Dealing with Static on LP palyback

@spatialking 

Have you told us what turntable you have the problem with?  What is its platter made from?

Also thick carpet can charge you up as you walk on it, depending on what its fibres are made from.  Assie wool is inherently anti-static ...synthetic the opposite.

I use Nagaoka anti-static record sleeves, and an Audioquest carbon fibre brush before each play.  It has a metal cover and earths itself through the user.

We are talking about the Triboelectric effect - Wikipedia here.  Any insulator in friction contact with another insulator causes charge (electrons) to be transferred.  Vinyl is one of the worst offenders. Cat's fur, camel hair and diamond are insulators.

Machines have been built that create huge voltages using conveyor belts to transfer the charge, see Van de Graaff generator - Wikipedia.

Lightning is created by nature's own conveyor belt Lightning - Wikipedia, when ice crystals rub against water drops in thunder clouds.

The forces generated by electric charges are huge compared with gravity. 10 to the power of 36 times bigger - see Standard Model - Wikipedia That's why a few electrons on a bit of paper can overcome all the gravitational pull on the paper of all the atoms on earth.

When a record spins, air near its surface is thrown sideways by centrifugal force, so a constant supply of fresh air is drawn down.  I say fresh, but it will contain microscopic dust particles, some of which have a positive charge. 

Meanwhile the diamond stylus is busily traversing the entire record, and knocking stray elections into the vinyl.  If one attracts a charged dust mote, the mote sticks to the vinyl with incredible force but there is no net negative charge for @lewm's meter to measure.

But the next time you play the record there will be a rock stuck in the groove.  Well a 10-micron rock or bigger is enough to do the damage.  Analysis has shown that a fair proportion of dust retrieved from records contains diamond dust, probably worn by friction from styli.  If this dust has donated an electron, it even comes charged.

@hjdca 

"YES !  As soon as I switched from my ancient Pioneer turntable with the 80’s cartridge to the McIntosh MT10 turntable with the stock Clear Audio Talismann cartridge, my records went dead silent.  I was absolutely amazed !"

You have good taste. Way to go!

My Rega Planar 8, Apheta 2/3 played vinyl open air and air borne dust attracted to the surface of the vinyl as records played was never an issue. As Roy Gandy has always said the stylus just pushes debris out of the way. As far as returning a dusty record to it's clean sleeve, a quick dust with your carbon fiber brush and a pass with a silicon roller ameliorates the issue.

@spatialking You might want to explore an arts & crafts store like Michael's to see if they might have something that could serve as an acceptable dust cover.  You could also have one custom made but I'm sure that isn't exactly inexpensive.  As for possible resonance issues related to a light dust cover, I think this might be easily resolved by gluing a thin strip of foam insulation around the perimeter of the dust cover base.

As a few others have mentioned, I also use a record brush (i.e.  AudioQuest carbon fiber with conductive contact) before AND AFTER every play before returning records to their sleeves.  I also clean my stylus before AND AFTER every play, as well (i.e.  MoFi #9 solution at the start and end of every listening session + Onzow before & after every play).

Regarding the Roy Gandy theory of the stylus just pushing dust & debris out of the way, there is a funny story about this.  Can't remember where I read or possibly saw the video about this, probably Analog Planet or one of Michael Fremer's many videos.  As best I recall, Mr. Fremer was visiting the Rega factory in England and was later invited to Mr. Gandy's home.  Upon discussing this idea that the TT stylus just pushes dust & debris out of the way, Mr. Fremer suggested putting this to the test by playing a succession of records without brushing and without a dust cover in place.  It wasn't long before enough dust & debris had accumulated at the stylus tip that it lost contact with the record grooves and ultimately started skipping around on the record.  I wonder how Mr. Gandy plays his records now.

Dear RB, You do not have to "beg" to disagree with me.  You are free to do so, but I have no "opinion" with which to disagree.  I was curious about the role of stylus/vinyl friction in causing static charge on the LP surface, even after having read the Shure white paper on static where they report no effect but without data, as you were so quick to point out. So I bought the ES charge meter off eBay and did the experiment I reported above (for the second time on Audiogon).  I also said I have repeated the experiment several times with similar results. In addition to all that, back when we had this argument/discussion the first time, someone else on the thread who also owned a meter also reported similar results.  In a reasonably controlled experiment, the stylus does not induce significant static charge on an LP surface.  I use the word "significant" to satisfy your prior insistence that the difference between -100V (0.1kV on my meter) and -200V (0.2kV) is important.  I hope you would agree that the difference between -11,000V, measured after yanking the LP out of its paper sleeve, and either 0.1 or 0.2kV is very significant. In my subsequent repeats of the experiment, I found that the before vs after readings are typically within -100V of each other and it can go either way. I have no "opinion". You, however, do have a strong opinion that seems to withstand the barrage of facts. 

I guess in response to my hypothesis about why the stylus does NOT appear to cause ES charge buildup on an LP surface, you posit the following:

"When a record spins, air near its surface is thrown sideways by centrifugal force, so a constant supply of fresh air is drawn down.  I say fresh, but it will contain microscopic dust particles, some of which have a positive charge. Meanwhile the diamond stylus is busily traversing the entire record, and knocking stray elections into the vinyl.  If one attracts a charged dust mote, the mote sticks to the vinyl with incredible force but there is no net negative charge for @lewm’s meter to measure."

That’s as reasonable a hypothesis as mine, but neither of us has any data to support it.  Furthermore, if what you posit is completely correct, then I am also correct: the stylus/vinyl interaction does not cause accumulation of negative charge (insert reason here).  Neutralized charge is no longer charge at all.

After having posted above about doing an experiment using a cartridge sans generator, I did think about whether it could be done with an optical cartridge, but I did not know whether optical cartridges do their signal generating work inside the cartridge body (which would  mean they have the potential to generate EMI) or in the downstream amplifier. If what you say is true, then why don't you buy an inexpensive ES charge meter and do the experiment with an optical cartridge? The prediction is that the optical cartridge would generate ES charge on the LP.