Anybody damage a stylus with a Magic Eraser? (Update: Not damaged, problem resolved!) *

Hi everyone,

I've been on the Magic Eraser bandwagon since I first read about it. But now I'm questioning my faith.

I always clean the stylus after every side of a LP. The other night I was playing LP's, and the sound suddenly changed between sides.

It was like the top two octaves just disappeared. It affects both channels. I swapped tubes in my phono unit to make sure that it wasn't that. The sound hasn't changed on the CD side of the system.

The cartridge is a Zu Audio modified Denon DL-103 that is 22 months old, and I play 4 to 10 LP's a week. The cartridge still seems to be tracking well, but the treble is gone.

Does this sound like normal cartridge wear, or have I prematurely worn my stylus by using the Magic Erasure?

Anyone else have something like this happen?

 

I thought cleaning every three or four sides was often enough with my watchmakers putty.

 

Hmmm.

After a little bit of internet searching, it turns out that I may have been using the Magic Erasure a tad bit too aggressively.

Most folks just dip their stylus into the Magic Erasure using the cueing lever, and only use it as a "brush" on soiled cartridges.

I was using it as if it were a brush after every play......

Learn the hard way......

 

I'm really curious as to what exactly the magic eraser did to your stylus, though. If you were using it like a brush it's possible that it may have pulled it in a way that something came out of place. I can't imagine that it actually sanded the tip in some way.

 

Diamond is a pretty tough mineral!

 

At this point, I'm speculating that using the Magic Erasure in the same manner as you would the old Disc Washer stylus brush, (as I did), accelerates stylus wear. I pulled it from back to front, so not not to damage the cantilever, but it's still an abrasive, or it wouldn't clean your bath tub too. I don't think the Magic Erasure is to blame, I believe (now) that I was using it improperly.

You might be right about pulling something out of alignment. I can't see anything amiss, but that doesn't mean it isn't so. I don't have a USB microscope, this might be a reason to get one!

 

You may have pulled the cantilever out. Magic Eraser is merely very finely spun melamine plastic and wouldn't wear down a diamond. It could catch and dislodge a diamond tip or pull the cantilever out of the normal position though.

 

You are correct, sir!

But still, it can be worn down by tiny debris left in grooves of LP's that we thought we had cleaned!

BTW, how often do you change your avatar? You're making me feel like a slacker!

 

You might be right. At this point I'm not sure.

I put on a LP tonight to check things out and the treble sounded better, but the bass was elevated way out of proportion. (There was a younger version of myself inside, that liked that sound!)

 

I dunno, 2-3 times a year, I guess.

 

Always follow the cartridge manufactures recommendations for cleaning the stylus.
Most of the time a couple of swipes of a dry stylus brush from back to front between
sides is all you need.

 

Melamine can't abrade diamond. But you could have damaged something else with the scraping and pulling...

 

I have sympathy with your situation. We have all trashed a cartridge without meaning to that's why I stick with MM these days.

 

You don't need a USB microscope to see if you damaged the cantilever/stylus assembly- a cheap jeweler's loup- under 10 bucks on Amazon- should be powerful enough for you to see. If you were dragging the ME across the stylus tip, rather than dunking, or scraping along the sides of the cantiliver, the stylus may have snagged in the ME and you could have bent the cantilever, or done something to screw up the motor assembly(something you may not be able to see but if you really pulled something out of whack the cantilever is probably going to look funny too). I suppose it's possible that you could literally pull the stylus out of the cantilever but that's pretty unlikely.
If you look at ME photos under magnification (photos online), you'll see that it is a rat's nest of little fibers- that's what catches the dirt, but obviously, can also catch on the stylus. It also leaves a little residue, which you can and should brush off after use with a regular stylus brush. It is a very effective way to keep your stylus clean, you just have to be careful.
The original write-ups about its use were by Doug Deacon back in about 2004, I think. I read the posting on Audiogon, but I think it was on Vinyl Asylum, and cross posted to a number of other hi-fi web boards at the time.

 

I have been using the magic eraser with my Shure cartridges for several years now and have used it aggressively. I've got two turntables, both with a Shure 97 cartridge. I have yet to experience damage from the magic eraser. I have experienced damage from playing records in [sometimes spectacularly] bad condition, but them's the breaks as I copy LPs to CD for others and often have to work with damaged discs. Having multiple styli means I can swap out styli easily in such a situation, one of the reasons why I use the Shure cartridge. The replacement stylus is cheap and easily replaceable. I can understand why someone with a moving coil cartridge would be nervous with the Magic Eraser but as I have said before, I have yet to damage any stylus by cleaning it with the eraser. However, I clean the eraser with a brush regularly and have used the same eraser for a couple years. Barring having the stylus damaged by an LP that has seen better days, I usually replace the stylus annually, many days I'll be playing LPs for hours every day, the groove 'milage' adds up pretty fast in this household.

 

But Robin, are you just 'dunking' or side scraping the cantilever with it? Or using as you would a stylus brush, and swiping it beneath the stylus? If the latter, I could see how a stylus could get snagged in it.

 

Yes you could but they haven't. And as I've already said, I've been doing this for years. I've used the other methods cited, they simply don't work as well for me. I understand people with big investments in gear get freaked out by the possibility of damaging their gear with the magic eraser. But I have yet to experience any difficulties, I do use it by swiping the stylus back to front, a single pass, between every LP side. The magic eraser that I'm using has to be at least two years old. I think that helps, the initial bit of dust from the eraser stops coming off the eraser after a while. However, it's important that the magic eraser is frequently cleaned. It's a lot like the old discwasher, you need to clean the cleaner otherwise you'll accumulate more dust in the eraser.

 

Just a few dips works well.

 

I use it every few months or so no schedule just when ever I think about it. I use the zerostat after every side. When using the ME I just lightly brush the sides of the stylus with a very small piece of ME, as to not grab it and pull it...

 

How are you cleaning the ME? Wetting it? Because if I recall that changes its composition, and in a way that is not good for cleaning styli. (I'd have to re-research what wetting ME does to it, simply don't remember).

 

No, I use another brush. I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paint. In any case, I have lots of brushes. A used & throughly cleaned toothbrush works best, a short "flat" brush also works well.

 

Brush(es) used here also, but ONLY brushes. I have two, each one is from the purchase of an Audio Technica cartridge. The first was an AT14S in 1975 and the second from an AT440MLa in this year. The newer one is designed to be a bit softer, so I always use that dry on my Denon DL-110 and AT440MLa. Periodically I use the older, stiffer-style brush with a drop of 91% isopropyl. Always brushing back to front, occasionally at a slight angle, 20-30%, to catch debris that my hang out at an odd spot. A few of the bristles flick up on the top of the stylus as I pull the brush forward and those take care of anything on the top surface of the cantilever. This works better, for me, than the Magic Eraser or "dipping" the stylus in any tacky stuff. It is less nerve wracking using the brushes--I always worried about dislodging or bending the cantilever by catching it somehow on the cleaning material.

Tried "the dip" methods and prefer the brush.

 

Clean the ME?

I cut up a block into smaller square sections and keep the lifetime supply in a ziplock bag by my TT.

Well, lifetime supply for me at any rate....

 

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That just never sounded like a good idea for me to try.

 

Yeah, I don't know why you would need to clean a magic eraser when a few dollars will buy you a huge supply of it. I have only dipped the stylus into the ME, and never brushed or swiped it. And only occasionally. I don't really notice a big difference but I figure it is more like a spring cleaning task, not a daily one.

I always brush the stylus gently with a thin carbon fiber bush before each play, so maybe that's why the ME doesn't make a big difference to me.