I finally got a record cleaning machine. First thoughts.

@ghdprentice , Please try this one. It is cheap but it definitely works once you get it set up right. It is dirt cheap.

Once I figure out why records do not collect static after I clean them on this machine I will certainly get back to everyone. It has got to be one of the ingredients I am using in my cleaning solution.

@4krowme , Yes! That is absolutely true. In the section of plastic duct I have there is a naked wire that travels the length of the duct. Dust is a wonderful explosive! One spark is all it takes.

@ghdprentice , I have a record brush refill pad stuck on the plinth to wipe the brush on after play. Every once in a while I clean them both with alcohol. I slide the little tracking force weight all the way to the front and put a dab of crazy glue in there to keep it from sliding around. Then I bend the shaft at the tracking force weight about 5 degrees increasing the VTA if you will. It holds on to the dust better this way. I'll put a close up shot on my system page!

@larryi Well considered and well said. 

@tablejockey I used a Spin Clean on occasion for years. Thank you!

@audioguy85 I think you would call me an avid collector of vinyl who makes every effort to be scrupulous with them and this is the very first record cleaning machine I have ever owned. So, in my opinion you do not have to buy an expensive cleaning machine to take first class care of new records.

@petg60, I just got the machine two days ago. You have to give me a little time. Warning!! I will not buy any cleaning fluid that I do not know the chemicals and concentrations. 

Last night I cleaned an old Bobby Darin record. The original owner was actually pretty careful with his records. The were no obvious scratches or finger prints. The surface was a little cloudy and the record had that mildew smell to it. I ran it through the double cycle twice. It got cleaned 4 times. I think everyone has to remember what people were playing records with back then, ceramic cartridges with huge conical stylus and 5 gram VTFs. Sonically this record sounded great. No distortion, and the recording quality was surprisingly good. Unfortunately, there was a continuous stream of ticks and pops noticeable on all but the loudest passages. This is the result of playing a dusty record over and over again. Even if you clean the dust off, the vinyl surface is left pitted from dust being ground into it. This is what you see when you scan the groove with a microscope. Modern Styluses are much better at pushing (pulling?) dust out of the way but those old conicals just ran right over a lot of it. 

Listening to these old records is fun and the damage gives the music an antique patina. It would be really amazing if the records were pristine.  

After playing three old records I examine my stylus again under magnification and there was no residue on it meaning the grooves were free of anything the stylus could pick up. None of these records collect static under vacuum whereas most uncleaned records do! I have to figure this out. All of a sudden I have records that will not hold a static charge? Go figure.

@lewm , I have not cleaned a 78 yet. These are all PVC LPs. 

Perhaps one day I will be able to demonstrate to you in person how one side of a record can have a static charge and the other will not. For whatever reason Shure was wrong. I have now seen this HUNDREDS of times now since I got my new turntable. Another interesting phenomenon is how static will travel over surfaces. If I leave a record on the turntable for just 10 minutes after I turn it off there will be no noticeable static charge. The only path to ground is the spindle.

Paper and PVC are at opposite ends of the triboelectric series.  

I'm not sure where you are getting your info from but you need a new source. 

Thanx @kellyhilton001 😉

That may be true Lew. Nothing is ever perfectly neutral and there are so many sources of static and varying conditions under which charges develop. Charges definitely travel over surfaces, that is how our speakers work. They are huge. 8 feet tall and three feet wide. If I get near the diaphragm with a grounded screwdriver the entire panel will discharge into it (and make quite a spark). Does the charge make a "U" turn in time? I have never looked for that and would have to develop an experiment to look into it. I can not use the turntable because the record always arcs out to the spindle when removing it. If I leave the record on the table after shutting it off the record discharges through the grounded spindle. We need to charge one side and watch what happens in time. I'll play around with an old record and see if I can rig an experiment to show what happens. 

@ghdprentice , @pratorious My guess is that what you are hearing is the incidental dust (lint) that all records attract. I never hear that because the conductive sweep arm removes it from the path of the stylus and dumps it all in the runout area. Clearly, cleaning is the best way of removing it for a while anyway. I do not hear a before and after difference because of the sweep arm. What noise is left is due to poor pressing, bad vinyl, air bubbles and such. As we all know it is possible to make extremely quiet records where all you hear in the background is that quiet rushing sound. I have discovered that removing that dust totally before playing results in a much cleaner turntable which I do like. Then there is that static issue I have not figured out yet. I suspect it has something to do with the cleaning fluid I am using. I have to clean out the machine and clean a record with straight distilled water to see if there is a difference then add one ingredient at a time to see if one of them is responsible. I still do not see any residue collecting on the stylus.

@4krowme , as far as I can tell they do not and I have been using them since 1978. 

The reason My records develop a lot of static now is the vacuum clamping. Everything is grounded correctly. The charge is so high on the bottom of the record  it arcs to the spindle when I remove from the platter. Records that have been cleaned do not collect any charge that I can notice without a meter. Every once in a while an uncleaned record will not develop a charge. My guess is that if the record seals perfectly no charge will develop but the edge of records is not smooth and most records leak a little which makes the pump work more frequently pulling air across the bottom of the record. It could also be the other way around. The records that leak are not as intimately connected to the mat so electrons will not transfer. You can not change the mat on a vacuum table nor would I want to. As always, it will take some time to figure things out. They why do just cleaned records stay neutral. It is either one of the ingredients of my cleaning fluid or perhaps enough moisture remains on the record to keep a charge from developing. The first thing to determine is whether or not the effect is durable. As soon as I have a record that was cleaned a week ago I will have that answer. The machine is 5 days old now. 

@wturkey , Thanx!

I replayed a record I cleaned last week to see if it collected static or not. It did not!

That means something about the formula I used for record cleaning fluid prevents static build up. I cleaned all my Artic Monkeys albums and will follow them along and see how long this lasts. This also means something is staying on the record. I have repeatedly examined my stylus under magnification and there is no noticeable residue. So, whatever is happening is on a molecular level. I have to do more comparing of digital files to see if I can detect any difference is sound and background noise levels. I do not think there will be a noticeable before and after difference. 

@ghdprentice , the photo is there now.

@lohanimal , It has a good reputation but stay tuned. Being the experimental type I am playing with various formulations and ingredients to make an attempt at figuring out what is best. I do know that L'art du son does leave a slight residue because I tried it in a Spin Clean a while back. I always thought that was a big negative but with recent developments it is possible that a very light residue, on the molecular level might possible be of benefit. The records I have cleaned will not collect static and we are now two weeks out from when the first batch was cleaned. I one of those records every Wednesday to see if it will collect static. My stylus continues to stay clean so whatever is left in the groove is non volatile and is not collecting on the stylus. I have better magnification coming with photo capability so I will be able to show pictures. The next question is if I'm leaving something on the record will it build up over time (very bad) or dissolve in the solvent every time it is cleaned. The chemicals I am using are composed of very polar molecules so they very extremely dissolvable in H2O. It is this polar characteristic that is neutralizing the static.

I am not yet sure where I am going with this but it is very interesting and a lot of fun. 

@lohanimal , if your stylus is picking up a lot of "gunk" you have a serious problem.

A stylus should not pick up anything, not even lint. 

@jerryg123 , not true at all. It depends on how the record is dried. I could have gotten any ultrasonic cleaner on the market and spend less than I did. I do not like any of them for one reason or another. 

@lohanimal , it is something like 35,000 psi. There is no cure. Once a record is ruined it is done. If you are not using a dust cover during play and are not using a grounded sweep arm also during play then what you are doing is for naught. You are still grinding dust into the groove maybe a little less but it does not take much.

@juanmanuelfangioii , The contact area of an elliptical stylus is 20.6 um2. Let's play it at 2gm.  That would be 1.5500031 e-9  inches squared and 0.00440925 pounds = 28,451 psi . Now the contact area of a fine line stylus like the replicant 100 is twice that of an elliptical but Ortofon tracks them higher around 2.5 gm which would put the psi figure around 18,000 psi. This is how modern cartridges get away with much higher VTFs than the old elliptical cartridges of the 70's when 3/4 to 1 gram tracking forces were the norm. The bullet would be modern styluses decrease record wear even at the higher VTFs

@lohanimal , I have followed my styluses with microscopy for decades. I even now own a WallyScope so I can publish pictures and I will when time allows. It does not take an expert to see dirt on a stylus. Another point is phonograph cartridges are extremely simple devices and all the math is at least a century old. The only difficulty is all the parts are extremely small and what you can't see is always subject to all sorts of alchemy. You want complicated? Take a look at a GE 90 jet engine. 

I just timed the Double Matrix. It takes a second over 2 minutes to clean a record. Actually, it should be clean and treat a record. I mention the fact that records cleaned with the solution I am using will not hold a large static charge but using digitized needle drops on the same brand new album before and after cleaning demonstrates a slight reduction in the back ground rushing noise. Tics and pop are exactly the same. A very small amount of something is being left on the record. I have an idea what it is and I am beginning to think this is proprietary information. What a laugh, me marketing a record cleaning solution. It is indeed a strange world. 

@ghdprentice , yes it is ...cheap. But, it sure beats grinding dust into your record and it does a number on the static issue. There are more expensive versions out there but they are all defective in one way or another. This one actually works.

@mr_m ​​@ghdprentice , please look at the picture of the brush on my system page.

You will notice that I slide the little weight all the way to the front the I decreased the VTA by bending the arm just behind the weight so that the brush is almost vertical. This improves both tracking and dust pick up. If the arm stops tracking it need to be cleaned. Alcohol and a clean microfiber cloth will do it. Also you should be able t drop it from an altitude of one inch during play without hearing a thing through the speakers. If you hear a thump you have a problem with record damping/clamping. You not hear ANYTHING even with the volume all the way up.

I have been using this particular brush for some 10 odd years and have been using one conductive sweep arm or another since 1980 or so. This one absolutely works the best even though it is not exactly audiophile jewelry. I have used every singe one on the market including one that costs over $200 and this one works better. (or I would not be using it) 

@no_regrets , The Clearaudio Double Matrix construction quality is first class. I know because my unit was an open box one that I believe was used in a store. A cleaning solution was used that plugged up the water pump and it died in short order. Musical Surroundings was cool with me installing a new pump which they sent me on warranty. So, I have had my machine apart and know it intimately. 

It works flawlessly but it does have a few quirks. The first is, you really have to press down hard on the clamp when you tighten it or the record will slip when the vacuum comes on. I keep my machine down low to make this easy. You obviously have to be careful what fluid you use. Distilled water will not kill the static permanently. To be safe I would use Clearaudio's solution. My mix is proprietary and not up for disclosure as I am considering marketing it. It does kill static indefinitely leaving only the smallest of residues on the vinyl. You just start to see some on the stylus after 10 sides and should clean the stylus after 20 sides using Lyra's solution. If you will write a review on audiogon I will be happy to send you a gallon. 

In short, the only regret I have is buying mine open box. I have no problem recommending this machine. IMHO it is the best record cleaning device on the market. Musical Surroundings has top notch service. You can not go wrong buying any of their products in terms of support. 

@no_regrets , no problem. It is always good to do your research first instead of after. Just make sure whatever you get has a warranty covered specifically by Musical Surroundings. They are the importer. I got the Double Matrix because I was given a collection of 78s and needed something to clean them. I researched the situation for almost a year before I jumped in. The Double Matrix is my first machine. It does both sides at the same time, it uses fresh fluid for each cleaning and rinses the record 3 times during each cycle, scrubbing the record at something like 1000 Hz in between then vacuums the record dry, putting the waste fluid in a separate tank. The Audio Desk is a tinker toy in comparison. Ultrasonic cleaners do not vacuum the record dry. If anything they use an evaporative method that leaves the dirt on the record. If you use one you have to to get a vacuum machine to dry the record. then you can only dry one side at a time. My fluid, by the way can only be used with machines that vacuum dry the record or you will leave to much of the active ingredient on the record. I have not proven this yet but I think the anti static ingredient also acts a lubricant.  It is very water soluble but if you rub it between your fingers it is very slippery.