Record playing with vinyl is a contact sport. Modern high-quality cartridges typically keep the pressure on a stylus at two grams or less in the vinyl groove. Nonetheless, this causes wear and tear. And not just on the vinyl. Even the diamond of the stylus wears. Generally a turntable stylus should be replaced after around a thousand hours of use. In some cases, after a shorter period. If, for example, you’ve been playing back records which are dirty. Or your stylus uses an unusual shape, like micro-line. For these, replacement should be closer to every 500 hours of playback.
The stylus on most moving magnet and moving coil cartridges is user replaceable. For moving coil cartridges, in most cases, for stylus replacement the cartridge needs to go into the workshop.
At Addicted To Audio we carry replacement turntable or phono styluses – or phono styli as some like to call them – from one of the finest specialist brands in the world: Grado. Grado has been operating in Brooklyn, New York, for nearly seventy years, and it has got a quality experience in store for your ears.
There are two great ways to buy a turntable stylus. The best way for most people is at a quality retail outlet in your city. Just make sure you note down the brand and model number of your cartridge, and the experienced staff there will advise you which stylus you need, and probably have it in stock. But if you’re confident that you already know what you want, consider purchasing your stylus direct from us at Addicted To Audio. We are an authorised New Zealand reseller for all our products. We provide full service and after sales support. And we ship fast.
