Investigating if ultrasound is harming LPs

Somebody has way to much time on his hands…

Yes, I addressed some of the issues myself in the text above:

About I noticed that I as operator got better and better in the weighting procedure that the first ones is not that repetition accurate.

Yes, we are not interested in if the piece is weights on that scale 5.02 gram when it actually on ANOTHER weight scale that is tared and calibrated and show that the same piece actually weight 5.15 gram. That is not interesting when nobody cares about what that specific scrap part is weighting.

The interesting part is the repetition accuracy between measurements and as we can see of the 40 measurements the VARIATION between all of them is only 0.02 gram from the heaviest and the lightest measurement result. And those 40 weight data points is spread over 5 sessions and a operator that getting better and better at it, so the first session that resulted in the lowest reading (5.00) maybe would not appear when it were in the first session that I were not as good as in the later sessions. Then we would be down to a variation of 0.01g. (So we could have a operator and a weighting scale that can reproduce weighting with a repetition deviation of ~ ±0.005 gram. if we consider that there were no reduction in mass from the US cleaning sessions..)

So I have seen weight scale with 3 decimals of a gram but I guess that it really doesn't matter if we see deviation of weight in that higher resolution for only a 5g piece, then we are down to reading more of the operator repetition accuracy between measurements. And repetition accuracy between sessions, room temperature and below 0.1% in total weight difference that maybe theoretical 1h of US cleaning might have caused(!) 

And no record in any shelf on the planet has undergone that heavy US cleaning in my believe. 

In other words higher resolution will more showcase other external factors (some of them accounted for above) than what we are really trying to get a answer to.

Methodology is a problem. Measurements need to be more precise. More sample points to do statistics. And then, have to decide what is gone - dirt or vinyl, and why?

 

Too many variables to draw a conclusion.

Regarding if it is dirt or not that were removed then read the text again I stated that I used a initial US cleaning before I started the testing, so that ALL dirt were removed when I am only interested what US did with the plastic and if it eroded the material. So the method and variable of regarding dirt were accounted for and removed.

Yes I did note that the piece were hanging lose that were nothing that I had thought about when I started but noted that it might be a issue. I think that maybe the ultrasound is acting on all sides simultaneously (the scrubbing bubbles). And I have previously when testing the efficiency of the US unit that I have tested with a aluminum foil dipped in the bath and the US shredded holes in the metal in less than a minute. As just a example of something else that were not rigidly fastened the US had no problems to work on the aluminum foil.

But of course I believe it is better to maybe use steel wire to hold the piece steady and mimicking how a record is held!

So there is potential methods improvements to be done. But I have not seen someone else trying to do the same thing at all when we have all of the tools and the ability to make this rather easily.

A YouTube friend said that Michel Fremer had US cleaned a red vinyl and tried to see if he got some red residue in the bath afterwards as a method.

I have read somewhere someone that had a "precision" scale and if that it were PVC pipe and not LPs that they treated with US session.

Anyway when seeing what US can do with metal and the power of it then that is raising the question for me what US is doing with LP records.

to in your case, generate junk science….

I hope that this can be considered as a starting point and show case that it is possible to do. Plus that it might inspire someone and giving some ideas. If someone would like to try and test. Let's us be positive and creatively contribute. But thanks for regarding my experiment 🥼 as science. 

But the good thing with this first shoot don't reviled that it is a disaster to use US cleaning at this point maybe if we get some process/methodology improvements might change that view, but hopefully not.

Using a non-destructively obtained sample (i.e. an entire vinyl record) would be more representative of any potential real-world implications.

I see that there is a issue with the method that I needed to take. When I don't have any wight scale that has enough precision and repeatability accuracy to weight a whole LP (~120-200 g). 

So the scale i used can measure max ~5g. And I still believe if I get the 5g piece to be more rigidly suspended in the bath. Then it is maybe good enough and a step better than other previously mentioned methods above. The positive thing is that 30 minutes in the bath is more than 1 hour if real-world implications is used. And when the theoretical erosion is so small then and hard to detect so we need to run US on the material for a extended duration to be able to detect that small erosion if there's any erosion that is occurring at all to begin with.

First you let it soak and wonder why it's heavier. Vinyl record isn't completely water-proof and able to soak water especially if it's completely submerged into the powerful bath.

Yes, i did let it dry after the "soak". But are you implying that the "vinyl" material is porous? (Remember that the stylus read ridges smaller than one micron then the porosity need to be smaller than that and not detectable by the stylus)

And I need to dry out liquid that is "induced" into the material and not only on the surface of the vinyl. Do you have issues with surface dry records that were soaked cleaned and afterwards put in a plastic bag (Inner sleeve). With some condensation and moisture in the inside the bag should be seen? I have not experienced that anyway? Should be seen if liquid is trapped in a bag!

I don't believe that LP material is soaking up liquid so that is in my eyes only spreading FUD in a sense. And lastly it got lighter (0.1%) after the second US bath so the theory that it holds water fails in that aspect also. But you might have other experience?

On the other hand the drying step is important and I did not weight wet material of course.

This was the another reason I did the experiment to remove any FUD about usage of US cleaning method. Regarding if or if not it erodes material from the grove.

Way out of the limits of your scale. FYWIW scales are robots that measure the voltage or current to hold them in position and translate to mass. That would be a very expensive scale at that weight and resolution. 

Yea son, get her!

Wow.  I am wildly profoundly perplexed.

oh Werner H.

The thread is too much like work…

Methodology is a problem. Measurements need to be more precise. More sample points to do statistics. And then, have to decide what is gone - dirt or vinyl, and why?

Too many variables to draw a conclusion.

I've done a better experiment. I cooked one half of an LP for an hour without rotating it. Then I cleaned the whole thing and played it. Any problem would have appeared and disappeared at 1 Hz frequency. Found NO DIFFERENCE through resolving electronics and ESL's.

effischer. No problems with what you wrote, except this: "Very few consumer devices are capable of tolerances better than 0.1 gram. This presumes the device is tared (validated) using a known standard traceable to an accredited, recognized standard (NIST in the US or NPL in the UK are examples)." While what you say about taring is probably correct, in this case, since we only want to know whether there is a change in weight, all we care about is the repeatability and the sensitivity of the scale and other elements of the weigh procedure. One other point, my Ortofon DS3 reads out to 3 decimal places (as do many other digital VTF gauges); i therefore would think that, best case scenario, it is accurate to 2 decimal places, at least.

In general, if US cleaning clips the HF response of the signal encoded on the LP (which is what some audiophiles fear), I would guess the weight of vinyl removed to achieve that damage would be infinitesimal. Better way to do this is to start with an LP that has test tones on it, say 1000Hz, 10kHz, 20kHz. Document its frequency content electronically, say with a storage oscilloscope, US clean it, then play it again comparing the data recorded before vs after. The relative levels of the various frequencies, before vs after, would constitute a nice additional internal control. (For example, compare the 1kHz signal amplitude to 10kHz and 20kHz signal amplitudes, before vs after. If US is harming the HF response, you would expect the 10kHz and/or the 20kHz signal amplitudes would be decreased after cleaning by more than any effect on the 1khz amplitude.)

Wow!

ah….    @effischer Yes, an excellent start….  Certain experts in metrology and the other sciences certainly rescused ( or not ) my bacon when someone decided to use a tool where cal / cert had expired….

Enjoy the music ;-)

@lewm @tomic601 @czarivey ​​​​@fuzztone are all correct.

I’m the guy that usually signs off with "happy listening" because sounds that make us happy are what the audio hobby is all about. This thread touches on my professional world of metrology and begs more rigorous attention, however.

Examining the mass of a vinyl record before and after ultrasonic cleaning might produce some interesting data. It’s far from certain the observed data would be meaningful.

It must start with defining the capabilities of the mass measuring device: Tolerance, resolution and gauge repeatability & reproducibility. Those must be known to generate validation of the recorded statistics.

Very few consumer devices are capable of tolerances better than 0.1 gram. This presumes the device is tared (validated) using a known standard traceable to an accredited, recognized standard (NIST in the US or NPL in the UK are examples). Generally, they can resolve to 0.1 gram (my Ortofon DS-1 and by Ohaus triple-beam lab scale are both examples that do so). Their tolerance is affected by a number of other issues and is emphatically not stated by their manufacturer (marketer) for these consumer grade devices.

Tolerance is the statistical measure of confidence (aka uncertainty, which has it’s own associated statistical measure of confidence). To that must be added the aggregate of standard deviation of repeatability (the ability of the same operator using the same device to achieve the same result) and standard deviation of reproducibility (the ability of multiple operators using the same device to achieve the same result). Only then can an approximation of measuring precision be determined.

Returning to the example posted, it would be very surprising indeed if the gross tolerance of the device employed is anything better than 0.5 grams, excluding repeatability and reproducibility variables.

Sample preparation has already been observed as insufficiently precise. Using a non-destructively obtained sample (i.e. an entire vinyl record) would be more representative of any potential real-world implications.

Repeating the experiment with sufficient device, sample, technique and documentation exactitude would be needed to examine if the results produce meaningful data.

You want to hold the vinyl rigidly during the cleaning, to mimic the situation with an actual LP. Otherwise the US energy is dissipated kinetically as the 5g piece of vinyl is tossed about. Some energy is lost that might otherwise hypothetically be effective in grinding the vinyl.

start over with a very important class called ; Design of Experiment, one very important step is expert review of the DOE..before proceeding… to in your case, generate junk science….

+ An Additional Conclusion.

Sorry could not hold myself on your absurd method especially your weighing methods. First you let it soak and wonder why it's heavier. Vinyl record isn't completely water-proof and able to soak water especially if it's completely submerged into the powerful bath. The numbers of decimal points on your scale are EXTREMELY FAR to reflect any differences in weight even after cleaning vinyl manually with dedicated liquid!!!

If you would compare other cleaning methods vs. Ultrasonic, you would be able to present a lot more understandable proof than what you’ve just accomplished.

It’s a lot more notable to accomplish what matters rather than accomplishing what’s not all in all.

Much ado over...