Pro's and con's, audible, that is
List on the KLAudio is $4K. The advantage is that it dries, so you put the LP in and get it out ready to play in 5-7 minutes. The drawback is it is a single-play (plus the additional $$). It is, like the V8, getting excellent reviews/feedback from the users.
The CableCo kindly cleaned a few of my LPs on the Audio Desk Systeme (ADS). The result was beyond my expectations and I am sold on *the need* for ultrasonic cleaning: it does work, indeed. :thmbsp: There have been quite a few discussions of the operational differences of the 3 commercial machines: Audio Desk, Klaudio and V-8, on the one hand, and of "N" DIY options, on the other. My listening to the Audio-Desk-cleaned examples (most of them 2nd copies of LPs I own, so I could do A/B tests ad naseum) revealed improvements in 6 "dimensions", listed below. I am dying to know if anyone has listening notes from comparing any of these "3+N" options. :scratch2:
1) Years ago, a friend who was a recording engineer demo'ed for me the "fine white mesh" (my analogy) that sonically lies over virtually all the program material on LPs, and is not present on high-quality tapes of the same program. I had come to think of this as "extra detail" on LPs, but my friend taught me that it was spurious "noise". The noise is quite "white": not particularly confined to any audio band. The level of this noise seems to me to correlate with the general modulation level on LP. The ADS *substantially* reduced this whitish noise.
2) ADS'ed LPs (like Calvin, I do occasionally verb words) exhibit clearer room acoustics. I *think* this is because my ear/brain can more easily distinguish the direct sound front the reverb, so I can hear the room as itself, but that's my guess. Room acoustics are experientially clearer.
3) ADS'ed LPs exhibit better "thereness": listening through my Stax 009s as if they were "a window into the venue", instruments and vocalists sound more spookily "there".
4) ADS'ed LPs allow better discernment of individual instruments in choirs: e.g., a "violin section" becomes clearly a "group of violins".
5) ADS'ed LPs better reveal the "action" of instruments, i.e., how they are actually producing the sound. E.g., you better hear the different flows of air associated with trombones and flutes, or again, the interaction of a vocalist's cords, cavities, tongue, etc. In the latter case, diction is more easily understood as an important byproduct.
6) ADS'ed LPs make metallic percussion sound more metallic. This is really a subset of 5), I suppose, but it's so important to me I am artificially separating it out.
Given the highish to high price of commercial options, a DIY solution has its attractions. However, I *just* want to get the most audible improvement in the dimensions listed above, and would love to hear of other people's comparisons between them regarding the resulting sonic benefits to LPs along the lines of the dimensions mentioned above.
