Build-up on stylus - any new cures?

mixermarkwilliams

... For the various people that assumed that I don’t clean my records, I actually never play one I haven’t cleaned unless I cut the shrink wrap right beforehand. And sometimes I clean even new records first. The cantilever tip around the diamond looks like a snowball with just the tip of the diamond peaking through ...

Assuming your stylus isn’t damaged and your setup is ok, your records can’t possibly be properly cleaned if you end up with that gunk on your stylus. Even new records often have substantial dust (or worse) on them and require cleaning.

@mixermarkwillams 
Is the snowball that you reference with the needle peaking thru possibly the adhesive that is used to attach the needle to the cantilever?
My cartridge looks like that also and it’s the adhesive holding the needle in place. I’ll put my cartridge under a microscope later to re-verify that is what it is.

Thanks, but no, it is clearly a buildup of some sort. The 2014 thread about this noted that vinyl shed from records looks like this and consists of short rods in shape.

My listening tastes are not very mainstream. Some of the pressings I listen to are musically on the fringe in various directions and sometimes not the best pressings.

Some also are from the mid-late 1970s when the oil embargo led to high percentages of recycled vinyl from returned or scrapped records. At first some of those pressings not only blended crunched up vinyl from random sources, but sometimes included bits of label from the scrapped pressings. A machine was created to punch out the center of scrapped records to avoid pollution in the slurry from bits of old labels, but it was not a good time for vinyl quality in independent pressings. This deposit on my cantilever could have come from a particular disc that I hope to identify at some point.

mixermarkwilliams

This deposit on my cantilever could have come from a particular disc that I hope to identify at some point.

Most likely it was accumulation over time from multiple records. What are you using to clean your LPs?

A combination of LP9 or alcohol in conjunction with dipping in Magic Eraser should take care of the problem