Stylus cleaners

@audio-b-dog thanks for the recommendation. I use Humminguru Nova. 
Question - was the degritter part of your routine for at least the most of cartridge’s life before it went to Grado or did it land some time after Joe de-gunked that stylus?

I bought the Degritter after the Grado cartridge had been traded in for another cartridge. The Degritter is about five years old. Joe Grado died in 2015 I think. I think I sent him the Grado Reference in the nineties. I'm an old audiophile.

Thank you for the clarification @audio-b-dog 

In early 2000s I owned Grado headphones (I think they were SR80 or something like that) and they sounded great. I was always curious about Grado cartridges. May be I’ll try one someday. 

@audphile1 

I owned the same headphones. Although Grado was the first to make a moving coil cartridge, he mostly sold moving magnet cartridges back then. The company may have moved back into moving coil cartridges. I haven't kept up. The Grado Reference was a very smooth cartridge. At $1K, probably one of the most expensive moving magnet cartridges back then. It was a demo on a Thorens turntable and I bought both the turntable and cartridge. 

I later bought a VPI TNT 3 and the cartridge sounded great on the turntable. I now own a VPI Prime Signature 21 with a VPI Shyla moving coil cartridge. It sounds very good. I think I have moved on from moving magnet cartridges, except I have a Clearaudio Maestro Ebony V2 in reserve, which I will send in to be retipped so I can use it when I send in the Shyla to be retipped. Retipping takes a couple months. The Clearaudio Maestro Ebony V2 is a wonderful moving magnet cartridge with a fineline stylus. When Michael Fraemer wrote a review on it, he said why bother with a moving coil when you can get all of that sound out of the moving magnet Clearaudio.

@audio-b-dog 

How do you like the Shyla? I believe that one is based on AT ART9.