Following on from the previous post ....
The stylus is the only thing which gets to the bottom of the groove in the record ... so playing an album, then cleaning the stylus will slowly clear the groove and make the crackles reduce, if not dissappear. The mistake a lot of people make is to use a brush to make the surface look clean which pushes all the debris into the groove again .... dust you can see isn't really causing any problems.
Stylus cleaners are a rare item nowadays. The best was the Audiotechnica AT637, which is no longer made (secondhand examples of this £17 accessory can be found on Ebay .. but expect a bidding frenzy to beyond £100 in some cases) The 637 was basically a closely packed carbon fibre brush mounted on a resonator, which vibrated at around 1Khz... the stylus was lowered on for a couple of minutes and quite effectively scrubbed clean. The kit came with a fluid, but this was a little too effective and could damage the tip. Other examples which work are the Clearaudio stylus brush ( a manual carbon fibre based brush )... and the Linn green paper ( very fine grade sand paper .. which it takes a steady hand and a bit of nerve to use ... but works well )
I must admit that I tend to just gently run my finger across the stylus after each play to remove built up dust ... and use my AT 637 every month or so ..... the AT removes the burnt on vinyl that can accumulate over time... the surface temperature at the tip is high enough to briefly melt the vinyl !!
http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/
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