Cleaning Vinyls

Phaser

Phaser

Phaser

Associate
Joined
17 Mar 2004
Posts
1,562
Is the universal "record cleaning" liquid you see in HMV etc for £4-5 actually any good for cleaning records?

Also what about lighter fluid? Heard a bit of that was pretty good..

Has anyone ever used one of those record cleaning machines?

Thanks.
Phaser.
 
I wouldn't trust some fluid like that. Would be concern you end up making a sludge in the bottom of the groove for the diamond to plough through :eek:
This is what I do, every new record I get I put in polythene inner sleeve, once I've removed it the first time. Some come with them not all. General I never need to clean a record. Just keep the stylus clean, as it is the best cleaner. Or if it's an old record got dirty, I use a Carbon fibre brush to gentle wipe around the disk.
Problem with wet cleaning you remove the natural silicone lubricant that is present on the surface of the record. Which could mean higher wear rate.
If the above doesn't do it, I'd have it professional cleaned and treated.
But prevention is better than a cure.
 
As 9 says, a good record deck and cartridge actually cleans records whilst playing them.
If you have particularly bad records, a record cleaning machine can be good, though they are rather expensive (generally £200+).
I would definitely not use any fluid or wipes from HMV. The wipes generally just grind the dust in, making it harder to get out the correct way.
 
On the subject of Vinyls, how does the pricing work?

I bought Elephant - The White Stripes on vinyl last year for £20 off Ebay. It turns out it's a 1/500 promotional press and is apparently "worth" around £150. Is this true?
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
I would definitely not use any fluid or wipes from HMV. The wipes generally just grind the dust in, making it harder to get out the correct way.
Click to expand...

Didn't realise they were that bad! :eek:

Might have to get another carbon brush, I had one once and it really seemed to do the trick. Just wanted a way of getting all the finger marks etc off.
 
Finger marks !!! :eek:
Actually you possibly won't hear them, they just look bad, as they lay on the surface.
That said you should never need to touch the playing surface anyway.
Slide you hand into the sleeve, support the record on your finger tips on the label, the outer edge then pushes against your palm. Bow the sleeve so it doesn't drag against the surface, and easy the prized piece of vinyl out. Then hold by outer edges, with two hands and place on platter. That way nothing touches the playing surface.
The above link was very good polomint, the bit about keeping the mat clean is very important.
Also I clean the "needle" after nearly every side, with a something that looks like a tiny tooth brush, just to flick the fluff ball off..... Then every few albums I drag a piece of "green stuff" across the diamond tip. It's a Linn recommended thing, it's actually something like 2 micron aluminum oxide linishing film !!! It removes the baked on deposits off the surface of the diamond.

Played a couple of records last night, one hasn't been out in over a year I guess, didn't need to clean it at all, and was near "Silent".....
 
As I helped out on Friday afternoons, Holiday cover and Saturdays without pay !! I got to make as many black interconnects and speakers leads as I wanted, borrow anything after Sat lock up, plus I got all the dealer margin knocked off, which could be anything from 22% to 42%, we were on 37.5% at the time I think. That was around was Summer of '92 I think......Never made it to the factory :( we closed up soon after... dam recession. :mad:
 
Oh, my factory visit was great. We were there for 2 days, put up in a hotel. The first night I helped demolish a bottle of 25 year old Macallan ~they'd run out of the 18 year old!

We had a tour of the new factory (well, it was new then) and looked at all the revisions of the LP12. At one point we went to one of the Linn guy's flats and he played some lp's on an LP12. I noticed he had put a matchbox over the microswitch and when he left the room we lifted it to see that there were red and green leds on the switch. This was well before the Lingo - the turntable had a hybrid power supply derived from the Axis onboard supply (never introduced for the LP12).
We had a session learning how to set up an LP12. Looked at the latest Aktiv system: LK1/LK280 spark (x3) with Isobariks and listened to it with a Karik/Numerik against LP12 Ittok (the Ekos was yet to come).

Well worth the visit... :cool:
 
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