LAST is not a substitute or replacement for an RCM or record cleaning, and I don't believe the LAST people suggest it is intended to be. Record cleaning and using LAST serve two different purposes.
LAST is not a cleaner. Nor its use like coating ('slathering') your record with vaseline, some how interfering with the passage of the stylus through the groove. Purportedly it works at the molecular level by hardening/strengthening the vinyl so that it lasts (get it?) longer. (cf. LastFactory )
Over the past 25 years, records I've treated with LAST have held up very well, clean easier and tend to stay clean longer. I hear no sonic degradation from records treated with LAST, if anything, just the opposite.
I also use the Stylast stylus treatment as long as my cartridge does not have a hollow cantilever. I'm convinced it extends stylus life.
...in my system, YMMV, yada yada, etc.
LAST is not a cleaner. Nor its use like coating ('slathering') your record with vaseline, some how interfering with the passage of the stylus through the groove. Purportedly it works at the molecular level by hardening/strengthening the vinyl so that it lasts (get it?) longer. (cf. LastFactory )
Over the past 25 years, records I've treated with LAST have held up very well, clean easier and tend to stay clean longer. I hear no sonic degradation from records treated with LAST, if anything, just the opposite.
I also use the Stylast stylus treatment as long as my cartridge does not have a hollow cantilever. I'm convinced it extends stylus life.
...in my system, YMMV, yada yada, etc.