Got an LP cleaner you want to make money on?

Will do...Altaylorwood and thanks for your reply!!!

When I've seen stores/people offer a record cleaning service the price has usually been about $1.

I bought a very clean 16.5 last year for a little over $300.
If that's not doable, I recommend a spin clean- under $100
Another answer to is find a few vinyl buddies in your area and split the cost of a used RCM. Perhaps the perfect start for a local hifi club?

Years ago there's was a store nearby that charged $1 a record to clean. I thought it was an OK service. Frankly, if I owned an audio shop, I would include in any TT purchase free lifetime record cleaning, limited to 5 LPs per visit to the shop.

Personally, I wouldn't advertise my home as a place to bring your LPs to clean for a charge. I far prefer inviting friends over and if they bring some vinyl to clean , that's great.

Buconero117:
I too use steam with great success. Distilled water to minimize any buildup. Set it up so as to keep the label dry.

Agape126:
I wouldn't clean a new LP. You want to maintain that pristeen surface as long as possible with careful handling.
Glad you asked though.

Ok, VPI or Nitty Gritty? Some company offers a Nitty Gritty head and you hook up your own vac. I have a variable speed canister that is perfect for this. I have a few hundred records and am thinking of a Bellari USB pre amp to save them digitally, but I'd still play them as they'll still sound better. I am now also looking at the Rega 6 with cart and selling the Rotel with a very very good Van den Hul MM1 as I know that's a good cartridge and folks will have interest. If I do this, I want to do it right. Thoughts on VPI vs nitty gritty.

Hey Guys...Should newly sealed records be cleaned initially as well??? I've heard that record manufacturers spray some type of solvent (scratch resistant) on them before placing them in the sleeves...any thoughts???

I have always wanted to suggest a similar idea with a Furutech LP flattener for the guys in my part of the world. Plus I think this device yields a more consistant positive result than a cleaner?
I have an early model Keith Monks that I maybe use once a year. I do offer it to friends to use if they bring their own fluid and the arm's O ring which goes brittle and breaks from not being used for months. Judging by the fact that I havent had a friend come back for a second run, I have stopped offering. Maybe it's mostly because the results dont always meet their expectations. Plus I wont sit there and clean half their LPs, I show you on the first 2 sides and then you are on your own!

PS: if you have a couple friends who are local and similarly inclined, all of you could chip in and share a cleaning set up, as an alternative.

There is an ebay record vendor who touts steam, plus VPI, plus ultra-sonic cleaning of his used records for sale and if memory serves, he also offers a cleaning service for customers to send him their records to clean. If you can't find him, i'll try and dig out his name.
Frankly, given the fact that you can buy a VPI 16.5 for less than 600 US, I don't think it is worth the trouble to travel, ship and deal with handling of records by a third party. Add some AIVS No. 15, a couple MoFi brushes and a 5 gallon container of reagent water, and you are in business. Perhaps not a Loricraft or Ultrasonic, but will get you pretty far along in your quest for a relatively minimal amount of money. And the VPI machine will last forever.

I have a Ultrasonic V8 cleaner. Here in San Antonio we have a local audio club. The Ultrasonic can clean 8 records at a time. I offer to any member a free cleaning and so far no one has taken me up on the offer although a couple of people have expressed interest. I guess for most people it is too much bother
Alan

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.

ctsooner: Uh oh... Now you've done it! Opened up a whole can of worms going out to listen to new equipment! But I'm always glad to hear people enjoying listening to LPs either again or for the first time.

And well the answers to some of your questions is part of why I posted this here. To maybe get a little conversation going on what to do with those LPs that may benefit from a cleaning. I buy quite a few thrift shop LPs many of which are in pristine condition, others not so much.. I don't waste my time if the surface isn't still shiny, but even then there can be dust on them that can lead to lots of pops and snaps. But after cleaning them the difference is remarkable and makes what would be difficult to listen to really enjoyable again.

But the cost of a good quality record cleaner can be staggering. So I was hoping to hook up those owners of these cleaners and who may be willing to offer their services a chance to get together.

As far as how often you clean I guess that's a personal preference, but let your ears tell you I guess is the best way to know. Less messing around with the surface to me is best, but if it gets too snap poppy it's time to do something. If the inner sleeves are really in bad shape and you think that by sliding the record back in there might just make it dirty again you can replace it, but having all the original stuff that goes with an LP to me is best. I have bought on eBay some new ones to have around to replace some that are missing in some of these thrift shop purchases.

Thanks for your response ctsooner

Glad to see some responses. I've also received some personal positive ones that I hope to see repeated here in this forum. Although I was thinking of it more of a local thing where people could meet and discuss it, one was suggesting offering to do it by mail if necessary.

To Elizabeth: Thanks for responding. You've come up with a lot of reasons not to do it but I'm sure there are many who wouldn't have any problem paying $2 or more per record to have some records cleaned well. I have personally set up a system to manually clean mine that works well, but others I've spoken to are perhaps less 'do it yourself' than I am and have shown interest in such a service.

Most of us here are accustomed to many times spending a great deal of money for equipment to listen to our records. A couple bucks to clean one for less pops and snaps and a quieter sound is a drop in the bucket rather than spending another $1000 for a cleaning machine that actually works. And also rather than spending $100 on one that really doesn't.

Any other thoughts?

To add to Elizabeth's posts, would the customer ask to listen to the difference on the owner's system (looking for improvement)? It could also be a half-day affair, talking-cleaning and such. What is someone's time worth?

Steam, steam. Yes, water is expensive but it works better then most 'magic' solutions. Oh, it is a labor intensive process so many will be looking for a 'set it and forget it' approach. Beware, VPI, is coming out with an ultra machine. This will keep the profit machine going for another generation.

I'm got an older rotel TT with Van den hul MM1 that I broke back out and listened to the other day at Audio Connection. They set it up properly and it sounded ok. Then I heard a record on the Clearaudio Concept i think it was and WOW...What a difference. I now am thinking of maybe selling off my table and getting a Rega 6 and Bellari phono stage, but no matter what I need a decent record cleaner.

I find your thread interesting. In order to keep your collection clean and static free, how often to you have to clean them on average? Is it worth spending the money to get a good cleaner instead of paying someone whenever you want them cleaned? What are some of the better cleaners out there that aren't over 300 or so? I can't even find a VPI or Nitty Gritty for sale used.

Your question is very interesting to me as I've been thinking about this for a few days now. How much would it cost to clean a record? Do you all use new jackets when you clean them? Hope I didn't hijack your thread, but I think some of my questions piggy back it. Thanks.