AudioTop Vinyl One is certainly very good. I've been doing informal experiments for some months now, keenly conscious of how difficult it is (because one can't do an original cleaning to the very same record side twice in a row) to know just what it is that one is comparing: side 2 vs. side 1? One Bosendorfer vs. a different Bosendorfer? 2nd cleaning vs. 1st? DD brush vs. LAST brush? A truly controlled experiment is impossible.
Because of the outrageous cost of the AudioTop I'd been using it quite sparingly in these experiments, which meant that it remained on the record only a fraction of the recommended time. Used thus sparingly, it seemed sometimes to make a difference, but a small one--and even then I wasn't sure whether the difference I was hearing was due to the AudioTop or something else. On the other hand, I've also been keenly aware than my Rega P3 isn't doing any of my records, no matter how beautifully cleaned, any favors, and that what may come through as trivial differences in my system could very well, with a more reasonable turntable, sound entirely different and worth every penny. When I've used the AudioTop, it's been in part as a gesture towards a utopian future in which my contemptible P3 will be no more. But most of the time, facing the possibility that the P3 may be all I'll ever be able to manage, I've stuck with my basic cleaning routine: carbon fiber brushing, Premier spray, second carbon fiber brushing, RRL Super Deep Cleaner scrubbed around with DD brush and Loricrafted off, RRL Super Vinyl Wash scrubbed around with second DD brush and Loricrafted off, and and another carbon fiber brushing at the turntable.
But today, nudged on by your question, Tbg, I decided to put aside my horror at the cost of the AudioTop and use it as lavishly as I needed to keep the record surface wet for the requisite couple of minutes. When I did that (calculating all the while how much of my salary was evaporating poisonously into my lungs even as I stood there) the difference it made was more clearly audible than I had ever heard it before. I applied it (using a LAST brush) twice, first as a third step following the Premier and RRL routine, then (on the reverse side of the record) immediately following the Premier and with no intervening RRL washes. Both times I listened to the same bit of record between each step, pre- and post-AudioTop. And then I listened to the two sides (different instrumentation and different dynamics, of course) side by side. It was clear that using AudioTop was better than not using AudioTop. But since side one (the RRLed side) and side two (the nonRRLed side) sounded entirely different even aside from how they were cleaned, it wasn't clear that using AudioTop instead of RRL (as opposed to in addition to it) was the winning choice.
So then I went back to side two (Premier and AudioTop but no RRL) and did the RRL plus DD brush. This made further improvement. Was the improvement due to the RRL? To the the DD scrubbing? To the mere fact of additional cleaning? Who could tell? So then I went and did yet another AudioTop cleaning (the second on this side). But there the experiment died. I couldn't hear any more differences. Maybe the AudioTop had already done all it could do; maybe the RRL (on top of the first round of AudioTop) had left the second AudioTop nothing to do; perhaps playing that poor bit of record half a dozen different times had finally taken an audible toll, or perhaps the improvement had simply passed out of range of what the P3 could register. I have no idea. Nor do I know what lesson to take away from this, except perhaps for the impractical one to do still more cleanings (of whatever kind) than I already do.
I really would like to know the answer, but at least until I upgrade I think it's going to remain out of my reach. Anybody else want to try?
Susan
