Most of the machines I’ve had had relapped heads. It’s not about the lifespan of a relapped headstack, the question is what’s the life expectancy of a stack when new and how much wear does it have on it vs how much do you use it? IMO head life is mostly a non-issue for the periodic home studio user. A friend of mine used to operate a well-known multi-format tape transfer service. His machines were running most hours of the day 7 days a week. He had a 2 inch machine that was running those hours for a couple years and he decided to proactively send the head assembly in to John French when he had scheduling opportunity for an inspection. He was assuming it would be near end of life. Nope. It was at 50%. So he had it relapped and off he went, back to near 24/7 operation. Keep in mind his machines were meticulously, properly and routinely maintained and tensions were set using the HF droop method which helps to minimize tape tension and wear if the machine allows for it. So much depends on your setup, tensions, frequency of use, etc. But, again, generally speaking, for the periodic home studio operator a headstack will last a lifetime. I think a relap is less than $400 and you get the full inspection and optical setup with that. If you buy the new headstack you’re still going to need to send it in for an inspection and setup and that will cost around $150 IIRC. So you need to just pick your poison, but keep it in the forefront most heads last a long, long time unless they are operating full time or are improperly adjusted/setup. Just some perspective for you.