benb21•9d ago

Cutting lacquers with the same needle for months, is that actually fine or am I just lazy?

So last week I was trimming a fresh dubplate and noticed the cutting stylus was looking pretty rough. I got my used Neumann head about 3 years ago from a guy in Portland who said he'd only cut maybe 50 sides with it. Since then I've probably done close to 200 cuts on it, mostly spoken word and lo-fi stuff, not heavy bass. I keep thinking about sending it out to be checked or resharpened, but every cut still sounds okay to me on my home setup. My buddy Mark says I'm wrecking the head and the grooves are getting shallow, but I honestly can't hear a difference between a cut from last month and one from when I first got it. Is there a real threshold where you absolutely need to swap or service the stylus, or is it more of a "trust your ears" thing? Anyone else run their cutting needle way past the recommended hours and regret it or get away with it?

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