Agaton Sax
Active member
Records schmecords. Rekkids. An inferior form of consumerism that was everywhere. That is how people listened to music and learnt to speak Portuguese. Having little interest in either, I nevertheless remember being very upset as a small boy as older boys used a "Springbok Top Twenty" disc as a frisbee.
Still, I am of a generation who have little respect for the vinyl thing, except they had to be quiet and free of scratches. As a result, I had( and have) little trouble dunking them into a solution, vibrating them to hell, scrubbing them and generally being awful to vinyl to get better sound. It seems to have passed me by that this flat plastic thing has become rare, expensive and very collectable.
Cartridges? Now that is another thing: Exxxxpensive, they have to be treated with extra respect. Having once owned a Golmund linear tracking arm, I am no stranger to very expensive and exotic cartridges that lost their styli through the actions of the arm. A J van den Hul warns in his tomb that no water should ever come close to a stylus. EMT, in the old days, promptly cancelled warranties if records were played wet.
Still, keeping styli clean is a major challenge: There are brushes, magic cleaners, gloop and solutions (that contain no water) costing a fortune. I even have an ultrasonic cleaner. - An Audio-Technica from way back. If this thing is ultrasonic, I am an athletic sprinter. If I finish 100 metres in minutes rather than seconds, so this thing vibrates, audibly, in hundreds instead of thousands of Hertz. Never mind ultrasonic. Still. it was the only thing I had that kept the Shibata stylus on my ultra-rare JVC cart clean. Keeping styli clean was a mission in general.
I have been ecstatic with Ben's Hummin-Guru ultrasonic record cleaner. So, when Ben enthusiastically offered the Hummin Guru ultrasonic stylus cleaner, I was partially interested. But only partially. He also offered a tiny bottle of additive to the record cleaning fluid that he swore was a miracle. It is. I threw all my newly founded, triangled theoretical opinions on water alone to record cleaning solutions to the wind when I encountered this stuff. Still, I hummed and hawed over the ultrasonic stylus cleaner. I mean, I had one and the Hummin Guru is expensive! The fact that it had a super accurate scale on the other side meant nothing as I had an ancient Technics electronic scale ( R 25 from Allen's hi-fi in 1980! ) and a super accurate Amazon electronic scale that is a dead ringer for the muyo bucks Ortofon.
Still. I finally capitulated and spent the bucks. I nearly fainted. With this thing, you fill a tiny receptacle with water, lower your stylus in it and switch on for 20 seconds. No.no NOOOO. In total trepidation, I lowered my Denon 103 in the water. Not an audible sound, not a whisper. What came out was a miracle. I didn't know a diamond could be that shiny. The rare JVC followed, with shaking knees. It came out shiny and sounded even better. My ageing Koetsu followed with the same stunning results. All carts sounded truly remarkable. I keep them clean and as I am no stranger to fine work, they are clean. and frequently inspected. Or so I thought. My ancient Fidelity Research FR 7 stylus looked like a long ploughshare. It had resisted all attempts to clean. Lowered in the cleaner and there it was, The elliptical stylus shiny like new. And it sounded -WoW.
This was just too much. With trembling fingers, I lowered the new van den Hul into the cleaner. Fully expecting no stylus, I was rewarded with a pristine assembly and an even more stunning sound.
I shall not lie. Every time I use the thing I still anxiously play a record, thinking a stylus will be gone into the yonder. Instead, every time I get that miraculous, like-new sound
Oh well. Swimming to Robben Island next week.
Still, I am of a generation who have little respect for the vinyl thing, except they had to be quiet and free of scratches. As a result, I had( and have) little trouble dunking them into a solution, vibrating them to hell, scrubbing them and generally being awful to vinyl to get better sound. It seems to have passed me by that this flat plastic thing has become rare, expensive and very collectable.
Cartridges? Now that is another thing: Exxxxpensive, they have to be treated with extra respect. Having once owned a Golmund linear tracking arm, I am no stranger to very expensive and exotic cartridges that lost their styli through the actions of the arm. A J van den Hul warns in his tomb that no water should ever come close to a stylus. EMT, in the old days, promptly cancelled warranties if records were played wet.
Still, keeping styli clean is a major challenge: There are brushes, magic cleaners, gloop and solutions (that contain no water) costing a fortune. I even have an ultrasonic cleaner. - An Audio-Technica from way back. If this thing is ultrasonic, I am an athletic sprinter. If I finish 100 metres in minutes rather than seconds, so this thing vibrates, audibly, in hundreds instead of thousands of Hertz. Never mind ultrasonic. Still. it was the only thing I had that kept the Shibata stylus on my ultra-rare JVC cart clean. Keeping styli clean was a mission in general.
I have been ecstatic with Ben's Hummin-Guru ultrasonic record cleaner. So, when Ben enthusiastically offered the Hummin Guru ultrasonic stylus cleaner, I was partially interested. But only partially. He also offered a tiny bottle of additive to the record cleaning fluid that he swore was a miracle. It is. I threw all my newly founded, triangled theoretical opinions on water alone to record cleaning solutions to the wind when I encountered this stuff. Still, I hummed and hawed over the ultrasonic stylus cleaner. I mean, I had one and the Hummin Guru is expensive! The fact that it had a super accurate scale on the other side meant nothing as I had an ancient Technics electronic scale ( R 25 from Allen's hi-fi in 1980! ) and a super accurate Amazon electronic scale that is a dead ringer for the muyo bucks Ortofon.
Still. I finally capitulated and spent the bucks. I nearly fainted. With this thing, you fill a tiny receptacle with water, lower your stylus in it and switch on for 20 seconds. No.no NOOOO. In total trepidation, I lowered my Denon 103 in the water. Not an audible sound, not a whisper. What came out was a miracle. I didn't know a diamond could be that shiny. The rare JVC followed, with shaking knees. It came out shiny and sounded even better. My ageing Koetsu followed with the same stunning results. All carts sounded truly remarkable. I keep them clean and as I am no stranger to fine work, they are clean. and frequently inspected. Or so I thought. My ancient Fidelity Research FR 7 stylus looked like a long ploughshare. It had resisted all attempts to clean. Lowered in the cleaner and there it was, The elliptical stylus shiny like new. And it sounded -WoW.
This was just too much. With trembling fingers, I lowered the new van den Hul into the cleaner. Fully expecting no stylus, I was rewarded with a pristine assembly and an even more stunning sound.
I shall not lie. Every time I use the thing I still anxiously play a record, thinking a stylus will be gone into the yonder. Instead, every time I get that miraculous, like-new sound
Oh well. Swimming to Robben Island next week.
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