A sine wave hopefully, but that shows nothing about distortion measured in the frequency domain. Oscilloscopes normally show the time domain, and that product seems to be for smoothening badly worn records (personally, I would never buy that product given the limited feasibility of their time domain measurement). A thorough cleaning of records is always the first step of stylus durability.
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Phonograph Stylus Wear Experiment
- Thread starter BendBound
- Start date
Yes, most likely, that FAQ answer is about 40 years old or more. The product Stylast is for the stylus only and apparently to decrease the wear rate. I don't know if it was ever objectively tested back in the day by Hirsch Houch Labs or not. Probably only to the extent of looking at microscopic images of a stylus. The most popular product they made was Last Record Preservative. It was "objectively" tested by several of the mags back then (Stereo Review, High Fidelity, and Absolute Sound come to mind), and it was generally agreed it did what was claimed it could do...but, again, I'd love to see if it was confirmed with the test equipment we have today.
I am curious as to what program you are using for the auto-translation. And from what language?
I am interested because I use Google Translate often in my work. Both written and spoken into my phone. For Translate to work well when speaking, I've found that an effort needs to be made to use proper grammar. But, it's genuinely unique when I think back on Star Trek episodes when they used the translator, and it just seemed something like that was true science fiction, and now it's at our fingertips.
Interesting...this article was written by the founder of The Last Factory, whose products I have mentioned above. He did not mention his own products in this excellent article.
Regarding the LAST product. I think it was tested on a forum together with other products that reduce friction. If I remember correclty LAST didnot really do anything to reduce friction (but other products as teflon-based did). It might have been on Pink Fish Media.
Edit: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...ord-preservatives-effectiveness.463337/page-7
Edit: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...ord-preservatives-effectiveness.463337/page-7
ocinn
Senior Member
Apologies if it is slightly off topic, but as someone who uses vinyl for exclusively DJ use, needles/styli are a frequent consumable for us so I might be able to offer a different perspective:
The tell-tale sign that I need to throw on a new needle is an audible roll-off above 10khz and increased even-order distortion between 1 and 7khz or so.
The biggest issue with recognizing needle wear for the average Joe without measurement gear or a microscope is the fact that the deterioration happens so gradually, it can easily fly under the radar, and next thing you know you’re damaging records, and your songs sound awful yet you have no clue.
Obviously this would be somewhat infeasible for audiophile use, but I actually carry a spare cartridge with me with a super low-hour needle on it to “sanity check” myself. If one of my main cartridges needs replacing, I’ll throw on my tester spare needle and cycle out my tester cart with a fresh one. This maintains a consistent (subjective) baseline of performance.
There is no “fixed hour number” metric, and also, who is timing their turntable hours?
There are a ridiculous amount of variables that can contribute to needle wear, so IMO it’s foolish to set arbitrary hour guidelines.
The tell-tale sign that I need to throw on a new needle is an audible roll-off above 10khz and increased even-order distortion between 1 and 7khz or so.
The biggest issue with recognizing needle wear for the average Joe without measurement gear or a microscope is the fact that the deterioration happens so gradually, it can easily fly under the radar, and next thing you know you’re damaging records, and your songs sound awful yet you have no clue.
Obviously this would be somewhat infeasible for audiophile use, but I actually carry a spare cartridge with me with a super low-hour needle on it to “sanity check” myself. If one of my main cartridges needs replacing, I’ll throw on my tester spare needle and cycle out my tester cart with a fresh one. This maintains a consistent (subjective) baseline of performance.
There is no “fixed hour number” metric, and also, who is timing their turntable hours?
There are a ridiculous amount of variables that can contribute to needle wear, so IMO it’s foolish to set arbitrary hour guidelines.
Was there ever a conclusion to the debate in that thread that you can’t have decreased wear without decreasing friction?
That's precisely what was debated.
Icewater_7
Member
I recall anecdotal claims in some of the audiophile mags that Stylast was actually harmful to some cartridges. The claim was that the active chemical in it or the carrier medium would migrate up the cantilever shaft into the suspension materials and damage them (such as premature hardening or disintegration). No evidence was presented to back up the claims, only personal beliefs. I still use the LAST stylus cleaner on a regular basis since one bottle can almost be around for a lifetime because so little of it gets used per application.
Ya - I didn't see any evidence either. I just found the aspect of friction and wear not necessarily being strongly correlated with the introduction of a boundary layer interesting. Not a subject I've researched.
Not that I've researched it either. However, dirt/particles should contribute to wear both by increased friction and grinding actions. Lubricant films may dissolve dirt to reduce grinding wear and make a film to reduce friction. LAST homepage have two micrographs with one dirty groove ("non-treated") and one clean groove ("treated"). I see nothing indicative of groove wear, so I have no idea what this tells us.
I do, though I've not found it effective with my records. I haven't found much to effective, so I think whatever's causing noise issues with the bad examples I have appears to be rather permanent, or very stubborn.
morillon
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2022
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try winyl pro clean? seem very good.... for many...
No. I did the basic formula from Neil's document, and for the dirtier ones his manual method with tergitol, liquinox, and citranox. Before that I used a vacuum RCM with various commercial formula.
