Got an LP cleaner you want to make money on?

I'd be willing to have vinyl-philes in CT rent time on my Loricraft PRC-3. Cleaning fluids and instructions regarding best practices could be part of the deal. Flexible terms! Maybe even "FREE" if you clean one of my LP's (to my standards) for each one of yours. Warning: my standards are not easily attained. :-)

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Ctsooner,

Once an LP is cleaned thoroughly, it should not need wet cleaning again. If it does, that just means it wasn't really clean the first time.

An occasional brush to remove stray cat hairs and specks of airborne dust should be sufficient. The only other thing required is neutralizing static buildup before and after each play. Static charges on vinyl attract dust like a magnet from miles around.

New inner sleeves are imperative IMO. My RCM cost $2M and it takes 20mins/side to get an LP truly clean (by my, somewhat hysterical standards). I'm not about to slide a carefully and REALLY clean LP back into a dusty, dirty, static-prone sleeve. I also put each newly cleaned and jacketed LP, and its cover, into a new outer sleeve.

Whether you, with a limited budget, should buy a RCM is an interesting question. It depends in part on the size of your record collection. If you don't have (or expect to have) many records, it might be more efficient to "rent" time on someone else's machine... per the OP's suggestion. For about the same money you might end up with cleaner records than you could achieve with an entry level RCM.

With respect to the OP, who admits he has little experience, all records should be cleaned - including new ones. There is no significant risk if proper techniques are used. There is, however, a real risk of vinyl damage from playing uncleaned records.

The vinyl plug that's placed in the mold to make an LP releases chemicals during molding and cooling. Residue from these chemicals is often called "mold release" compounds. Many people misinterpret this term to mean that the manufacturer coated the mold with some release agent, which remains behind on the LP. That is not the case, however chemicals released from the vinyl during molding do remain behind.

These should be removed before play, as otherwise they smother sonics and gunk up the stylus. Further, they provide a sticky medium that grabs onto any stray dirt. Imagine what happens when a sharpened diamond drags a piece of dirt acrosss a soft vinyl groovewall... the resulting damage cannot be repaired.

Mold release residues can harden over time, making them more resistant to removal on vintage LPs. IME, 50s-60s era Decca/London records are among the toughest to clean (if they've never been) but once you do... wow!

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Agape126,

Record manufacturers do not "spray some type of solvent (scratch resistant") on them. A new record, after cooling, comes out of the mold and goes straight into the sleeve with nothing added but a visual inspection (if we're lucky).

As you've never cleaned a new record it's meaningless to say, "it sounds great"? You have no basis for comparison.

If this is the first time you've heard of this, you haven't spent much time reading forums like this one. Not that anyone would blame you! Playing records is way more fun than cleaning them, or reading about cleaning them. Try the "Record Playing Rituals" thread stickied at the top of this forum. Search for relevant keywords here or on VA. I'm far from alone in this experience and it's no urban legend.

In my system (listed) the improvements from effective cleaning of virtually any record are instantly obvious, to me and everyone who's ever visited. That includes a dozen or more Audiogoners over the years.

Please note that the sonic indicator of a truly clean LP groove is NOT a lack of clicks and pops. That's the easy part. The real test is the audibility of low level detail, upper order harmonics and micro-dynamics. Anything less than a perfectly clean groove will mask these to some extent. A trained ear that knows what to listen for helps.

Caveat: if all you play is rock/pop music with a typical MM cartridge, you may not hear many differences. My listening tends toward acoustic instruments and unamplified vocals, especially authentic instrument recordings of classical era and older music. Such recordings are many times more revealing of minor problems anywhere in the reproduction chain, including groove grunge. My preferred cartridges are extraordinarily sensitive to low level musical detail. In other words, my setup is biased toward revealing things that other systems may mask.

More than one visitor has brought over a record they swore was clean, or was new. The sonics were muffled, at least to me. Despite their insistence it wasn't necessary, I've sometimes cleaned the record for them and re-played. It's no exaggeration to say that their jaws hit the floor.

Unless you've tried something...

Altaylorwood,

Totally agree with your premise. I've no interest in providing a mail-in service (lack of time, real job, etc.). But I'm very open to local (CT area) vinylphiles visiting to use my RCM.

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Liz,

Your casual, fun approach is just as valid as others' no-holds-barred efforts... and way more dancin' for the money! But I'll take a teensy issue with, "This leaves the plasticizer on the surface of the vinyl, and that is 'better'."

There is no "plasticizer" on the surface of a vinyl LP. The plasticity of vinyl is a function of its molecular structure and no sensibly chosen cleaning solution is chemically capable of altering that. That was bit of red herring. ;-)