Fuzzy distortion on vinyl........Stylus issue?

@millercarbon ... NYU?

@badger_erich

how close are your speakers to your turntable?
what sort of rack is your turntable sitting on?

assuming you know that this vinyl has not already had the grooves damaged.......

that fuzzy sort of sound might be an extreme case of feedback from the music. one easy way to check that out would be if you have a set of headphones that you could listen to the vinyl playback with your amplifier off and your speakers silent. if you still have that fuzzy sound then it’s your cartridge or set-up, or maybe a bad bearing in your arm, or even maybe the arm bearing is not properly seated in the bearing cup....or the tone arm base might be loose, or the arm board might be loose.

anyway, those would be the first things i would check.

What table and arm are you using?

My first step would-be to clean the stylus dipping it gently into a Magic Eraser 2-3 times and then brushing it off with a stylus brush (gobs of info as to how to do it safely in the A'Gon forums).

If doing so is not a remedy then go from there.

What you describe is the typical sound a caked/dirty stylus/needle.

DeKay

Your problem takes me back to the bad ole' days, the 1950's-1970's.  When no amount of cleaning of the stylus would help and no loose screws needed to be tightened I knew it was time to just get a new needle.  I must say, too, that some of my old 45 rpm singles have always been so afflicted.  It's one of the banes of analog existence.  It's one of the reasons that other formats came to pass.