Analog maintenance

Look at ebay for AT-637
That's a - discontinued - stylus cleaner, best ever made.

Lot's of great advice. Thanks. I will wean myself down on the LAST and use it about every 10 albums or so.

For some reason, I do collect a bit of dust during LP playback. I put a pristine LP on the TT and when I pick it up after playing, there is a bit of dust on the stylus. I can remove that easily.

Anyone else using the Extreme Phono's Solid Stylus Cleaner? It is a very viscous gel that you dip the stylus into and then remove the stylus immediately. Not only does the gel clean the stylus, but also "grabs" any dust or particles.

Best

One more bit of advice. After using a solvent type cleaner on your stylus, wait just a bit before actually playing the record to allow the cleaner some time to evaporate and any glue that might be softened to harden up again.

The Lyra people recommend waiting at least 10 seconds after using their cleaner before playing a record.

If you are picking up groove dust after using the VPI, it may be coming from old inner sleeves. I recommend you buy rice paper sleeves and change out the old sleeve after cleaning your record. Also, I like multi step cleaning systems like Lloyd Walker's Prelude System. It's a bit more time consuming, but once cleaned, it will be a long time before you will have to do it again. You will get improved sonics and cleaner grooves. I used the solid stylus cleaner you are using years ago under a different brand name. It is supoose to last forever and it is suppose to be cleanable. I found it lost its tack after one cleaning and was of no use thereafter.

I follow a similar path as you, though for my final step I do use a static eliminator device, the Walker Audio Talisman. I also will second Elinor's advise of switching to the rice paper sleeves.

Cheers,
John