Playing worn albums....unsafe ?

[ashok]

A single play with a damaged or worn out stylus would damage the groove of a vinyl album.
How unsafe would it to be to play a worn out or damaged groove of a vinyl album with a good stylus ? Single play to archive the album is probably OK but how bad does it get when it's played repeatedly ? Life of the stylus would probably be shortened due to uneven wear.
Any thoughts on this ?

Would a spherical stylus be safer ( on the stylus) as the contact area is larger and it sits higher up in the groove ?

 

[picowallspeaker]

I make the same thoughts about tapes
And I keep playing them on and on...
( some after 20 years have a very blurry sound, some not )
(...and I'm still striving to keep the speaker's magnets well away from cassettes)

 

[sreten]

Hi,

Yes a worn stylus will damage LP's, but only extremely dirty
(with abrasives) LP's can damage a stylus. LP's are damaged
by a worn stylus mistracking and rewriting the groove, such
groove damage has no effect on the wear or life of a stylus.

The major contact radius of most spherical and the cheaper
elliptical styli is the same - 0.7, and sit similar in the groove.

You have to go to advanced tips like line contact to notice
a difference in playback of mistrackingly damaged LP's.
There is a difference, but it is usually not a perfect fix.

rgds, sreten.

 

[indianajo]

I agree with Sreten. I've played a thousand old LP's and my M97 Era IV tip still looks good. If a used album looks nasty I wash it under the faucet, sometimes with soap. No magic fluids for me, if the dirt is sticky I use Palmolive dish detergent, the green one without the lye or perfume in it.
There are diamonds and other diamonds. My Grado FTE tip fell apart after a year of use, with a big cavity in on side. The Shure M97 is 36 years old.

 

[JonSnell Electronic]

I think you will find that Industrial Grade Diamond is a lot tougher than Vinyl and Sapphire is harder than vinyl. I don't see how a worn record can damage a stylus, unless there is a deep groove dug into the surface that will remove the stylus from the holder. The other way around yes. A worn/damaged stylus will damage soft vinyl.

 

[JRKO]

Vinyl vs diamond? You'd need a record so smashed up it has sections physically missing.

Try the Denon DL-110. "Uses a special elliptical stylus with a rectangular cross section of 0.1 x 0.2 mm. It reaches deep into the record groove to extract detail while bypassing groove wall beaten and shorn by age, misuse and misalignment."

Works a treat on my extensive, but not always perfect vinyl collection.

 

[Freddymac]

Contrary to the general belief here, vinyl is a lot more durable if it hasn't been exposed to a worn out stylus tracking at 5 gram VTF. I have a collection of wonderful vinyl, some old, some new, some barrowed, and even some blue. One of my old 55 Brubeck albums has a side that someone played the hell out of that suffered from this abuse. The LPs that I purchased only saw MD3's and Shure V15 II's tracking under 2 grams. Even my 35 year old Koetsu is tracking at 1.8 grams in a conventional arm does not exhibit miss tracking or syllabents on any band of my wonderful music. Cleaning methods and solutions are VERY important.. I do not use dish soaps!!!