Cartridge care - stylus cleaner - Reference
Most stylus cleaners do what you expect them to do - and in the process they do silent and insidious damage. Alcohol and solvents, which almost all conventional products contain, attack the adhesive bond between the diamond and the stylus carrier and accelerate the hardening process of the elastomers in the stylus suspension. The user believes he is doing something good for his pickup - and measurably shortens its service life in the process. Martina Schöner, developer of L'Art du Son, wanted to solve precisely this problem - and worked on it for over ten years.
The result is the L'Art du Son Stylus Cleaner - a needle cleaner that cannot be compared with any other product on the market. Thanks to a unique combination of selected surfactants, it cleans extremely gently and highly effectively, without alcohol, without solvents, without any risk to adhesives, elastomers or cantilevers. At the same time, it improves the sound: a calmer, spatially better defined and dynamically more powerful sound image - noticeable, immediately, with every type of pickup.
10 years of development
Unique surfactant combination without alcohol or solvents - protects adhesion, stylus and elastomers
Effective in terms of sound
Calmer, more spatially defined and dynamically more powerful sound - immediately audible after the first application
For all systems
Moving Coil, Moving Magnet, Moving Iron - effective and gentle on all cartridge types
Why conventional stylus cleaners do not solve the problem
Caked microparticles collect on the stylus tip - a precision-ground diamond that works with forces in the microgram range - with every playback process: Abrasion from vinyl and diamond, dust agglomerates, electrostatically bound residues. These caked deposits measurably impair the diamond's sliding contact properties: the tracking becomes less accurate, distortions increase and the sound image loses precision and quietness. If the dirt is transferred to dirty records, the wear of both components accelerates considerably.
Alcohol and solvents clean these deposits efficiently - but they do so at the expense of the cartridge itself. The adhesive that connects the diamond to the cantilever is sensitive to alcohol; the elastomers in the stylus suspension, which are responsible for the exact alignment of the pickup system, harden prematurely through contact with solvents. Neither can be reversed - and both damage a high-quality pickup gradually, without the user noticing the damage immediately. Martina Schöner aptly calls it: "a creeping death for the cartridge, even if you actually wanted to treat it to something good."
The surfactant solution - ten years of development
Martina Schöner had a clear goal right from the start: not to develop a stylus cleaner that was only superior to the competition in certain aspects - it had to be superior in every respect. Countless mixtures were created and discarded - each new formulation was subjected to a thorough visual and acoustic test. The breakthrough came with a unique combination of different surfactants that were not taken from cosmetics or industry, but were developed specifically for the requirements of the pickup needle.
Surfactants remove caked-on abrasion and sticky deposits from the contact area of the pick-up diamond without being chemically aggressive - they work by interfacial activity, not by dissolving power. The sensitive adhesive bond between the diamond and cantilever remains completely intact. The elastomers in the suspension are not stressed. The pickup is cleaned, not stressed - and that is the decisive difference to all other products on the market.
Application - steady hand, sparing dosage
The cleaning fluid is applied sparingly to the fine white bristles of the special brush using the enclosed glass pipette - a tiny drop is enough, the system should not be drowned. The brush is then gently brushed along the needle carrier several times. The special brush is deliberately designed with two sides: The rounded side is used to brush from the back to the front and remove deposits from the diamond tip. The beveled side allows lateral cleaning of the diamond from the left and right - for complete cleaning of the contact area. Never exert lateral pressure on the needle carrier, never brush from front to back.
The bristles of the brush are washable - just stiff enough to reliably wipe off dirt, yet flexible enough to avoid bending the sensitive needle carrier. When used sparingly, the 17 ml of cleaning fluid is sufficient for several hundred applications - a single bottle thus accompanies a pickup throughout its entire service life.
| Manufacturer / Developer |
L'Art du Son - Martina Schöner, Emmendingen (Germany) |
| Filling quantity |
17 ml |
| Application range |
Several hundred applications (when used sparingly) |
| Formulation |
Alcohol-free, solvent-free - based on a unique combination of surfactants |
| Material protection |
Does not attack diamond/cantilever adhesive bond - Does not accelerate elastomer curing |
| Compatibility |
Moving Coil (MC), Moving Magnet (MM), Moving Iron (MI) - all cartridge types |
| Application |
Glass pipette on brush - brush from back to front, never sideways pressure, never from front to back |
| Development time |
Over 10 years |
| Scope of delivery |
17 ml cleaning fluid with glass pipette + special brush with fine white, washable bristles (double-sided) |