Best Record Cleaning Fluid


Greetings All,

I’ve spend the last few days searching and reading about record cleaning fluids for my cleaning machine (Okki Nikki).  Wow - there are a lot of options out there.  Many more than I originally thought.  Some real esoteric stuff that costs a pretty penny.  I’m currently going through my entire collection, cleaning it, listening to it and adding it to a Discogs DB.  Want to finally know how many I have and have a list of them.  But doing this has resulted in me going through cleaning fluid rather quickly.

So many options, so many perspectives on what are the best fluids.  What do you all say.  I understand that alcohol is a no-no for fluids, but I can’t find out if some of them include alcohol or not.  Currently using up the fluid that came with the machine, but no where can I read it if has bad ingredients.

The 2-stage or 3-stage cleaning systems are not going to happen.  I did get a bottle of Revolv that I was told was good, and use if for new high quality pressings (as opposed to those I bought in high school).

Anyway, would appreciate some perspectives on good quality record cleaning fluids that don’t bust the bank.  Thanks for keeping the sarcasm in check.

Happy Listening,

pgaulke60

Showing 9 responses by cleeds

mijostyn
Denatured alcohol is bad news on vinyl but Isopropyl is fine.
The matter of whether alcohol solvents are safe on LPs has been the subject of such debate for so long that I don’t think you can authoritatively state that "Isopropyl is fine." I’d be interested in any evidence you have to support the claim, though.

The question I ask is: What is the need for such a solvent? I use nothing but an ultrasonic RC machine and pure distilled water to clean records, and haven’t yet found any contamination that they can’t remove. And yes, I buy the occasional used LP.
If you use a dust cover, a grounded sweep arm and never smoke or cook around open records you will never have a problem.
I don’t care for grounded sweep arms - though I have used one in the past - but even they won’t eliminate dust from LPs.

The issue of whether to use a turntable dustcover while playing records is also subject to debate. In particular, I have seen a dustcover’s static charge completely lift a pickup arm off of the record! That makes me wonder if VTF can be affected even in the absence of such an extreme situation.

The only way a clean LP can remain completely dust-free is to keep it in a clean sleeve within its jacket. Once it’s taken out to be played, some amount of accumulated dust is inevitable.
mijostyn
cleeds I must be a genius ...
Ha ha.
Lets see how perceptive you are. Lets run an experiment. Get a big frying pan ...
Please feel free to run your own experiments. If you choose to do that, you’ll need to employ a "control" if you want it to be scientific, which you don’t mention in your little scheme. In any event, I don’t use alcohol to clean records. I’ve found it unnecessary.
elliottbnewcombjr
The force of a stylus in a groove is tremendous, it will dig any grub out ...
Nonsense. You will not get a dirty LP clean by playing it - even if the stylus is perfectly clean when you start. I’ve become increasingly convinced that many listeners have never heard a truly clean, pristine record, even after using the alcohol and other potions for which they have such faith.
mijostyn
... stick with your distilled water and ultrasound. But you'd better be careful because according to Mr Kirmuss if you use the wrong frequency you could damage your record!
My LPs have suffered no damage at all. I've actually tested the US cleaning method: I subjected two different LPs  to a 30-min cleaning cycle, which is much, much longer than I use in practice. I then compared recorded waveforms (one made before cleaning, the other after) and found no difference at all.
A record will take several thousand pounds per square inch of stylus trying to dig into it at a rake angle of 20 degrees but it can't handle ultrasonic water bubbles?
At 20 degrees, you're confusing "rake angle" (SRA) with VTA. VTA would commonly be around 20 degrees; SRA would be about 90 degrees.

This notion that a stylus exerts "several thousand pounds per square inch" has been often repeated, but I've never seen any math to support it. It would be tricky to calculate, because not all of the VTF is applied to the stylus tip - some of it is transferred from the sides of the stylus onto the groove wall.

Some others believe that there is extraordinary heat generated at the stylus tip. I've never seen any documentation to support that, either. Measurements I've made with an infrared thermometer don't support the claim.

Alcohol? Brake fluid? Special potions and magic formulas? I have to wonder what contaminants are on the LPs that warrant such an approach.

Ultrasonic and distilled water work fine for me. I get a pristine, perfectly clean LP every time. What more could anyone want?

voiceofvinyl
... if you are doing a patent field search to find the ingredients in a vinyl resin formulation you will not get an accurate understanding of what’s actually being used by a processor. A lot of additives, like some of the one’s used to make the surface of the vinyl play quietly, are trade secrets and thus not disclosed.
That makes sense to me. But there are some people who are convinced that every fact known to man can be found within an hour or so using Google and the Internet.
I will just disagree that all vinyl resin pellets used to make the bisquit are 100% virgin vinyl.
Indeed, some labels tout their own unique formulation, so I'm inclined to agree with you.
As such I will minimize my use of alcohol on the records I truly care about. 
I stopped using any of the magic cleaners, potions, and alcohol-based solutions when I went to US cleaning. I've needed nothing but distilled water since. I'm not sure why some people think they need brake cleaner to clean an LP - yet at the same time, others seem to think a stylus will gouge all of the dirt from the groove.
ljgerens
Many years ago people observed their Monster Speaker Cable turning green through the clear PVC jacket. This was due to dehydrohalogenation of the PVC jacket producing HCl which reacted with the copper conductor forming copper chloride.
W-o-w! I never knew that! I used the original Monster Cable speaker cable in a biamplified Infinity 2.5 speaker system back in the very early '80s, so I had a lot of the stuff. It was a great sounding system but that is exactly what happened to the cable - I'd never seen anything like it before or since. The green color actually creeped me out a little and I threw the cable in the garbage.
ljgerens
... I used clean room gloves to handle my LPs. The worst thing to try to remove from an LP surface are the proteins, amino acids, lipids and salts from your skin contact.
That seems rather like overkill. It's possible to handle an LP without ever touching the playing surface by simply touching only the LP edge and the label.
... the best cleaning method that I found was deionized/distilled water and an ultrasonic bath.
Same here.
mijostyn
Obviously I was wrong ... Carbon Black is obviously added to all black records and I have read that it contains lead which acts as a stabilizer ...
You really need to start relying on facts rather than speculation, because this claim is also completely mistaken. MFSL's "SuperVinyl" uses a carbonless die, for example, and it's likely MFSL is not the only one doing this.