Interesting information from Analog Planet on Stylus Cleaner Onzow Zero Dust.

I must confess I'm more than a little disappointed we haven't seen or heard much in the way of substantive follow-up, lately, on this question from Mr. Fremer, WAM Engineering, Wally Tools, Onzow, DS Audio or whomever. Seems all the audiophile gods have been silent for a while, now.

I contacted Mobile Fidelity a few days ago to see what they might recommend with regard to stylus cleaning and, also, to see if they had any thoughts about the Onzow Zerodust or gel cleaners, in general. They've never failed to respond, yet. When (or if) I get a response, I'll share. In the meantime, here is my experience with regard to using the Onzow:

I haven't been using the Onzow for very long. Only records I've ultrasonically cleaned, first (even new ones), have been played on my relatively new TT & cartridge. I use the Onzow before and after every side. All my records are in anti-static poly sleeves and have been very well cared for and stored since I bought them. All the records I've played have been treated with LAST record preservative. I use an AudioQuest carbon fiber anti-static brush before & after every play. For what it's worth, I also use a Michell record clamp. One change I'm going to make, now, is to use the AQ brush BEFORE I use the Onzow and immediately after, right before play, instead of using the Onzow, first, and brush, second, right before play. Probably obsessive overkill but what the heck! Doesn't really take that much time.

When I use the Onzow, I do not free-hand it (i.e. raise it to the stylus by hand). I set in on a little block, on the plinth, at the proper height, so I can use the TT's cueing lever to lower the stylus onto and off of the Onzow's gel pad. I do this 2 or 3 times, moving the block & Onzow around just a little each time to give the stylus a clean landing spot each time. When I first started using the Onzow, I didn't notice any deposits on the gel pad at all and wondered if my records and stylus were really that clean. However, lately, I've noticed ever so tiny little black spots or specks, here & there, on the Onzow gel pad. I'm assuming this means the Onzow is doing what it's supposed to do. Is it getting everything? I've used the magnifying cover of the Onzow box and, also, a very small hand-held stylus microscope I have to examine the stylus. However, both of these are extremely limited and don't really give as good a view of the stylus as I'd like. I just might invest in a jeweler's loop or something better. From what little I have been able to see, the stylus looks relatively clean. I can't really say with any degree of certainty what the black spots on the Onzow gel pad really are. My assumption has always been that it's probably whatever dust & crap the Onzow picks up from whatever the stylus picks up in the grooves. My non-scientist's assumption has always been that these tiny black specks are probably PVC shavings from the records, dust and whatever other crap hides in those grooves. LAST treatment or not, considering you've got a highly polished diamond doing a complicated dance in those tiny little PVC grooves, the friction and heat going on in there has to be wearing away some amount of PVC. Anyway, that's what my non-scientist's mind without an electron microscope has always thought.

As for continuing to use my Onzow or going to a liquid cleaner, dry stylus brush, stylus brush with distilled water, ultrasonic stylus cleaner, combination thereof, etc, etc, etc,, I haven't decided, yet. There are SO MANY opinions on this! It would be nice to see a showdown review or several showdown reviews on this with a healthy amount of scientific acumen applied, including, of course, electron microscope shots. However, I doubt this will ever happen. Something like that would put some people & products out of business. Then again, there are some minds impervious to science who would just go on using whatever they firmly believe in, anyway. So, I don't see the harm. Might even be a good marketing investment.

I've used a stylus brush and liquid cleaner in the past and would really, really hate to go back to that! Music Direct has said, in the past, that they use the Onzow and, occasionally, Mofi LP#9 for stylus cleaning. Don't know if they are still using that approach. I'm not sure if Mofi LP#9 is a non-solvent cleaner, per se. Fremer says he subscribes to the use of non-solvent cleaners and uses Audio Intelligent stylus cleaner, an enzymatic formula. Aren't enzymes just another solvent? If memory serves correctly, I believe LAST stylus cleaner is also a non-solvent formulation. I'm sure there are probably other non-solvent type liquid stylus cleaners and all sorts of other concoctions out there, as well. As for the Onzow gel breaking down over time, I can't remember where I read this; might have been reviews, but I do recall reading that this gel is supposed to last a very, very long time; virtually forever, even after cleaning (by running warmed distilled water over it). Nothing lasts forever! And then, of course, there's Magic Eraser, BlueTack, etc., etc.

What's a poor confused vinyl head audiophile to do?

In the end, I suspect we may very well learn that many, if not all, of the different reputable stylus cleaning approaches are effective; just different. Either that, or we will all be left to our own devices and this will prove to do be much ado about nothing, like many things in audiophilia nervosa.

Here's some news or, rather, pseudo-news from someone who claims to be the New Zealand DS Audio Distributor, on behalf of someone named Aki who is... the creator of the DS Audio gel stylus cleaner? Not terribly clear! This was posted recently as a comment under the follow-up article in Analog Planet:

"Hi Stephen here from Soul to Sole Audio.... I am the New Zealand DS Audio Distributor and Aki has been made aware of the comments, regarding his ST-50 Stylus Cleaning Pads, that have been dragged into this conversation about Zerodust.

Here is the info he has posted:

"DS Audio designed and manufactures our ST-50 stylus cleaner for numerous good reasons. Before developing the ST-50, many people used a liquid-type cleaning brush with resulting problems such as compromising stylus adhesive and oxidation of metal parts. There were instances of customers damaging the stylus/cantilever using a small brush for the cleaning or impacting the cartridge suspension by brushing incorrectly.
This is why we developed the ST-50 pad-type stylus cleaner. It is mechanically safer and there is no chemical fluid that may damage the cartridge. The shape of the pad and its low profile allows you to cue down the stylus gently on the pad with no cantilever contact.

We specifically chose a lab grade of urethane gel that is ether based. The two basic formulations of urethane, ester and ether, have some important differences. Water attacks ester-based urethane, causing a significant reduction in physical properties. Ether urethanes exhibit far superior hydrolytic stability (water not reacting with another chemical), especially in humid environments. Ether-based materials also resist fungus growth better than ester-based materials."

Don't know how you folks feel about this comment but, to me, as a non-chemist consumer audiophile, this is nothing but obfuscation. This comment is like that scene in "Peanuts" where Lucy pulls away the football right as Charlie Brown is about to kick it. Misses the point entirely! Stating that the DS Audio gel cleaner is "mechanically safer" is reassuring but I think most of us who bought a gel type stylus cleaner figured that out before we bought one. Indeed, I think that's why most of us bought one in the first place! We still need or would like to know what the deposit or deposits on the styli are. No news from the Wally Tools Lab on this in a week and nothing of any substance on this from Mr. Fremer in longer than that. If Mr. Fremer isn't closely following up with Wally Tools Lab/WAM Engineering's J.R. Boisclair on this, I will consider this extremely irresponsible! If these folks end up leaving us all swinging in the wind on this one, it will be tantamount to starting a fight in a bar and, then, cowardly slinking out the back door!

My biggest questions to MF, which have NOT been answered, is regardless of whether the Onzow leaves a deposit on the stylus ( which IMO has NOT been absolutely proven yet) is a) is the stylus deposit in any way detrimental to the stylus life, and b) does it impact the SQ? These may be difficult questions to answer, but I would think that if the answer was yes to either question, that would have been determined years ago by the numerous users of the Onzow.

Insofar as a deposit has mass, it cannot help but affect SQ, I would think, by adding mass to the moving mass of the stylus/cantilever.  It is unlikely to have no effect. The deposit can also affect how the stylus tip sits in the groove or alter the normal stylus contact patches.  Not good either.

Yeah, I was thinking maybe it could affect SQ via added tip mass. And since rigidity is key in this part of the assembly to accurately transmit vibrations, any compliant/damping goop on there could slightly "muddy" the transmission. But beyond that, the pics mostly seem to show the accumulated goop on the stylus shank, not the actual contact lines of the tip (the cantilever crap looks more like a total failure to clean up there). Maybe the tip is actually "clean enough" as far as groove contact goes? But the question on stylus life is a good one.

Either way, a good cleaning regimen would keep all bits - tip, shank, and cantilever shiny clean like new, which must result in the best playback performance. Don’t ONLY use the Onzow or DS Audio pads.