December 2015


Great Audiophile Gift Ideas For The 2015 Holiday Season
Enjoy the Music.com celebrates our 10th annual gift ideas to give your audiophile!

Extreme Phono Solid-State Stylus Cleaner

  Enjoy the Music.com's Senior Editor Tom Lyle loves his vinyl and recommends Extreme Phono's Solid-State Stylus Cleaner ($29.99). Similar to the Zerodust, this gel-like blob safely cleans the stylus for about half the price. Tom's heard of some home-made devices, yet trusts this more. According to the manufacturer, "Solid-State Stylus Cleaner is made of a high-tech polymer that seems like soft Jell-O/gel-like solid, yet is is actually a very slow flowing, extremely high viscosity polymer, that is non-toxic, and non-polluting (but please don't eat it). By having a much higher sheer strength than the adhesive force between dirt and stylus, the cleaner can pull the dirt away without detaching itself and will not stick to the stylus. Pure chemistry and physics here."

Within his review, Dr. Bill Gaw says "This is one of the best phono tweaks I have seen in several years. Developer Casey Ng read my review from two years back of the Zero Dust Stylus Cleaner and emailed me to ask if I would be interested in reviewing his new product. "Sure," I said as I'm always interested in tweaks.

Up until now there have been several ways to keep the stylus clean. Why clean in the first place? Because even the very minute buildup of materials on the stylus can influence how the stylus - groove contact - occurs and adds distortion to the signal. What is this buildup? First, obviously, is the dust that lays in and on the groove. While most cleaning fluids remove most of it, there is always some new material that is attracted to the record surface, and this stuff is especially bad with the line-contact styli so prevalent today. Then there are the agents that are added to the vinyl to keep it supple, allow it to lift free of the presses, etc., which become glued to the needle. Finally, the vinyl itself will sometimes fuse to it, really gumming up the works. Thus cleaning the stylus between each side is a must. You can buy the Extreme Phono Solid-State Stylus Cleaner at this link.

---> Next Great Audiophile Gift idea for 2015.