Audioquest vs Hunt EDA Mk6 record brushes

Not long after I pulled the trigger on a Hunt EDA brush at $25, I picked up a bundle of 25 16"x16" terry micropoly towels from Sam's Club for $10. The packaging claimed 80,000 fibers per square inch. I figured that ought to be fine enough to be able to scrub out an LP's groove.

What I quickly found out was that these towels render the dry brushes irrelevant. I fold over and then roll up one of the towels, and it is infinitely better than one of the much more expensive aluminum-handled carbon fiber brushes. I can use the towel dry for a dust-brushing, or with record cleaning fluid to clean more throughly and to remove grease, mold, and smudges, and then use the dry end to dry off the record cleaning fluid.

Unlike a record cleaning brush, when the towel gets gunked up from cumulative cleanings, I can drop it in the washing machine, and I still have 24 backup towels to see me through until that first one is clean.

Thought I would rekindle this thread. After brushing w/ my Hunt brush, I get that line of dust Opalchip refers to. I have seen someone use the blue lint roller type tool, but I am not a big fan. Don't like the idea of possible residue left from that. The damp brush idea to get that line of dust seems like a good one...?

That's a problem I've noticed with every brush I ever used. What to do with the dust? The best solution, IMHO, is the Mapleshade anti-static brush that uses ultra-fine stainless steel bristles that are finer than carbon-fibre and other materials. The bristle array connects to an 8' ground wire terminating in a small plug that goes in an unused ac receptacle's ground socket. Held in place over a spinning record grounds the static charges on dust particles to earth and they can easily be blown off or led towards the outer edge of the disk. Used just before cleaning records on my nitty-gritty gets me the best results of any cleaning regimen I have used to date, and old records are often made young again. The brush is so gentle, it takes away the feeling of dread that I used to get when stylus cleaning with stiffer brushes. It is also the only cleaning tool besides compressed air that I will use on the ultra-fragile thin coating on my Boston mat.

The Hunt and similar brushes work well as long as they are clean. After a few uses they load up on dust and crud and leave your records not much cleaner than they were before you brushed them. My solution? Use one of those "sticky rollers" to clean the brush after every couple of uses or so. A clean brush doesn't leave a line of dust.