn't seem too bad - but one question remains: what is the typical lifespan of a Helikon's internals - i.e. the other bits, which I believe degrade slowly over time. If I (say) managed to spread my notional 2500 hours over five years, would the internals still be in a good enough shape after that time, or is there a finite lifespan of the internals which would ultimately require rebuilding regardless of cartridge miles?

Thanks,

John

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

"Would I be correct in making the link that you are the guy responsible for the Helikon? I'm fairly sure some of my web cartridge research threw up your name before".

TC,

you are correct. The Jonathan Carr that posts here and the designer of the Helikon are one and the same. I know this from some of his previous posts.

As an aside, my Linn dealer told me to expect around 2,000 hours on an Arkiv B for what its worth.

Regards,

Mark Russell

Jonathan,

Thank you for a very useful post. Temperatures in Tokyo must be well beyond 'optimum' currently?!

TC,

with a Helikon/ARO/LP12/Armageddon I would hope you would be listening more than 10 hours weekly.

duncan

Email: djcritchley at hotmail.com

Perhaps we could talk Jonathan into using something like 'cartridge guru' as his moniker here. Based on his record, I think all of us would agree he knows far more about cartridges than most participants in the forum.

It would be helpful to readers to get some signal that Jonathan's contributions may be more reliable than the most...it's mostly opinion here, but some opinions are more equal than others.

Jonathan,

I, too, am interested in your views on the longevity of cartridge bits beyond the stylus. What bits deteriorate significantly over time? How often would you replace or rebuild a cartridge?

Thanks.

Phil

Top Cat:

If you don't mind, I will try to answer your questions in general terms, as this is a Naim forum, and it wouldn't be fair of me to hijack Naim's bandwidth solely for my own benefit.

>It will be mated with a Naim Aro on an LP12/Armageddon.<

Speaking purely of tonearm geometry and how it affects tracking performance and distortion, I believe that Naim's recommendation is that the cartridge may have an allowable range from 7~9mm between the stylus tip and the mounting screwholes. But if the ARO geometry (effective length, overhang and offset angle) is identical to the Ekos, optimal tracking _should_ be obtained with a cartridge that measures precisely 7mm, and the closer the cartridge is to 7mm, the better the results should be (all other factors assumed equal). (I would very much appreciate it if someone from Naim could clarify this).

Based on closeness to 7mm and hence good tracking, I would suggest the following cartridges as being good candidates for the ARO. Dynavector Karat 17D, Linn Troika, Arkiv A and B (these are around 7.5mm), and the Akiva (which should be spot-on 7mm). The Helikon has about 7.8mm, which isn't perfect, but is reasonably close. In general, if the tonearm is an ARO, I suggest that you consider cartridges that have relatively short distances between the stylus tip and the mounting holes.

>In other words, a wobbly arm on a wobbly deck.<

My experiences with unipivots have suggested that they can be wonderful performers - and very often are.

>Most of my records have been VPI cleaned - though not all, as record cleaning is a bit of a time-sink.<

Rather than trying to clean too many records at once, I suggest that you make it a point to clean - say, 5 LPs per listening session. This will probably require all of 15 minutes, and after 20 listening sessions, you will have cleaned 100 LPs.

>What is the typical lifespan of the internals - i.e. the other bits, which I believe degrade slowly over time.<

For any cartridge, barring accidental damage, and apart from the stylus tip, the chief wearable bits are the wire suspension, and rubber dampers. Many types of rubber tend to deteriorate with age - even if they are not used. I have a box of common rubber bands purchased some years ago that attests to this. Some types of synthetic rubber are very resistant to environmentally-induced aging, but most cartridge-builders that I know of don't appear to like the sound that results from the use of these types of rubber compounds. The rubber compounds used in cartridge dampers are usually special formulations, made primarily for a particular hardness and resiliance range, next sound quality, and then a reasonable lifespan (3~5 years). I have some cartridges made over 5 years ago that remain in acceptable working order today, but it should be pointed out that these samples have seen very light use. I don't have much data on rubber dampers that are very much older than this, but observation of disassembled repair cartridges suggests that the rubber dampers gradually lose resiliance and become thinner and harder with use (due to constant compression and a loss of shape recovery ability).

Albert Lukaschek of Benz now uses O ring-type dampers for some of his cartridges, and he told me that he felt that this would give him the combination of sound quality and longevity that he was looking for. Time will tell...

A cartridge's wire suspension is usually made from a springy metal like german silver, beryllium copper, phospher bronze, or piano wire, although some cartridge manufacturers - usually in a quest for high compliance - have used other materials like annealed multistrand stainless steel (Yamaha), or even non-metallic fibers, ie, nylon (I think that some of the early versions of the Dynavector 23R and 17D Karat used nylon suspension wire). Metallic wire will not normally deteriorate by itself, although there is some possibility of oxidation (particularly if you live near the ocean). With constant use, the wire suspension may get stretched little by little, with the result that progressively less compression is applied to the dampers (damped tonearm elevators are kinder to the suspension than undamped types), and in some cases the suspension may assume a permanent "set" in one direction or another (improper antiskate settings appear to be a common culprit).

>If I managed to spread my notional 2500 hours over five years<

With a Naim system, I suspect that you will clock far more than 82 minutes of listening per day!

>would the internals still be in a good enough shape after that time, or is there a finite lifespan of the internals which would ultimately require rebuilding regardless of cartridge miles?<

I would suggest that after 2500 hours of wear and tear plus 5 years exposure to atmospheric pollutants and various LP and stylus cleaning chemicals, the rubber dampers and cantilever assembly (of which the wire suspension is an integral part) of most cartridges should both be replaced. One exception could be Jan Allearts, who I believe now claims a 10-year lifespan for his suspension and rubber dampers. Again, time will tell.

If the magnet in your cartridge is an Alnico, periodically "recharging" the magnet system can be worthwhile. Also, some of the cartridge craftsmen that I know gradually revise and refine the voicing of their creations over time (as they learn what makes each cartridge design "tick"), so an occasional rebuild is quite likely to result in better sound - if for no other reason that the craftsman has had more time to learn about the cartridge design and is able to extract a greater percentage of its potential performance.

regards, jonathan carr

Jonathan,

I'm running with one of the last Clavis DC made, and would like to know if this can be rebuilt when the time comes, or would this need to be traded against a Helikon. Can this be done directly with Lyra in Japan as there are no dealers here?

James