Pops and noise - my stylus or my brush that caused it?

Hello

I took my tt to a record shop late last month. The guy working there calibrated all my settings. I already had a new stylus and cartridge (Ortofon Red 2m) and he installed that too. Lately I've been hearing increased pop and noise on my records. I'm not sure if its my stylus is damaged or the fact that I keep accidentally touching the bristles on my audioquest record brush while cleaning it. A guy i know told me to stop using the brush cause I've been noticing scratches. Anyway if it is the stylus can i remove the stylus part and install my new backup and not lose my calibrated settings done by the record store guy? I can post a picture of my stylus if needed to see if its bent. Thanks in advance!

 

Increase in noise cannot be caused by a damaged stylus. Any, even small, stylus damage causes a lot more significant problems that just more noise. And it is not a little extra oil or contaminants on the brush bristles either.

No, do not stop using your brush. You MUST keep your records clean to minimize pops and noise. And do not attempt to wash your record brush either.

Your answer to "Why" lies somewhere else in your system, not the cartridge condition, cartridge adjustment, or turntable/tonearm... unless you are not adequately keeping your stylus tip clean. THIS is important. What are you using to clean your stylus?

You can certainly exchange your replacement styli, and listen for a difference. That will not hurt anything. All the settings will remain unchanged. Some would say your VTA might need a little adjustment, due to various minor differences in the stylus and cantilever -- I am strongly in that camp. Never-less-less, try it. It will not hurt anything to try, and glean what information you can from the experiment.

When you exchange back to the original stylus, all adjustments and nuances will go back to EXACTLY what you had before, without any need for effort or adjustment.

 

Are you experiencing a lot of static in your room with your turntable and records?

Since we're heading towards cooler and cooler weather, dry air is recipe for static, which causes pop and noise from static electricity.

Also, it depends on your records' condition. Are the majority of them used or new?

 

I was just about to post this. I nearly went insane a couple weeks ago changing styli, tweaking tracking force/anti-skate, changing wires, speakers, pre-amp, etc., trying to figure out why the hell I was getting so much noise. Then realized the temp had dropped about 30 degrees in the last month and my electric heat was kicking in all day long now. It's really bad at the beginning of records. Anti-static brush helps. But sometimes you just have to deal with it.

 

You also need to develop an ear for the differences in sound between a vinyl click and a static electricity pop.

 

I don't see how any kind of dry brushing helps to keep records clean. Dry brushing merely moves around large dust particles that are just sitting on the surface that hardly affect play ( the stylus plows them away without making any pop or noise) and the brushing action produces a static charge that attracts particles and can even cause loud pops due to static discharge. If you are going to clean records, you should use some form of wet cleaning and mostly practice proper handling of the record (don't touch the surface, promply replace into protective sleeves when not playing. A friend of mine has a large collection that is in absolutely perfect condition and he rarely cleans records (he just keeps them from getting dirty). If a record is bought used that needs cleaning, he uses a discwasher (wet cleaning brush).

 

I blow off the dust before putting the CD in the CD tray...

 

The 2M Red can accentuate surface noise. Which is unfortunate because the OM10 wasn't known for this.
Perhaps the voicing of the Red has a frequency response that makes surface noise more noticeable.

A clean record is paramount to keeping noise at bay.

When I say clean I mean a:
1. Wet cleaning with a paint pad or goat hair brush using record cleaning solution.
2. Rinse with distilled water in a spray bottle.
3. Vacuum with a home made vacuum tool.
4. Replace in new poly sleeve.
5. Repeat as needed.

I clean all records, new or used. Sometimes twice before I'm satisfied.
There is not much you can do with scuffs and dust scratches other than avoid making them.

The carbon fiber brush not only sweeps off surface dust, it also can help dissipate static in drier climates.

Stylus cleaning is important too, but it won't get covered in crud if the record surface is clean. Starting with a new stylus is good.

I use Moon Gel and Magic Eraser to lightly dip the diamond in.

You don't have to spend a ton of money to clean records. I've got less than $25 in my cleaning setup.
RCMs are nice but not necessary.

A brush like the original Discwasher is good because you can use a spray bottle of cleaning solution to mist the brush which can help reduce static.

How much time are you willing to put into record care.

If it's not your thing you might follow what Bingo Bongo recommends.

Edit:
I don't trust electronic repair shops. I learned how to align cartridges myself so I know it's right.

 

The most likely cause of much more obvious surface noise when changing a cartridge is misalignment. If offset/overhang and/or azimuth is set wrong, all recordings will seem to be noisier. The other possibility is that the new stylus has a different shape than the cartridge it is replacing and so it is scanning a different part of the groove. It could now be scanning a more damaged part of the groove that the other cartridge avoided. This sort of damage is most common at the top part of the groove where conical styli scan. If you have done a switch from a conical stylus to something like a line contact stylus, the line contact stylus would be tracking much deeper in the groove; in that case, the increased noise could be from the stylus running into crap that has collected at the bottom of the groove and a very good wet cleaning would help with that problem.

 

it is vinyl............it is bound to happen..........everytime you place that stylus on the platter you are causing wear and tear, it's called friction, basic physics.

 

@ToxicSoundtracks, I would strongly encourage you to learn to "calibrate" your settings yourself. It's not that hard and you only need a few simple tools to do it. If you are unsure if you are doing it correctly go back to your shop for instruction or make a video and post it here for feedback.

What cart would you using before the 2M Red? The same thing or something else? Note that some carts gloss over noise while others will accentuate every tick and pop. My impression of the 2M Red is that it is about average in this regard compared to other elliptical carts in it's price range. A Shure DJ cart, by contrast, glosses over quite a bit, especially in the high frequencies where a lot of the noise on records tends to be.

RE: the carbon brush - it's for light surface dusting only, not cleaning. Many people apply too much pressure with these and get scratches on their records, however, unless you are doing something really wrong, I doubt the hairline scratches would be very audible in most systems. Note also that all these CF brushes are made in China out of the same factories and QC is all over the place with them.

If your records are dirty, get a real cleaning system, don't rely on brushes. They don't clean, just dust. The minimum thing I would recommend is Spin Clean (around $65, sometimes cheaper). If you can afford to spend at least $200 on a cleaning system look at budget manual RCMs. If you can spend more, get a more automated RCM in the $500-600 range to start with.