Anywhere from 200 to 2000 hours, depending on the cartridge design and stylus profile.

I’ve written more about this in my cartridge inspection and cleaning deep dive, but the increased contact area of line contact gems, found in more expensive cartridges, reduces contact pressure, leading to less friction, lower wear and better sound.

Line-contact types such as Micro-line, Shibata and Replicant 100 can last 2000 hours or more, but line-contact styli are more expensive to manufacture, so there is a price to pay for that longer life. By contrast, cheap spherical/conical and elliptical styli generally only last for 200 – 400 hours.

So you get 5 – 10 times more life from a really good cartridge/stylus, and better sound, which more than offsets their increased cost. It just makes sense to spend more on a better cartridge, with a better stylus, that sounds better and lasts much longer, and this is always what I advise customers.

Other factors must be considered, including poorly designed, low-quality turntables and older types with excessive tracking force. These can experience more rapid stylus wear, and cause accelerated record wear. Even the best cartridges, tracked at lower than recommended tracking forces, can experience accelerated record and stylus wear.

It’s important to replace a stylus before it becomes worn or it will destroy your records. For moving magnet cartridges, this is fairly straightforward, as long as a quality replacement can be sourced. I often supply quality Japanese JICO and Nagaoka styli for older cartridges.

For moving coil cartridges, stylus replacement involves bonding a new diamond to the existing cantilever or installing a new cantilever and diamond. Several vendors provide this service.