Vinyl Care

@richardbrand Just like the ceramic cartridges with the flip-over sapphire stylus with a plastic cantilever you would get on those crappy BSR turntables in the 60s and 70s. Longines Symphonette anyone! 

As for the proprietary stylus geometry, it's just a variation of the length and width of the contact patch. Shibata's and line contacts were developed in the era of quadrophonic because they could resolve the ultra-sonic information encoded on the LP during the lacquering process used to steer the surround effects from speaker to speaker when they were decoded in the preamp. It was also a milestone improvement in faceting the microscopic diamond tip and the resulting advantages in playback quality for stereo LPs.

"Yes, following up on your lead I discovered that the 382 uses the piezo electrostatic effect with a passive network to make it electrically like a moving magnet system.  Another 40-year-old design!  The stylus shape is patented but similar to line contact designs."

I am new to this forum and this is actually my first post! I too have always had a vintage disc washer brush at least, and would sometimes wet clean with it but usually a dry brushing. Then I bought a spin clean and while it yielded decent enough results it was very time consuming and always worried about getting the labels wet. When I had a windfall a few years ago I purchased a VPI 16.5 and I am never going back. I have tried the Tergikleen and others but bottom line for cleaning recently purchased used vinyl this is amazingly effective for a deep cleaning. Get yourself a Milty static gun as well!

prosit

@antinn Is GruvGlide similar to Last? There was a time when I used it, but not in recent years. I did like the smell....

@dogberry,

No, GruvGlide is nothing like LAST.   If this is still the ingredients of GruvGlide - Gruv Glide Ingredients Revealed- Vinyl Engine, it's an antistatic spray.  Quaternary ammonium compounds (QUATs for short) are cationic surfactants which are very hygroscopic.  When the solution evaporates, a film (residue) of QUATs is left behind, and being very hygroscopic pulls moisture from the air and the ionic solution neutralizes any static.  They have limits and tend not work very well below about 30% relative humidity.  QUATs are used in every hair conditioning product to prevent hair frizz.  QUATs are also anti-bacterial and with the right amount of solution and residence time can kill bacteria and viruses.  Most of your home anti-bacterial cleaners have QUATs; although as cleaning agents, cationic surfactants are poor.  

Tried GruvGlide years ago and it left residue on my stylus every time.