Spin Doctor

All Rega turntables from the Planar 6 up come with an external power supply, and the Naia's is called the Reference Power Supply. Rega hand-adjusts each power supply to match the actual motor and turntable it will be paired with, so while there is a way to fine-tune the speed, I found that the Naia was set perfectly right out of the box (fig.1) with no additional tweaking required. The power supply lets you change the speed between 33 1/3rpm and 45rpm—there's no 78 speed—and turn the motor off. This is certainly a far cry from my own original Planar 3 over 40 years ago, where I would have to remove the glass platter and shift the belt between two steps on the motor pulley to change speeds.

Rega tonearms have always used an unusual grounding arrangement, where the arm chassis ground is simply connected to the shield of one of the signal cables. This works fine in most situations, and eliminates the need to deal with a fiddly ground connection, but I found it was incompatible with the floating balanced connections used by some current-mode phono stages like the CH Precision P1. Thankfully, when I switched over to the P1's voltage input there was no problem (footnote 3).

Sound Quality: Perhaps it's because I first owned a Rega Planar 3 in the early 1980s when I was in college, but for some reason I tend to associate Rega turntables with British music from that era. With that in mind, I played "Mayor of Simpleton" from XTC's 1989 album Oranges and Lemons (Geffen GHS 24218) and was immediately struck by how tidy and controlled the Naia/Aphelion 2 combination sounded. This lack of any rough edges allowed me to focus on the music making with its driving rhythm and jangly sounding guitars. Some British audiophiles like to talk about a component's PRaT, or pace, rhythm, and timing, and the Naia nails those qualities with extreme confidence.

The opening movement of Shostakovich's Second String Quartet can be a tough challenge for any record-playing system. With the players leaning hard into their instruments, it's easy for a cartridge to get caught out, resulting in strident and screechy string tone. I played the Fitzwilliam String Quartet's mid-1970s recording from the String Quartets box set (Decca D188 D7) and was amazed by the Rega's ability to maintain its composure and clarity as it sailed through even the toughest passages. The pizzicato sections were clean and sweet, with a clear insight into the body and tone of each player's instrument. The pitch stability and tunefulness were both exceptional, helping to make this somewhat complex music easier to follow and digest.

Next I spun the Teddy Edwards Quartet album Teddy's Ready! on a British Boplicity pressing (COP003), which somehow doesn't show up on Discogs. This is another great Roy DuNann recording from 1960, but I'm not convinced this is the best version. Still, with the Naia, the typically excellent Roy DuNann sound still shone through. Bassist Ray Brown always managed to deliver great drive and power from his instrument, and the Naia provided an exceptionally clear window onto his performance. Again, I was hearing how the Naia had an impressive ability to clear out the spaces between the notes.

The Naia proves that there is more than one valid way to tackle the challenge of playing a record, while still achieving spectacular results. There's a lot to like here. The Naia is compact, lightweight, and supremely easy to set up and get the best from. Most importantly, it sounds superb and pulls music from the grooves of a record better than the vast majority of turntables.

Humminguru S-DUO Pro Ultrasonic Stylus Cleaner
Last month, in Spin Doctor #19, I discussed my preferred method for cleaning a stylus, including how to examine it properly under a microscope, and what tools and fluids to use. I have tried pretty much everything that's out there, some of which I consider perilous to the life of your stylus, and many of which are pretty ineffective. But what about a stylus cleaner that is probably dangerous, but also manages to be incredibly effective?

For at least 40 years, there have been vibrating pad cleaners that look a bit like the round pad brushes I prefer to use, but they are built into some kind of battery-powered mechanism that vibrates the pad at high speed to add a scrubbing action. The first one I owned was the Audio-Technica AT637, but this was followed by many more, often badge-engineered with brands like Sumiko, Goldring, and Ortofon. I never found any of them to be more effective than a carefully wielded handheld brush, and with some of them, the vibrations would cause the cleaner to start walking across your platter, endangering the stylus. Most of these have since disappeared, but you can still get versions from Hudson Hi-Fi and Flux HiFi. I commonly see these referred to as "ultrasonic" cleaners, but that's a misnomer; if you can hear the pitch it's vibrating at, it ain't ultrasonic.

But what if someone made a real ultrasonic stylus cleaner? That's what the S-DUO Pro from Hong Kong–based HumminGuru claims to be.

The DUO part of the name is because one end of the S-DUO Pro is the ultrasonic stylus cleaner, while the other end has an electronic stylus pressure gauge. While that sounds handy, I found that the measuring platform of the stylus pressure gauge sits too high off the record to be truly accurate, so I'm going to focus on the cleaner end.

A silver disc, which is presumably the ultrasonic transducer itself, sits in a shallow well about 0.5" across, into which you insert a rubber ring. You then fill the area inside the ring with two to three drops of tap water using a supplied dropper. The ring is there to support the body and generator of your cartridge, so its most fragile bits don't get doused in water. Three rings of different sizes are provided, and you are directed to find the size that will allow the stylus to go inside the ring, while the rest stays suspended above the water. This is tricky, and submerging any part of your cartridge laughs in the face of those cartridge makers who tell you to never use liquid cleaners. Once your stylus is in the water, you start the cleaner, which counts down a 20-second cleaning cycle on its display. Unlike with ultrasonic record cleaners, you don't actually see or hear anything during the cycle; there's no buzzing or rippling of the water.

To test the S-DUO, I went on a hunt for the grungiest cartridge I could find. Searching through my own stash, I found a Shelter 501 moving coil that a customer said was completely worn out. At the time I just put it away without checking it further, but when I pulled it out again, I discovered that it was truly crusty and deeply buried in goop. Under the scope it showed signs of deposits from a deteriorating Onzow Zerodust gel cleaner, and the stylus itself was deeply embedded in black crud. So I mounted it in a headshell on my Technics SL-1200, lowered it into the S-DUO, and ran it through the 20-second cycle. Another inspection showed that it was still pretty caked, but the results were promising, as some of the black goop was starting to peel away from the stylus tip. After about four more cycles, things were really looking pretty darn clean, and after a follow-up using a more conventional brush, it was immaculately clean. The S-DUO even softened up the Zerodust residue, making it easy to scrub off by hand, a remarkable result. Best of all, I then hooked up the Shelter and played it, and everything sounded fine. This "completely worn out" cartridge was actually just very dirty!

As I said earlier, using the $129 S-DUO makes me a bit nervous. There are plenty of potential ways to have an accident with this thing, and dunking your stylus into water is not for the faint of heart. Having said that, it can be insanely effective with heavily encrusted cartridges. If you want to try one, I would suggest practicing first on something old, worn, and cheap, before dipping your precious Koetsu into the HumminGuru's bath.

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Footnote 3: See my Follow-Up on the T+A R 2500 R's optional phono stage, which also had problems with a grounded phono cartridge connection.—John Atkinson

Footnote 4: HumminGuru. Email: support@happywell.com.hk. Web: humminguru.com