I can only agree.

I use AM stylus cleaner and AM record cleaner for vinyl records.

I have done it for a long time and my records gets cleaned before I play it. My MMC20CL is very good to collect the dirt so I just spray it on before playing.

Also clean the heads of your Beocords! Capstan and the rubber wheels. A lot of cassette tapes are old so do leave dirt and makes the sound muddy even without dolby on.

I have a question about inspecting the stylus. Unfortunately I don't have the equipment (microscope with camera) to inspect and share pictures. I do have a couple inexpensive magnifiers (the type with an LED light). While not the best, I can rig up my biggest magnifier (supposedly 100X) and look at my MMC stylus. My cartridges play good and from what I can tell, look fine. But I was wondering, aside from something obvious like a broken tip, would I be able to really tell how much wear I had? 

It would be nice if the forum had some detailed pictures of various stylus (MMC1, 2, 3, 4 & 5, plus 20CL, 20EN, 6000, 4000...whatever we can get) posted. Preferably in known, new condition. Something to reference for comparing our own cartridges to. Maybe it could be a new thread in the Beogram section of the forum.

-sonavor

I did do some a while ago, mainly of 20CLs. I will dig them out again when I am home.

Thanks Peter, looking forward to it. Meanwhile, I bought a small Panavise to hold my cheap magnifier. A temporary microscope until I can buy a good one with a camera. Today I inspected my MMC cartridges along with the 4000 and 6000. You are right about the 6000. It does seem to be a dust magnet and requires more frequent cleaning.

OK, I’ll bite, why is the MMC6000 such a dust collector?

I am under the impression that the MMC6000 is the four-channel version and/or predecessor of the superb MMC20CL.

Certainly the MMC6000 is an excellent stylus vis-à-vis audio performance, aside from its unwelcome attraction to crud.

I have three MMC20CL’s in place and only one was remotely dirty, nothing vaguely compared to the MMC6000.

Now I know that Leslie likes photos, but I’ll admit I was more interested in removing the crud as opposed to documenting it for posterity. In addition in my lifetime I have had some pretty dirty styluses, but the worst of these merely muddied the sound, not the dramatic volume drop and the horrific noise that my MMC6000 delivered.

It is not with the slightest exaggeration when I said in the beginning of this thread that I was absolutely convinced that I had suffered a complete amplifier failure….. I know what one sounds like and this was it. (Only it wasn’t)

From what Peter says I can expect it will happen again, only next time I won’t go into a panic, I’ll know to clean the stylus.

Still I’d love to know why this occurs.

Jeff

Piaf wrote:

OK, I’ll bite, why is the MMC6000 such a dust collector?

Jeff

I guess it has to do with the shape of the stylus. In examining my MMC 1 and 2 types along with the 20CL, the diamond is like a railroad spike. On the 6000, the diamond is like a cone (a mountain shape). Perhaps that shape picks up and holds the particles that come off the vinyl. That might also feed particles to the cantilever too. I'm just guessing though.

Every record, every time.  I clean any stylus prior to playing vinyl.  Moreover, I clean the record thoroughly, too, before every playing.  I'm fastidious in this and the vinyl I bought new in the 1970s plays as clearly and quietly today as when new.  It's very easy to tell which records came from a used record store.

Clean everything, every time.

With the care of records, in addition to regular cleaning, which is a wonderful idea, I find the use of extra cost plastic-lined sleeves to be a HUGE improvement over the standard issue paper sleeves. You can just “hear” the minute scratching every time you take a record in or out of one of those record company issued sleeves.

I purchased boxes of plastic lined record sleeves and replaced all the paper ones with these more gentle sleeves. Of course if the original sleeve had cool printing on it, photos of the artist and such, I kept it in addition to the more protective plastic one.

Jeff

Piaf wrote:

With the care of records, in addition to regular cleaning, which is a wonderful idea, I find the use of extra cost plastic-lined sleeves to be a HUGE improvement over the standard issue paper sleeves. You can just “hear” the minute scratching every time you take a record in or out of one of those record company issued sleeves.

 

I purchased boxes of plastic lined record sleeves and replaced all the paper ones with these more gentle sleeves. Of course if the original sleeve had cool printing on it, photos of the artist and such, I kept it in addition to the more protective plastic one.

 

Jeff

Absolutely agree! Those are far, far superior to paper sleeves, and are very gentle on the records. 

Also, a properly setup and functioning B&O turntable is about the safest and least damagaging way to play your records. Between the low stylus mass, excellent tracking ability of the cartridges, the floating suspension on most B&O tables, etc. It's hard to find a better way to play your albums. 

I still have a Discwasher stylus brush that works well, about a centimeter or so wide circular densely bristled brush, bristles about 5mm high. I also use an Audio Advisor Record Doctor II vacuum record cleaner, it also works really well to clean up vinyl and keep it clean. 

The MMC6000 has a Pramanik profile diamond, named after the B&O engineer who designed it and who was largely responsible for the Beogram 4000 arm and cartridge design. The p[rofile is a modified Shibata stylus but where the Shibata have a reduced aspect to the leading edge of the stylus, the Pramanik also has a reduced trailing edge. This means that it can track the very high frequency undulations seen in a CD4 record. It also means it goes nice and deep in the groove and has a long but thin contact area on the groove. Needless to say, it can excavate the rubbish lying at the bottom very nicely!!

B&O did a very nice demonstration model of the cartridges - MMC3000, 4000, 5000 and 6000. I think Lee might have a set! It allowed dealers to give a crude demonstration of the advantages of a thin contact area - the design was simplified for the 20CL.

For those interested, Subir Pramanik's wife has worked for many years answering queries for beoinfo - I am not sure but think she has retired now but was a charming and very informative lady whom I always found very helpful.