Cartridge cleaning

Light passes through my stylus easily enough, although the color is more amber than clear. Does this seem right?

The ExtremePhono stylus cleaner works alot like the ZeroDust for a substantially lower price. I'm too terrified of breaking my cantilever to try Tom's match striker.

Hey Doug,

That's right! The light passing thru my stylus is also amber coloured rather than white.
The point I was trying to make is that when the stylus is clean, then it will appear translucent (with whatever colour it is supposed to be as each manuf. is different). However, when the stylus is dirty, no light will pass thru it & it should signal the user to clean the stylus.
Best would be to look @ the colour of a brand new cart. before mounting it just so that you have a colour ref. If not possible or too late, then as long as light passes thru it, you should be fine. FWIW.

I, too, use the extremephono stylus cleaner. Works great.

Thanks, Bombaywalla.

I bought my cartridge used from a gentleman here. It's good to know the stylus wasn't stained yellow by his choice of music! ;^)

Doug,

I was thinking about the colour of the stylus after posting a reply to you.

The stylus is a diamond tip. We all know that the more colourless & clear it is, the more the price of it increases exponentially. Thus, it is highly unlikely that a clear, white diamond tip will be used for the job of tracking a LP groove. The most plentiful & natural occuring colour of diamond in nature is in the yellow/amber/beige family. So, I think that this colour will more than likely be used to make stylii for cartridges. I'm sure that if we polled others on this forum many others would report an amber coloured stylii. FWIW.