The spin clean is a stereophile recommended component.
And 2022 Absolute Sound editors choice awards.
So I feel safe trying it out.
What is the best way to clean Vinyl?
TIA
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It seems like one cheap enough to fit your budget, and would certainly do a creditable job. Sure we can throw criticisms at the Humminguru, but for the price it does more than anyone has a right to expect. Lots of people use it alone, with no mechanical/vacuum cleaning beforehand. There's a trade off between cost and effort on the one side, and how clean you get things on the other. You need to find that spot where you are comfortable with what you pay, how much effort and time cleaning takes, and the results. There is no one "right" answer. You gets what you pays for, and the law of diminishing returns certainly applies. |
Yeah, that is hard to miss that. I thought the current number was 18,000… which would take about 2.5 years to listen to once if you listened 24 hours per day. it is easy to be a bit sloppy with numbers… but those are some large numbers. I am somewhat intimidated by my 2,000 albums and me being 70 years old… can I listen to them all in my lifetime. |
Wet cleaning generally reduces static. However, if you dry a disk with a microfibre cloth you may introduce static then. I don't worry about it as I always treat a record before playing it with either a Zerostat gun or, lately, the Furutech Destat III. As for your question about a Spin Clean, U/S and vacuum machine for <$500, you'd need to find some used bargains and I don't think you'd easily come in under budget! You could get a Humminguru for $375USD. Once you have tasted the convenience of a machine it is hard to clean manually, unless you are as saintly as pindac! But a Spin Clean is relatively cheap and if you don't mind the effort there is little to lose by trying it out. |
@fleschler "I have a rule I made up, if I don't want to hear a record at least 3 times annually, out it goes." This statement doesn't add up arithmetically. You currently have 28,500 records. You dispose of records you don't play 3 times a year. I assume each side is 20 minutes, you listen to the whole record and you spend 40 hours per week listening. in a year you have 2080 hours to listen to only 1040 records 3 times each. Ergo you should have only 1040 records, not 28,500. If you listen continuously 24 hours per day, you can still only retain 4368 records.
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I posted the Link to PAVCR Third Edition. There is a reasonable amount available to be read in other Threads about the value of using methods described. I am an advocate of the Manual Clean Method, I have tuned the method to suit my needs and when organised can clean 10 Lp's in an hour, with a selection of the the first cleaned being ready to be played by the end of the cleaning session. The solutions produced following the guidance and used for Manual Cleaning are able to produce a Purified Clean LP, the perception of being clean, is quite something to discover. The method has surpassed and superseded my Old used Methods, and I have come to a place where there is no desire to use the owned US Tank for cleaning. |
I’ve experimented with these fluids Mobile Fidelity Record Wash Spin Clean Fluid Nitty Gritty Fluid Keith Monks discOvery fluid L'Art du Son Fluid Record Doctor VPI Fluid They all work but I’ve found the disOvery fluid has the blackest background followed by L’Art du Son. But the L’Art must be kept in the refrigerator once opened. Yes the discOvery is a bit more $$ but IMO does the best overall cleaning job for new or used LPs. |
Yes, it is safe, but it does cause more wear on the stylus. When a manufacturer tells you you might get 250 (Nagaoka doesn’t tell the truth) to 1000 hours, they are talking average record cleanliness. Super-clean records add hundreds to another thousand hours to stylus life. Not so important to an MM user, but a very expensive issue for MC users.
Time to read that PDF I linked! |
You have two choices with a $500 limit. If you don't mind the effort, a SpinClean and a long read of Neil Antin's pamphlet* will be one way. The second is a vacuum machine that might need to be used to fit in the limit. It will get you 80% of the way to the best any of us can do. An ultrasonic cleaner gets you the rest of the way to what is currently achievable. This is worthwhile, and likely should come before more esoteric upgrades of cartridge or phono stage in my view. It not only can make an LP as quiet as a CD in many cases, but it will prolong the life of your stylus remarkably. *the PDF is at this link:
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Thanks for your remarks. I just can’t imagine. I guess, while misic has been a really central theme of my life… and at its core… the music I collected… I can’t conceive of the numbers you are talking about. But then, I have travelled extensively,.. and spent time in between trips getting music… for instance, onto cassette tapes (Dolby C) to go on my three weeks trips every month to isolated parts of the SW US each month as a Geologist. I took about 144 albums with me in two brief cases. I listened to music about eight hours a day. I did this for years.
Then I became an executive and traveled globally for decades… with my music, CDs, battery powered head amps, ear speakers, headphones… you name it. In planes, across Europe… around the world… living in Scotland, China, Japan, Mexico, and across America for weeks and months at a time. I had at one point 4,000 albums (1/2 Cd). Music has been the central theme of my life. So, let me say, your story is amazing! |
When I had found the LAST system it couldn’t be shipped in the US. It wasn’t til the late 90’s I was able to purchase and receive it (shipped). It was their record preservative that had caught my eye. The statement of the temperatures hit with stylus dragging around the vinyl and the ability of this preservative to lower the temperatures considerably. I use their cleaning solution and brush/ applicator as well. It has kept the vinyl in good shape. I am using a Technics 1200 and grado cartridge. Which when I got it in 92 sounded better than all the cds in our collection and still does. |
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@ghdprentice I've sold/given away 18,000 records over the last 35 years. I have a rule I made up, if I don't want to hear a record at least 3 times annually, out it goes. I only have so much storage room. I inherited from several friends and and two deceased listeners about 3,000 classical vocal and opera LPs. When I go through them, I will eliminate duplicates. Also, I have another 2,000 to hear once. As to 7,000 CDs, 5,500 are stored in order in stacked Can-Am metal storage drawers. The 78s occupy bottom shelving in my adjacent storage room and a storage building in the rear. Better than IKEA Kallex, I had custom built 13" h X 22" w melamine finished MDF wall shelving for records in both the rooms and some rolling metal racks behind the Can-Am units. Like Steve Hoffman, I began collecting/listening at 3 years old and had 300 records by 5, 1,000s by 10 and probably 3,500 by 13. Just as odd, when offered ice cream, candy, whatever while shopping with my parents until 5 years old, I would ask for a record (apparently annoyingly) so my parents stopped taking me shopping from 3 to 5. They made up a story about my uncle bringing records to my mother when I asked from 5 to 10 (he had 300 and I loved going over to hear his Heathkit/AR/6 driver 5' X 5' mono speaker). My mother would tell me she would call him and 5 or 10 minutes later she would open the bedroom door and present me with 1 to 3 records. Even at 10 when I knew that was impossible (he lived 6 miles south), I made believe because I wanted the records. After 13, I was purchasing my own records with money I made in the stock market from the $300 Bar Mitzvah money (I put it in the stock market because I received about 7X to 20X less than my friends-it was Hong Kong flu season in 69' and I had few friends and cheap relatives). In the 1970s, I was haunting the local record distributors for cut-outs and returned LPs (especially the direct discs at $1 a piece). That was the beginning of being known as a collector of records (and reseller of them as well). |
Wow! That is an incredible number of albums. I have been collecting since the late 1960’s . I have 2,000. I remember about 35 years ago making nearly daily trips to a record store next to campus (after college… I had money) and then 25 years ago taking a year and a half off and riding my bike down to what was then thought to be the best used record store in the country (it was in Tucson) and buying a couple records every few days. I have come to realize that it is going to be difficult to listen to all my albums once before I die… but 28,000. Wow. 40 hours per week would take 18 years to listen to them all… and that is not including the cleaning time. That is a really impressive collection. |
@mijostyn My numero uno recommendation is to clean the stylus after every LP side is played. I’ve been doing that for 45 years with a brush, liquid every 25-50 plays and using a Magic Eraser occasionally now for 15 years. My Benz Ruby3 lasted nearly 2500 hours and tracked beautifully, but it lost all it’s dynamics at the end (on a modified SME IV arm). I have 28,500 LPs. Most were purchased used. Most are very quiet. A scratch does sound. Pops and clicks sound (sometimes subtle, sometimes obtrusive). Bad vinyl in my system and several friends systems has various levels of low noise but the music overwhelms the background noise that it is generally irrelevant (guests frequently comment is it a CD we are listening to). I used to have considerable record noise prior to obtaining a high end analog system. Four friends own Dynavector cartridges and I went back to that company’s 20X2L which is a perfect match for my Zesto Allesso SUT as well as directly into my preamp’s 100 ohm input for MC. I first recommend a less expensive alternative (not cheap) which I’ve used for 31 years, the VPI RCM 16.5 (upgraded from a 16). Now using Disc Doctor fluid, multi-step wash and dry (3 minimum). or I purchased a Kirmuss Ultrasonic (but do not change the water daily. I over the unit and unless there is debris from dirty old LPs, I continue using it for about 25 LPs). I noticed that it also cleans out gunk in damaged grooves, exposing noisy damaged surfaces as well. It typically enhances the sonics, even when there is increased noise. However, the noise level of bad vinyl does not intrude on the music. Example-I have several jazz Metro (MGM cheap label) LPs which are pressed on crappy vinyl with noisy surfaces. In my system, the music is so present that the noise is confined to a low level, unobtrusive shhhh. You’ll known it’s not digital or a CD but it will sound great (just heard The Mitchells Red, Whitey, And Blue* With Guest Artist, Andre Previn* – Get Those Elephants Out’a Here). So, my most important recommendation is keep your stylus spotlessly clean. Next, clean your records without creating any residue which contaminates your stylus. Then, choose what you can afford to clean them. |
