I finally replaced these after about 7 years because I'm not hard on my vinyl at all, and I got them on a whim. I use a magnifier to inspect my needles for wear and my old ones were not even in need of repair but I picked these up anyway for the price. I immediately compared them to the old ones to verify there was no wear on the older ones but I replaced them anyway because I did the "break in" procedure on my old needles which caused the shafts to develop kinks in them. I don't know if it had any impact on sound quality (especially for DVS), but for the price, I figured why not. I'm primarily an Ortofon user but these are great for DVS use and general playback, the needles are also cheaper to replace. Get them while vinyl is still around.