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Stylus Cleaning Rituals

Did a search on the subject, nothing found.
So, please, briefly describe your Stylist / Needle Cleaning Rituals.
How often (in hours played?)
Procedure used.
Products used.

For me over the years (~45 and counting) I use Disc Doctor Stylus Cleaner on a Disc Doctor 'Pad' and pull it across the diamond outward (only one direction).  As it 'sees' the record when playing. 
I follow up with two 'placements' on a Zerodust Onzow 'gel type convex pad'  I clean it ~6 months with hot water, there is spots of gunk on the clear gel pad!
About once every 5-6 hours of play.

Seems to be doing the trick, but you never know if your are missing something critical or doing untold damage.

Thanks!
quincy
ghdprentice
6,408 posts
 
I clean all incoming records with 1) Last Power Cleaner, then 2) my VPI vacuum record cleaner and treat with Last Preservative. Typically I will listen to it once or twice before putting into my collection of over 2,000 albums. I listen to about one album a day. I listen to streaming most of the time so it is years between plays. Consequently I seldom do any cleaning of my stylus... maybe pull the dishwasher stylus brush towards myself a couple times every six or eight months.

.
I long ago threw away the Zerostat Guns, as I find it useless. For me, life is too short to waste time on avoidable nonsense. I saw a great electron microscopic video of a stylus following the grooves of an album. Looked as if the stuff collecting on the stylus was about an angstrom thick and would in no way impact the sound... and would fall off. I use the brush to get any hair or fuzz that may get caught.
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,502 posts
 
Slylast is supposed to extend stylus life x10.
I always use it. Almost ready to break into the second bottle from 30 years ago.
Since iLast Co. was founded in ’79 MC must have been a beta tester. My routine for my zerostat is occasional use for my burr coffee grinder. I use a Furutech destat for vinyl.
As far as stylus cleaning nowadaze just ’drop’ it on a magic sponge.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,370 posts
 
Remember when Linn said to use sandpaper??
petg60
1,486 posts
 
Mainly i use Onzow before each session and Zyx brush after each lp side. Very rarely i use Stylast stylus cleaner, two drops applied on its brush.
Audioquest Super conductive antistatic brush before every play and Walker Prelude cleaning system for lp cleaning.

mr_m
1,900 posts
 
To the "Last" users. Stylast, at least to my knowledge is not a stylus cleaner, it's a stylus preservative.  LAST makes a stylus cleaner in a similar bottle called LAST stylus cleaner which should be self explanatory. You should be careful with the preservative as too much application can migrate up the inside of a cantilever and gum up the coils in the cartridge ruining it. I had this happen to me many years ago with the preservative. I'm not saying "don't use it" just a tale of caution.
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