Stylus cleaners

@faustuss 

The one I have has a ballast, so doesn’t strobe

That's a pity.  Incidentally my incandescent bulbs strobe enough to allow me to set the speed on my Garrard 301, which has big strobe marks on the rim of the platter.  My workshop LED lamps strobe beautifully.

I joke about IKEA, and they deliberately design the layout to keep you meandering for as long as possible.  I had to refit my partner's bathroom / laundry and we fronted up to IKEA with our sketches.  In what felt like under two hours, we had professional drawings, a full bill-of-materials, and everything picked at their nearby warehouse waiting to be loaded.  I mean everything!  Impressed?  You bet!

@pindac 

Does the cleaning of the Stylus limit the cleaning value to assisting with removing irritating noise as a result of contaminants on the Stylus?

I think I have decoded this correctly!  Yes, stylus cleaning's main value is an audible improvement in sound quality.  Accumulated gunk increases the tip mass, reduces trackability and eventually produces obvious distortions.  At this point, one wonders how much damage is being done to the record?

@pindac mentioned jeweller's putty. The best of all these is watchmaker's putty, such as Rodico made by Burgeon. It's super clean, being made for removing gunk from the inside of mechanical watches, and for the same reason is made to leave no residue.

Putty. What ever will they think of next?

What to do with all this putty-footing about?

I will stick with my good old window putty. After using it everything is so much clearer. Sometimes, I can actually see the music.🎵

A Brush that has a fibre that can tangle, is able to snag on the Stylus. The Finer the Fibre the easier the snag is able to occur. What is the outcome following a snag?

Possibly a dislodged Stylus from the Cantilever, the Likelihood / Unlikelihood will have to be a Jury Decision.

What is the outcome following a snag?

Very Likely is a strain place on the Tension Wire, which could change the optimised tension.

Loss off optimised tension on the Tension Wire, can be seen as a bad case, where the Cantilever and Stylus are no longer at the correct SRA and the Cart' Body is descended to be nearer the LP. In some cases the LP is to have made contact with the LP.

Loss off optimised tension on the Tension Wire, is more likely to change the interface between the Armature and the Damper. This will allow the Cantilever to increase its range of movement, which then impacts on the set parameter for the Stylus in contact with Groove Modulation. I'm sure Bass will be quite noticeably poor if two same model Cart's were compared, where one has an optimised tension wire setting and the others tension wire setting has been compromised. 

A Putty used by Jewellers (Watchmaker) can't create this condition, and is not sold with the attachment of stupid Audio Mark Ups on the price.