Options for ridding records of static electricity

Ossicle, you obviously stole your method from Merlin.

We just returned from our first trip to Tokyo to visit our son since before the pandemic (4 years ago was out last visit). Pursuant to our new obsession with static charge, I searched for a Furutech Destat III hoping for a significant savings vs US price. You can buy just about any Furutech product at any decent audio salon in Tokyo, EXCEPT the Destat III. They’ve never even heard of it.

The felt platter, which is what I think you have on the Cosmos, is a great electron donor to vinyl.  The meter I had in mind is the Simco that our colleague who contributed to this thread uses.  I think he has the FMX-004.  There is also a less expensive model, the FMX-003.  The only difference I can see is the max voltage read out by the 004 vs the 003, but since the 003 reads up to 20kV, that should suffice for anything we see with vinyl. (I also would like to check the ES charge on my Sound Labs, a good way to find out if both channels are equally biased.)  Here's an FMX-003 on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275518216469?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D248665%26meid%3D54f895ce0dbf4a1d8059a16a83cec357%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D155516038959%26itm%3D275518216469%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithLambda85KnnRecallV1V4V6ItemNrtInQueryAndCassiniVisualRankerAndBertRecallAndPBoosterV3b&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A27551821646954f895ce0dbf4a1d8059a16a83cec357%7Cenc%3AAQAIAAABUOF2C1v4PvLuUMt94LTx3USaOPJBiGrcV6%252Fms53nuTmrZ3dyQNOibl5UuvBUL5wYmcuhlieo3faZqx%252BhFc6Ti9XirkkCUJ2LfxVb%252B9nxabunfUYGsMpL1Y%252FxmkjPHNCqMgXo2ECai9wWaAOy6fJOFjRCwPHh%252BH0ouSMEB6S0NGvSlSg%252FHADMuZz%252BNI2Yxdx1t43fQBuFhL5VzDwa38JFEG%252F8VtZb2khf%252B40gs0Z9RznWp5wOnqVX8gUdcKs0NKlVxMutdoBBDdT56eF6LBGV4G1m85OFH4osKIZVGtVEodRJmpkjCFUqoTEtJX3PUs%252Btd2YwZ%252B3ce4410P86H5ZIENEOunCU5Uk9pkuB9wuqqfzXX%252BLOix5y8V4%252B78g6%252BXRtP3W2SBcDYiJzyaVNSXUBfTw3K92KVdu8QW0fMCfsw%252Frf23jZPQn%252B3Wi8iFXvbZG9%252Fg%253D%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2047675

That's for EMF, not static charge.  With it you can hope to measure the strength of the field around any motor or other electromagnetic device, but not static charge.

Mijo, you’re not going to get believable data from your questionnaire, apart from the info about geography, unless or until all respondents are equipped with a good static meter and know how to use it properly, that is never. But this discussion leads me to buy a meter, just to satisfy my own curiosity. 

I ask again, how are you measuring static charge? Because you cannot measure it with an ordinary voltmeter.

As to my speakers, the point I was trying to make is that a single full range transformer with a step-up ratio of 1:90 is insufficient to move the massive diaphragm in order to give a linear response on the low end. But the "low end" instead gradually decays below a certain frequency which must be close to 500Hz or 1kHz; it’s just lacking energy. (I made no measurements to determine the frequency at which response falls away, when I tried this. Just listening tests.) Subwoofers and even most good woofers are not going to make up for that problem, in a pleasing way. Sound Lab and before them, Acoustat, dealt with this problem of driving a very large panel by using two transformers, as you know very well, one for bass and one for treble with a passive crossover dividing frequencies. When I added back the SL bass transformer, which I have guessed is about 1:250 in voltage step-up, now you have thunderous ESL bass. The SL bass transformer by itself falls away at about 2kHz at its top end, according to my actual measurements. SL knew what it was doing when it marketed the speaker with two transformers. I like to think I just took it forward another step by getting rid of the crossover entirely, which results in much higher impedance, which is very favorable to my OTL tube amplifiers. (Impedance averages about 20 ohms from 100Hz to 5kHz. Goes up at the low end and down at the high end.) But also, the passive crossover used an RC network as a high pass filter; the R sucks up amplifier power in a big way, because it is in parallel with the amplifier output. So a side benefit of getting rid of the R is to make the speaker much more efficient for my particular amplifiers. I am sure it could be driven handily by a 50W OTL.

dcarwin, As mentioned somewhere up the thread, Audioquest now make their well known carbon fiber record brush with a metal handle that is electrically continuous with the brush fibers.  (Earlier versions did not establish contact between fibers and handle.) When you hold it whilst brushing the LP, your body provides the electrical pathway to ground via your feet or you can just touch your metal equipment stand, in case your feet are insulated from ground by rubber shoes or nonconductive carpet.  I also own, but have never used, a Mapleshade brush that has a ground wire with a clip at the end, also to fasten to a grounded object.  Problem is its fibers are of natural origin and they both encourage static charge and also lose bristles which can foul up a stylus.  This latter is why I don't use it.

Mijo, You wrote, "With subwoofers you won't need the bass transformer."  Since you did not hear my speakers without the bass transformer, how can you possibly know that?  First of all, with the single full range transformer, the deficiency was at frequencies well above those of a subwoofer supplement.  More like in the 50 to 300Hz range and very noticeable.  I am not going to mate an ESL with a dynamic woofer (not subwoofer) that has to do significant work up to ~300Hz.  With the added bass transformer in parallel, now I get full range ESL bass that goes down to about 30Hz and gradually tails off below that, due to the huge physical size of an 845PX panel.  I'd rather have very low distortion ESL bass than bass that needs augmentation with a dynamic woofer (not a subwoofer when used above 80Hz or so, IMO), but that's me.

This is way off topic for the OP, and for that I apologize.  When I removed the passive crossover components from the 845s, I replaced the OEM treble transformer, because that unit could not have handled full range input, and replaced it with a massive full range EI type transformer, with a 1:90 step-up ratio.  So now the bass transformers, which work up to about 2kHz before pooping out, are in parallel with that full range one.  I experimented with using the full range tranny alone to drive the 845s, but it doesn't have the cojones.  The bass tranny is needed for good LF response.

Here we go again.  I have used distilled deionized water + triton X100 + isopropyl alcohol forever in my RCM.  Although it does a good job, I was eventually motivated to try rinsing the LP surface after a good cleaning with the above mix, because there was word on this forum and others that especially triton X100 could leave a residue.  (This is using a VPI HW17 RCM.)  I found that a rinse with distilled water, using a clean wand on the HW17, made a noticeable improvement in my results.  Ergo, this suggests there IS a residue left behind after evaporation or in this case vacuum suction. I would guess that passive evaporation would leave even more of a residue than suction.  I was a laboratory chief at NIH or FDA in those days, and I had access to lab grade chemicals for making the solution.  (Retired now, so no such luck, but I still have some high quality ingredients left.)
What instrument did you use to measure electrostatic charge on your LP, before vs after the experiment with room air?

Acoustats are excellent.  Just about the only brand of good ESL that I have not owned, but my dear friend here in Northern VA had them for many years, so I am quite familiar with them.  Acoustat actually originated the idea of using two audio step-up transformers, one for bass and one for treble.  I think they called that the "Medallion" option.  Sound Labs basically borrowed the idea from Acoustat in the late 90s, I think. At first, SL drove one fraction of the panel with a bass transformer and a smaller fraction with the treble transformer, but in recent years, they drive all panels full range with both transformers.  I think Acoustat went down that road, too.  I just have no room in my upstairs listening space, where the gigantic 845PXs dominate, to add anything like the size of the subwoofers you use.  But I have often considered some smaller alternatives.
Seems you've been nudged off the ledge of absolute certainty that the stylus causes static charge on the LP, at least.  That's a good sign.

Mijostyn, Antinn, and anyone else anal enough to be interested, here is the Shure Corporation website where they post pdf files on many questions that arise with respect to playing LPs:https://service.shure.com/Service/s/article/high-fidelity-phonograph-cartridge-technical-seminar?lan...I call your attention to the paper on static charge.  They describe many interesting experiments in some detail and also mention that they found no evidence that friction between the diamond stylus tip and the groove is an important cause of static charge build-up.  I agree it would be more forceful if they had mentioned how they came to that conclusion.
Mijo, you wrote above, "The other theory as to how static forms on records is that the spinning record creates "friction" with air generating the charge."  That is exactly one hypothesis that I already put forward. (See any of 3 posts above.) I don't know if it's valid any more than you do.  One recent search led me to a statement that air per se is probably not such a good electron donor, but that dust particles and/or moisture in air may confer a charge to a good electron acceptor, like vinyl.  If so, we are back to your obsession with dust, and you have one more reason to obsess.
I drive the Sound Labs with a pair of Atma-sphere OTL amplifiers that started life as "MA-240s", a model that was discontinued in the late 90s.  It originally used six 6C33C triodes as output tubes, but I have modified mine to use four 7241 triodes, which collectively produce the same amount of power (~100W into 16 ohms, maybe).  I have also built my amps from parts supplied by Atma-sphere such that each tube has its own driver tube.  This enables me to set bias separately on each tube, so there is no single tube hogging current and doing most of the work.  Many other tweaks in the circuit as well.  The Sound Lab speakers are tweaked in that I removed all the passive crossover parts and drive the audio step-up transformers (two of them in the SLs, one for bass and one for treble) in parallel directly from the OTLs.  This dramatically increased both the speaker impedance (measured at several frequencies from 20Hz to 10kHz) and the efficiency of the speaker. No subwoofer used so far.

The Beveridge speakers are direct-driven by the Beveridge direct-drive amplifiers I described earlier.  The 2SWs require a woofer as they are designed to go down to ~100Hz.  For woofers, I use a pair of transmission lines I built myself when I was an intern, nearly 50 years ago.  I modeled them after the TL woofer section of the IMF Monitor speakers. They incorporate KEF B139 woofers that are extremely low in distortion but do give up a bit of the very extreme low bass as a trade-off.  The woofers are driven separately from a Threshold amplifier that gets signal from a Dahlquist electronic crossover.  The 2SW has its own built-in electronic hi-pass filter, and I drive that directly.

That experiment you mention, if you intend to measure bias V on an ESL while grounding your meter to house ground and touching your HV probe to a stator (?), sounds possibly dangerous.  I myself would not do it.  For under $100 you can get a decent electrostatic charge meter that should allow measurement of the charge without anything touching anything, with ground to the speaker.

Thanks, Antinn.  I have been unable to find anything on the internet, up or down, that would incriminate or absolve the stylus, until this.

Dear Mijo, You wrote above, "Lewm, it is very easy to measure with a high voltage probe. Building ESLs I just happen to have one. You are not arguing with me Lewm you are arguing with scientific facts of life. All you have to do is get up off your back side and do a little research instead of trying to convince me I am wrong."

Do you mean to say that you are measuring static electric charge with a typical multimeter using a high voltage probe?  Can't be done, but maybe you have a probe of a type I don't know about.  If so, I'd like to buy such a probe. I use a 6kV probe on my Fluke meter when I am working on my Beveridge amplifiers, which drive the panel directly and develop +/-3200VDC.  That probe is not suitable to measure a static charge.


I have owned nothing but ESLs since about 1971, including KLH9s, Quad 57s, Quad 63s, and various Martin-Logans. I currently own a pair of Sound Lab 845PXs.  I wouldn't think of "building" an ESL panel, but I have done some repair and upgrades to my 845s.  I also own a pair of Beveridge 2SWs, which incorporate a novel type of ESL panel.  So, I know about ESLs.

Finally, as to your central statement, "You are not arguing with me Lewm you are arguing with scientific facts of life.", what are you talking about?  I'd like to know what science I am denying, in your mind.  I didn't know we had a conflict of that sort.  All I know is that I have asked you to cite some evidence that a diamond stylus moving on vinyl is the base cause of static charge on LPs.  I am open to the idea if you show me evidence, but I like the other 3 mechanisms I've described, and which others have described, better.


Here is the video that shows clearly that one does not need an inert gas atmosphere in order to observe that UV light of the proper intensity and wave length can discharge a static charge.  It works quite well in room air.  It's the photo-electric effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubkNGwu_66s

Aaaarrrgghhhh, Mijostyn.  Now you not only persist in your unsupported claim that the stylus causes electrostatic charge, you have also added a time frame, one minute!  What is your evidence for THAT?  If you observe that charge develops in one minute or less, that could be due to any one of the other three causes we've discussed: friction with ambient air as the LP spins, contact with the body part of a person who is charged up, or friction with the record sleeve as one removes the LP from it.  For me, at the moment, the diamond stylus tip is 4th on my list of possible causes and least likely.  But I am waiting for you to support your claim.
jro1903, What you do is likely to be futile, because it seems at least to me that static charge builds up during the acts of removing the LP from the sleeve, spinning the LP in room air, and/or touching the LP when you yourself are charged up, as occurs after you walk across a wool carpet to the equipment stand, etc.  Also, and I get this from the internet, so take it with a grain of salt at least, the Zerostat trigger is supposed to be squeezed very gently so as not to produce that clicking sound, in both directions, but with the trigger depressed at the end of the process, you move the gun slowly away from the LP surface as you release the pressure on the trigger.  Most also say this is best done when the LP is already on the platter.  Some say it can be spinning, some say not.  But, as Mijo says, that ritual may even be in vain because static charge can come back after you have performed it properly.  Shure Corporation demonstrated that if you discharge an LP while it sits on the platter, there is still charge on the other side, between the LP and the platter surface.  When you then lift the LP to turn it over or return it to storage, the charge on the untreated side redistributes itself evenly onto both the untreated and the treated side. 


I own a Zerostat and used it for decades, but in recent months I use only the new Audioquest carbon fiber brush that has its fibers grounded via the handle of the brush, supposedly allowing charge to drain off to ground via your body.  I can't say that deleting the Zerostat from my ritual has had any effect one way or the other on any problem with static charge.

Mijo, I think I saw this video on Youtube or on a science site, where UV light is shown to deplete static charge, and it was definitely done in open air, not in an inert gas environment.  If I can find the video, I will post the URL.

Most mysteriously to me, UV light at the right wave length and intensity will also dissipate static electric charge. There's an expensive tweak product idea for someone.

I'm keeping up my end just because I am bored (like most of us a prisoner in my own house), and it's fun.  Plus one of my two audio systems is down and that depresses me.  If you arrive at the turntable all charged up with negative electrons (or ions, as some would say), then as soon as you touch the LP, the charge on you will flow to it, owing I guess to the fact that skin wants to give off negative charge, and vinyl loves it.  No rubbing needed.  There is also the issue of removing the LP from its sleeve which also could charge it up.  And the LP rotating in air on the platter is another possible source based on the relative positions of air and vinyl in the triboelectric series. In the actual situation, the interactions are complex enough that one can almost never say the LP is neutral just using empiric reasoning.  Shure found that when they neutralized charge on the playing surface, that did nothing to the charge that might have existed between the LP and the platter mat, on the other side of the neutralized surface.  As soon as the LP was lifted off the mat, the charge on the reverse side redistributed itself to cover both sides.  By the way, I don't think conductivity has much to do with it, since this is, after all, "static" electricity, and we see that the materials on the extreme ends of the Triboelectric table, those with the most vs the least tendency to shed electrons or negative ions, are in general not very conductive or not at all conductive of electric current.
You are entitled to your opinions about the Linn LP12 and about use of the dust cover and the horrors of dust, but you are not entitled to facts.  I am not sure of the facts, but I am interested to learn more without reverting to long held "beliefs" based on nothing discernible. Or you could quote your sources.

By the way, you're not the only one who does this, Mijo, but this concept of taking the contact patch area of a stylus tip and typical VTF and from that extrapolating to the pressure in PSI is a specious way to think about the stress on the vinyl, in my opinion.  Why not extrapolate to the surface area of the LP, instead of to a square-inch?  In which case, there is about a million pounds of pressure per LP surface area (estimating that the surface area of a 12-inch LP is about 100 square inches and assuming your own estimate of 10,000 PSI is correct).  Wonder what that would do to record wear.

I wish I’d had a brother.
But I do have a nice dust free sister.
if your body is charged all you have to do is touch the LP. The LP is like your unsuspecting brother. You don’t even pay attention to your own analogies.

Mijo, We have the air and our own skin, both of which are high on the list of solids that like to give up electrons and take on positive charge. On the other hand, we have vinyl which likes to take on electrons and negative charge. When we play an LP, we touch the vinyl thereby transferring any electrons stored up in our bodies due to walking across carpet, etc, to the LP. Then too, the vinyl moves with respect to the static mass of air in the room which would create a frictional effect at the LP surface causing electrons to rub off on vinyl. And I haven’t mentioned the act of removing an LP from its sleeve, which if made of paper will also confer electrons on the LP. So we have two or maybe three sources of electrons available to the vinyl. Why then do we need the idea that the inert diamond stylus is the primary suspect in the process of building up charge on an LP???? Where does that idea come from?

Thank you for spurring me to consult the Triboelectric tables, available in abundance on the internet, from which I get the data to support my claim. One of us should get hold of a static charge meter. Then measure the charge on an LP surface prior to play, after play, and after letting it just rotate on the platter for 20 minutes or so, with the stylus at rest. Compare numbers. It’s a very tricky experiment to do correctly, though. The Shure Corporation paper on static charge talks about the problems of proper measurements.

I agree that felt platter mats have not been good in my experience, but I never owned an LP12, and it's just possible that felt may sound good on an LP12 platter.  Dust covers suck, too.  Just couldn't resist contradicting Mijostyn. He knows how I feel about dust covers.

I have yet to see or be able to find scientific evidence that the stylus tip, which is made of diamond, we hope, is the major cause of static charge build-up, but the idea that it is one of the causes is appealing, I admit.  I tried to find where diamond sits in the triboelectric series, and I cannot find any table that lists "diamond".  However, all tables do list vinyl near the bottom of the list of materials that accept an electron (become negatively charged), as Mijo says.  Do you know what materials ARE listed at the very top of the list of materials that lose electrons (become positively charged) most readily?  Human skin and air.  Since it's impossible to play LPs without exposing them to our skin (unless you wear gloves) and the air around us, is it not just as plausible that LPs acquire negative charge from either or both of those two sources?
Years ago, the Shure Corporation published a lengthy white paper on static charge vis a vis the LP.  That paper should be read by anyone interested in the phenomenon.  In that paper, they said they looked for evidence that the stylus tracing the groove is a cause of static on LPs, and results were negative.  Unfortunately, they failed to describe the relevant experiments.  Whereas, they did describe many other experiments in detail, and the results are interesting.