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Contact Line stylus - gathering dust on stylus. Help!

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased a moving iron cartridge with a "high profile contact line" stylus.  I bought it because of the reviews that I had read, not because of the stylus profile.  I've had it for over a month now, and while I like the sound there is one VERY significant problem.  The stylus gathers so much dust on it that I can't get through one side of a record without having to get up multiple times to clean the stylus.  I've tried 5 or 6 other cartridges on my set up over the last few years without any difficulties.  I always clean the stylus before every side, usually by dipping it in Moon Gel.  With the other cartridges there is seldom any dust visible in the gel.  With the contact line stylus, there are large deposits of dust every time I dip it in the gel (sometimes even two or three times during the same track).

In over a month I have yet to get through one side of an album without having to clean it.  Often, I have to clean it 4-5 times per side.  This happens on every record, even newly cleaned ones.  It happens whether I've just cleaned the apartment and dusted or whether it's been a while.  I just dropped in two of my old cartridges to compare, and they sailed though record after record without any difficulty.  I guess I could have it re-tipped with a different stylus profile, but I hate to pay to have a brand new cart re-tipped.  

Any thoughts?  (and please, no jokes about my poor housekeeping :))

Thanks, Scott
smrex13
mattmiller's avatar
mattmiller
1,180 posts
 
I spin a lot of records and I use a Dynavector 20x2 and it has a Micro stylus, I have always washed my used  records first when they come home in a spin clean then I use groove glide once and I use regular clean paper sleeves and I brush the stylus once before each side, it really never gets dirty, proper record care is worth its time.

Matt M
smrex13 OP
423 posts
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions!  I'll spend some time this weekend experimenting and researching cleaning methods to see if I can make some headway on the problem.  Will report back.

Cheers,
Scott
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
5,112 posts
 
With all the posts on here that declare no issues with slylus shape creating the issue you report, I would say that it has nothing to do with your cartridge stylus.
czarivey
4,494 posts
 
dipping it to moon gel before each side??
this is very possibly the root cause why stylus accumulates dust before reaches the end of album.
the best way to clean stylus(besides playing clean records) is to blow the dust off. i use baby bulb syringe for that (walmart $4). blowing with mouth is OK, but you can deliver moisture with wind.
rarely i clean my stylus with liquid. have one 2g bottle of stanton stylus cleaning solution since early 90's!
after cleaning with any liquid, you need to leave some time to dry before playback.
i also rarely apply cleaning brush... in other words MINIMIZE stress on stylus
larryi
1,972 posts
 

Line contact styli don't have a different VTA requirement than other styli.  But, they are quite sensitive to a wrong VTA, which could raise some concern about shaving the groove with an incorrectly mounted cartridge.  I think czarivey raised an interesting possibility that the gel might be implicated in making the stylus accumulate dust (if it deposits something tacky on the stylus).

I too, have a bottle of liquid cleaner that is essentially perpetual--I hardly ever use it to clean the stylus.  The manufacturer of the cleaner also recommends that, once the liquid is applied and the stylus is cleaned, that the user allow at least ten seconds for the stylus to completely dry.  The liquid cleaner has a solvent which will soften the glue used to hold the stylus in place and the glue should be allowed to dry before play resumes.  Again good advice from czarivey.

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