travellersol
Active Member
Hi, to those who have been using this ultra sonic cleaning method, how quickly do you need to clean them again?
i have used w d 40 ,not bad,and mostly windex an paper towels , pretty good.theres many places within 30 miles or so that sell many albums,some still in plastic etc,perfect new from back when musick didnt suck as bad..........
I got back into vinyl a year ago....started with alcohol and distilled water as many recommend. However had about 350 old records piled in 120 degree Florida garage for 30 years.With the humidity, there was too much gunk in the grooves for spot cleaning. There is no way ultrasound will remove that in a dry process. They had actual grit in the grooves as well. Ended up with dish pan with a few drops of Palmolive detergent. I dunked vertically and scrubbed with finger tips as I rotated, then dried with soft non shedding cotton hand towels.I did not damage or fade a single label. Dish detergents have a rinse type agent in them and most are shiny like new. Obviously this will not correct problems with damage to the vinyl itself. Try a couple of losers and see what you thinkSometimes the statement "cleaning records" gets convoluted. I have no intention of hanging any of my LP's on the wall and really don't care how they look and I am not talking about the LP covers. What I do care about is how to get the best sound out of the vinyl considering age, dirt etc. I remember sitting around with my buddies dropping the needle over and over again on a Neil Young record to figure out chords. I would not want that in my collection or there is no record cleaning process on earth that could resurrect that LP to a enjoyable quality but it looked good. What I have been desperately seeking is a way to clean 40+ years of dirt from an LP to minimize the pops and cracks. I will never use wood glue and the like on any of my LP's. One must really think about this in a logical manor and with a basic understanding how records play/cut. Although there are many methods advertised and suggested the only one to me that makes sense is ultrasound. It is the most non-invasive approach however I have a few questions about it. #1. Do the labels get wet and #2. Can anyone offer an unbiased before and after playing of a few LP's. I see many demonstrations that show how pretty LP's look afterwards (which the earlier referred to Neil Young record might look shinny) which loops back to the question- How do they sound after- as opposed to before cleaning? Has anyone used an Ultrasonic device that actually helps delete the pops and cracks?
#1. Do the labels get wet?
Sometimes the statement "cleaning records" gets convoluted. I have no intention of hanging any of my LP's on the wall and really don't care how they look and I am not talking about the LP covers. What I do care about is how to get the best sound out of the vinyl considering age, dirt etc. I remember sitting around with my buddies dropping the needle over and over again on a Neil Young record to figure out chords. I would not want that in my collection or there is no record cleaning process on earth that could resurrect that LP to a enjoyable quality but it looked good. What I have been desperately seeking is a way to clean 40+ years of dirt from an LP to minimize the pops and cracks. I will never use wood glue and the like on any of my LP's. One must really think about this in a logical manor and with a basic understanding how records play/cut. Although there are many methods advertised and suggested the only one to me that makes sense is ultrasound. It is the most non-invasive approach however I have a few questions about it. #1. Do the labels get wet and #2. Can anyone offer an unbiased before and after playing of a few LP's. I see many demonstrations that show how pretty LP's look afterwards (which the earlier referred to Neil Young record might look shinny) which loops back to the question- How do they sound after- as opposed to before cleaning? Has anyone used an Ultrasonic device that actually helps delete the pops and cracks?
ETLS____What process is it that you use to clean your records? Ultrasound?
- I have a couple of albums that were unlistenable prior to ultrasonic cleaning. Both were cleaned several times with everything including glue, scrubbing bubbles, and my RCM (record doctor V) - and they improved a bit but were still basically unlistenable. The two albums were a copy of Willie Nelson's Stardust that I picked up used and a 180 gram copy of Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue that I had played way too many times using only a carbon fiber brush to clean between plays. After ultrasonic cleaning - both are now quite good - not perfect as cleaning can't fix damage, but both are reasonably quiet and the number of pops and clicks decreased by roughly 10 fold - definitely listenable now.
.
In cleaning as many records as I have the only hard rule I've reached is that different contaminants react better to different treatments. (Well, that and the Spin Clean is very over rated.)Okay, here it is - proof that even the GLUE method doesn't clean as thoroughly as US. I been waiting for something like this. I cannot imagine any contaminants surviving the glue method, but this is encouraging.
Also, I never pass up a nice copy of "Stardust". Classic.