Ten years isn't a problem, it's total hours on the cartridge itself. My friend ran a Benz for around 10 yrs. before retip. Probably well over 1000 hrs. on the cart. if not more. He did use a few other carts in between, but the bottom line is that he didn't do any record damage. It still sounded decent, but the retip did indeed produce a nice overall improvement. Also, a lot will depend on how clean you've kept your vinyl and cartridge over this period. In the case of my friend, every album played had been cleaned by both a VPI 16.5 and a DIY ultrasonic. This plus the usual cartridge preservatives like Stylast.
