Cartridge aging and tip wear symtoms?

I've viewed many needles under the scope over the years. Rarely did I see one that was actually worn. I did see a few where the stylus had been sheared off of the cantilever... and a lot of dirty styli :)

As the cartridge ages, usually whether it is played or not, the cantilever suspension will perish. As this happens, the cartridge will begin to mistrack; often it will sound harsher. With most cartridges 2-3 years is about all you can hope for before the cantilever has to be refurbished.

You can certainly get a lot of cartridges to play for years. But- they won't sound right nor will they track right. So far I don't know of anything that lasts forever, although in terms of recordings, LPs are probably the longest-lived media.

Diamonds wear very slowly! By the time a diamond would have any significant wear, you would have noticed mistracking *long* before!

Record wear is primarily caused by mistracking- but rarely by a worn stylus! Far more common issues are poor tone arm setup and hardware that is really not up to the task. It is also not a good idea to play an LP more than once in 24 hours, so as to allow for the vinyl to rebound. If you think about it, the amount of pressure that a needle exerts on the LP is prodigious- once you work it out to weight per square inch.