Ultrasonic cleaning before and after

I used a track on side B of Helen Humes and the All Stars. (Muse MR5217). My Old Flame. $1.99 record store.

Before cleaning, the vinyl was fairly dirty with some fingerprints and a lot of dust. Vinyl was greyish from dirt.

I cleaned the single record in my China-made US tank and a motor driven rotator for 5 mins. 80/20 distilled water/isopropyl alcohol with a few drops of Triton X100 surfactant.

Before: A fair amount of surface noise with crackling in right channel from fingerprint marks. It sounded pretty decent as the recording is fine.

After SpinClean pre-rinse: Reduction in surface noise but fingerprint scratch was still as pronounced. Recording sounded better with somewhat blacker silences and improved dynamics.

After US and SC rinse: Much quieter. Surface noise practically gone. Fingerprints noise reduced by 70%. However what I was not expecting was much better music. The acoustic bass line appeared literally for the first time. Piano notes came together in a melody where before they seemed random and disjointed. Brass became three dimensional coming forward in the mix. Vocals centered and became more nuanced like she was singing to you with an increase in sibilance where called for.

Summary: I am genuinely surprised by the improvement wrought by the second cleaning. I can’t say for certain if it was due to the US or simply to playing it three times! I cleaned the stylus before each play.