RRL Cleaner, Vinyl Zyme, and Groove Glide

Shasta: From what you stated, it would seem that you believe that the residue left behind by RRL's solvent is beneficial to the stylus / groove interface in terms of retrieving data and / or the life expectancy of both surfaces. What do you base this belief on? If i'm putting words in your mouth, please correct me, but that's how i interpreted your message.

Other than that, i do agree that giving a solvent time to penetrate and loosen imbedded particles is beneficial to its' effectiveness as a cleaner. This is akin to soaking an item in a solvent compared to simply rinsing it off quickly. A quick rinse will remove surface film, but is far less likely to achieve anything beyond that.

Then again, the more thoroughly that the solvent penetrates into the various "nooks & crannies", the more thorough one has to be in removal and rinsing. Otherwise, the cleaner itself will remain imbedded in the various "cul de sac's" of each groove. Over time, it will dry up and harden leaving a film and / or attract and hold other contaminants that it comes into contact with. Whether it becomes a dried film or retention pond for other contaminants would depend on the chemical make-up of the solvent(s) used and the long-term chemical reaction that takes place with the vinyl that they reside upon.

That brings me back to the original question: Why not rinse off any / all residue from the records? Sean
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4yanx: If a solvent has some form of detergent action to it, it is not a neutral PH. Anything that isn't neutral will leave behind some type of residue that will have some form of interaction with the materials that it resides upon. On top of that, there's no way to avoid "smearing" contaminants back onto the record. That's because the brushes come into contact with the foreign materials on the record and have the "grunge" sucked up over and through them as it is recovered by the vacuum pump. One would literally have to clean the felt "lips" or brushes after each record to avoid this. Even then, whatever you used to wash them with will have left some form of residue on the lips. As such, i'd rather have distilled water left behind as a residue than anything else i can think of. Sean
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Lugnut: You are doing what i would love to do. I was going to check with my local Cal Lab to see if i could work something out with them in terms of inspecting vinyl and documenting the differences in cleaners. I would think that they would have some type of high powered microscope and the ability to record / document before & after photo's. I was interested in doing this myself, but having some type of third party perform the tasks seemed like a better idea. I might "fool myself" into obtaining the results that i wanted to see and this would act as some type of a "control" in the whole testing process. Sean
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Styx: A simple solution is to install some type of adjustable pressure relief valve into the vacuum system. This will allow you to achieve the highest levels of suction without actually lifting the disc off of the platter. If you don't want to get fancy, you can simply drill a hole in the vacuum hose or a plastic fitting and cover part of it with your finger. By varying how much air is sucked through the "controlled leak", you'll vary the amount of air ( suction ) at the disc. This allows you to adjust for the weight of the disc, as some discs are noticeably heavier and can sustain higher levels of suction whereas others are very light and flimsy and want to get pulled up very easily. If you have enough hose / fittings to experiment with, you might be able to find just the right sized "bleeder hole" i.e. a happy medium for all discs without the need for manual manipulation to regulate the suction. Sean
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jes45: That's no reason to stop liking Mikey, it's just a reason to remember that we're all human, can make mistakes and sometimes operate under pre-concieved albeit false notions.

Ten bucks says that Mikey won't make that mistake again though... : ) Sean
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