Record cleaning and realistic expectations


I recently purchased some Audio Intelligence solution #15 enzymatic pre clean to use on my VPI 16.5 prior to my usual cleaning with Disc Doctor cleaning solution followed by 3 distilled water rinses. I picked a record that came from a collection in a particularly moldy house.The record had faint white splotchy marks all over that I assumed were mold. Pretreated with AI #15 for 5 min per AI’s instructions. After cleaning and drying, the record was cleaner, but the splotches remained. Did I do something wrong? Could the splotches be something else?

A second record had inner runout marks I assumed were from the old plastic inner sleeve, but going thru the same process these as well did not clean up as well...Hmmm?

Would an US RCM like a Degritter do a better job?

Thanks for any assistance on this.

 

 

jim94025

Showing 1 response by lewm

Although I am a good little audiophile and would never think of using anything other than distilled water in my RCM solutions or alone to rinse, I do have to wonder how "minerals" in tap water could possibly do any harm, if you then vacuum dry and maybe even if you air dry the washed LPs. We are talking about very low concentrations of metals in ionic form, in solution in water.  It's not as if those ions are going to disturb tracking or groove contours. And by the way, distilled water will still have metallic ions in it, as distillation does not remove them.

And yet, when I had access to water from my lab at NIH (before I retired), which was both distilled and deionized, I used that, but still I am doubtful of the value.  As to the rest of the story, read previous lengthy and detailed threads here and read the book by Antinn.