Stylus cleaners

A housekeeper once bent the cantilever on a Grado Reference cartridge. I sent it to Grado who straightened it out for free. When I called to ask about the cartridge, I spoke to Joe himself. He said I still had many hours on the stylus. Before we hung up he said, "Don't put any more gunk on the stylus. It took me a lot of time to get off. These diamond needles are so hard that dust can;t really stick to them. A brush is fine."

From then on, I have never used "gunk" to clean my stylus. I have a short bristled brush and a long bristled brush. That's it. Gunk be gone.

@audio-b-dog what were you using to clean your stylus prior to Grado snafu

“I tried the LAST Stylus Cleaner and Stylast Stylus Treatment. Works great!”
@audphile1 

I’m glad to know that you’re happy with the outcome.

@lalitk thank you. Cleaning the stylus with MoFi LP9 on a regular basis yields increase in clarity. I believe with LAST cleaner followed by Stylast treatment I hear at least the same improvements in sound quality but in addition a decrease in surface noise. Interesting results. This LAST set is a keeper. 

@tomic601,

Sorry just saw your post from about 10-days ago.  Stylus cleaning is one of those areas I leave to everyone's own decision.  There are many as addressed in this thread.  However, if the record is well cleaned, the stylus should not require much effort to keep clean.   I wet clean with Ortofon carbon stylus brush misted with distilled water once before each day's play, and then after each record blow it down it with the Orbit® HEPA Blower – Sensor Cleaning for DSLR and Mirrorless Cameras | Sensor Swab®, Cinema Sensor Cleaning.  It's available from many sites including Amazon.