stylus cleaning

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Available at any supermarket or Walmart. $5 will buy enough to make hundreds of stylus cleaners.

Cut off a piece of the white portion and blue tack/silicone glue to a nickel, or to any other non-magnetic base if a nickel would strain the budget. Use it like you would a ZeroDust, just dip the stylus into it a couple times after each side.

- cleans better than a ZeroDust or ExtremePhono
- safer than any liquid or vibrating cleaner
- cheaper by far than any of them

My ZYX UNIverse has never been cleaned by anything but this and a dry stylus brush, and it's as clean as the day it was new under 200X magnification. Search for "Magic Eraser" on VA if you want testimonials from hundreds of happy users.

Andre,

Dry brushing alone is not adequate. Even if your records are perfectly clean, the stylus acquires a thin (molecular) layer of vinyl from each play. If this is not removed regularly it will continue to build up. This can be seen on well-used but uncleaned styli, which slowly go dull or yellow.

If you wish, email me your address and I'll send you some Magic Eraser pieces. Value for customs will be about .001EUR, so it should get through okay!

Search the archives for "demagnetizing". We've been through that topic several times in endless detail. Short answer: it depends on the cartridge and on who you ask, but active demagnetizing has ruined some cartridges so don't do that without researching first.