[Arny Krueger]

"Digiman" wrote in message

I appreciate all the insightfull answers, but I must
mention that my main concern
was the much debated friction heat.

The heat is there, but as those of us who know the facts say, there is no
heating of the entire stylus, just a some microscopic spots on the stylus.

When going round in
the same groove over and over again, wont' there be a
buildup of heat in that particular groove that heats up
the stylus and also the cartridge to way over normal
temperature?

No, the only thing affected are the microscopic contact areas.

Here are the relevant calculations:

Please check my work as I currently have a massive sinus infection and my
head hurts

From Barlow, “The limiting tracking weight of gramophone pickups for
negligible groove damage”, J. of Audio Eng. Soc. 1958, p.216

"A 0.5 mil tip presents a side contact area of 23.4 square microns."

A micron is the same as a micrometre, a unit of length in the metric system:
one millionth of a metre.

A mil is one thousandth of an inch.

A stylus tip might be 0.5 mil, or 0.5 thousandth of an inch.

An inch is about 1/39.4 of a meter

The difference of these two measures is about 12,500 : 1

Now, think of a solid copper ball that is 12,500 inches or about 100 feet in
diameter.

Think of the contact patch as being 25 square inches or an area about 5
inches by 5 inches.

OK, so now lets do a thought experiment. I have a solid copper ball (diamond
is very conductive of heat) that is 100 feet in diameter. I obtain two very
large propane blow torches and apply one to each side of the copper ball,
each heating 25 square inches (approximately 5" x 5") of the copper ball to
well over 500 degrees.

How hot does the entire 100 foot diameter copper ball get due to the two
propane torches?

Barely noticable. temperature change over-all. If the ball were in a vacuum
and dissipated no heat, we could probably calcuate its slow heating. But the
air will carry almost all of the heat away. And, our thought experiment
does not consider the cooling effects of the vinyl heat sink that is in
intimate contact with the heated patch.