A Few Thoughts On Stylus Cleaning
All the rules for keeping the ART1000x's stylus clean got me thinking about the methods for cleaning that tiny chip of diamond. Before you even attempt to clean your stylus, you need to be able to see what you're doing. We are fortunate to live in an era when inexpensive digital microscopes are widely available; they are a welcome aid for inspecting a cartridge's tiny parts. For cartridges that are mounted on a removable headshell, I use a small, standmounted scope with a built-in screen, by Annlov. For fixed-shell 'arms, I use a handheld version that plugs into my laptop. Each one cost around $40.
When you use a digital microscope, it's important to remain aware of where the plastic shroud around the lens is as you zoom in and focus; the last thing you want to do is bump into your stylus.
Looking at the stylus from the side under the scope, you will be able to see any fluff, goopy crud, or baked-on deposits and to know when you have removed them thoroughly. This can be a revelation.
The best method for cleaning the stylus remains the subject of much debate and occasional dire warnings from manufacturers. The best generic advice is to follow the manufacturer's instructions. A cartridge-setup customer once received a cartridge back from a factory rebuild in Japan with a hand-written note urging them to "stop painting your stylus." Some manufacturers, like Audio-Technica with the ART1000x, tell you to never use fluids, while others, like Lyra, sometimes include a brush and a bottle of fluid with the cartridge.
I have a few opinions about what's safe to do and what isn't. Plus, I spoke with a few people who handle even more cartridges than I do, including JR Boisclair from Wally Tools, Steven Leung from VAS Audio, and Peter Ledermann from SoundSmith. They mostly agreed with my thoughts. Boisclair says he always wet cleans the stylus before inspecting a cartridge but avoids fluids that contain alcohol. Leung instructs his rebuild customers not to use fluids, though he's mainly concerned about applying the fluid in a sloppy way. Some fluids come with a long, soft application brush, and if you're not careful, you can stick the wet brush up into the cartridge's generator, potentially damaging the fragile coils. My preferred method is to apply one drop of fluid to a small, short-nap pad then get up close with good lighting and some reading glasses.
I then brush the stylus only from back to front using six strokes before inspecting it again with the scope.
I try to steer clear of fluids that contain alcohol. I am currently using an enzymatic fluid that seems to be safe and effective. Sold under different brand names, the fluid from Audio Intelligent Vinyl Solutions (footnote 3) comes in a small plastic bottle with a dropper tip, accompanied by a pad-style brush as described above. Sierra Sound owner Michael Fajen tells me that his fluid, branded Sierra Sound (footnote 4), is identical and from the same supplier, but his version comes in a brown glass bottle with a long, floppy brush built into the cap. The Sierra Sound fluid is less expensive, at $30, but I prefer the dropper-bottle tip and pad brush that comes with the $40 Audio Intelligent Vinyl Solutions fluid. Both bottles are big enough to last a lifetime.
Vivid's Chief Technical Director Laurence “Dic” Dickie with the Moya M1.
A New Jersey Retailer Rolls Out the New Flagship Speaker from Vivid
Over the last 40 years, I've had the good fortune to hear literally thousands of audio setups, but one that is truly dialed in and optimized is elusive. Hi-fi shows may seem like a good bet, but too often they involve listening in a hotel room with lousy, untreated acoustics and a collection of gear assembled and set up over a couple of days at best. Good setup isn't that simple or quick. So when I get an invitation to hear a system that promises to be something special, I'm ready to fire up the old Mercedes diesel and hit the road.
Recently I was invited by Bill Parish, the owner of GTT Audio & Video (footnote 5), to come to his residential retail store and hear an exquisite system built around Vivid Audio's new flagship speaker, the Moya M1. Vivid cofounder and Chief Technical Director Laurence Dickie was going to be there to fine-tune the setup and explain the technology. GTT is located in New Jersey, about 50 miles west of the George Washington Bridge, one of my main escape routes from Manhattan. This part of The Garden State, with green rolling hills, is very different from the gritty industrial image many hold of New Jersey from the opening credits of
The Sopranos.
To call GTT a home-based dealer does it a disservice. It feels more like someone built a beautiful high-end audio store with several custom-designed listening rooms then dropped a house on top of it.
The Moya M1s were set up in GTT's 35' × 20' big room, built specifically for demonstrating this type of next-level system. Everything has been carefully optimized over the years he has been in this space: AC power, climate control, furnishings, and room acoustics. I first heard the Moyas in May 2024 at High End Munich, where they were demonstrated in a prefabricated sound cabin on the main show floor, but that environment could only provide a taste of what this speaker can deliver. GTT's much larger, carefully optimized space allowed the big Moyas to show what they were capable of.
In building a system to complement the Moyas, Parish spared no expense. Knowing that the Spin Doctor was coming, he put extra focus on the record-playing system: the latest Kronos Discovery turntable and Discovery RS tonearm partnered with a My Sonic Lab Platinum Signature cartridge. Electronics were by Audionet, including the PAM G2 phono stage, Stern line stage, and two pairs of Heisenberg monoblocks. All cabling was by Kubala-Sosna, and the digital front-end was by Auralic and Master Fidelity.
If you were to pull out your calculator and tot up all of the numbers, you'd find that this system comes to more than $1.2 million including the $465k Moya M1s—so, truly an oligarch-level system, as my friend Herb Reichert would say.
Laurence Dickie, or Dic, as he prefers to be addressed, hatched the Moya M1 project when he was stuck in a hotel room for 10 days during a COVID travel quarantine: Remember those? With no way to get to his design studio in England or to the Vivid factory in South Africa, he started to dream big, sketching out ideas for a truly unrestricted loudspeaker. Dic says bass capability is the output-limiting factor with most speakers, so he gave the Moya no fewer than eight 9" woofers, four on each side of the enclosure, each one physically coupled to its opposing twin to cancel energy that would otherwise couple to the cabinet. The Moya is a five-way design, with 13 drivers per speaker. With that much firepower, I'm impressed it isn't even bigger than it is. Most of the Moya's bulk comes from its extremely deep cabinet, which contains the tapered damping tubes for those eight woofers. Those damping tubes are one of Dic's signature design elements, going all the way back to his work at Bowers & Wilkins, where he developed the distinctive
Nautilus loudspeaker with its snail-shaped woofer damper.
Walking into the big room, I was greeted by Bill and Dic, fellow audio writer Greg Weaver, Joe Kubala from Kubala-Sosna cables, Vivid Audio representative Ewald Verkerk, and Dick Diamond from GTT. Everyone else, including Greg, had already spent several days enjoying the system, so I was generously offered the prime listening seat for my whole six-hour stay. After some lovely but not especially challenging music, which I honestly forgot to take note of, Bill asked me what
I wanted to hear. Putting on my best Herb Reichert voice, I asked for some rock'n'roll.
Bill must be a good judge of age or something, because he pulled out many of the records that defined my youth, starting with a 12" single of David Bowie's "Cat People."
"Cat People" amply demonstrated what you can do with 16 9" woofers biamped with more than 2kW per speaker. But this was more than just a brutal show of power, bass, and volume. The Moya speakers demonstrated that they were masters of subtlety, transparency, and detail, generating a massive, layered soundstage with pinpoint images.
Sticking with vinyl, Bill played "Bluesville" from Count Basie's
88 Basie Street, specifically the 2003 45rpm reissue from Analogue Productions (AJAZ 2310-901). "Bluesville" showed off the Moya's uncanny scale and volume, replicating Basie's big band with verve and power.
This is not a review; my audition was far too brief for that, but it did show that when no compromises are made, the results can be stunning.
Footnote 3: Sierra Sound, PO Box 510, Wilton, CA 95693. Email:
info@sierrasound.net Web: sierrasound.net.
Footnote 4: Audio Intelligent Vinyl Solutions, PO Box 232, Hallsville, MO 65255. Tel: (573) 696-3551. Web: audiointelligent.com.
Footnote 5: GTT Audio & Video, Long Valley, NJ. Tel: (908) 850-3092 Email:
av@gttaudio.com Web: Gttaudio.com.
