What is the first thing you do when you unwrap a new vinyl record?

@grislybutter

"... new records all have GPS and a chip in them that would track my listening habits"

Powered by what exactly?

@grislybutter Ha, so how do you power the chip on your shoulder?  Blood-static pressure?

All my old records have a small round sticker with a red letter "P" stuck on the side 1 label.  I can remember that it was an anti-static treatment - maybe "Parastat" or similar - but I can't remember how I applied it or anything else about it!

Anybody else remember something like this?

Provisional answer to my own follow-up question - I think the P sticker might come from Cecil E Watts manual record cleaning system, the Manual Parastat.  It would have been all I could afford at the time.  There's a manual on vinylengine but I am not a member and new memberships are disabled ...

Seems to me, I'd better invest in an ultrasonic cleaning machine.  Thoughts, anyone?

@billstevenson

Thanks Bill!

I have been wading through all 192 pages of "Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records". My take so far is that much of the muck in the microgroove is smaller than the human eye can see, and some in fact is smaller than the wavelength of visible light making it impossible to ’see’ under any light microscope.

I’ve often wondered why lasers are not used instead of diamonds in cartridges. That’s one explanation!

Electrons have a much shorter wavelength, and electron-microscopes can resolve minute detail, but they are hardly consumer items!

I was pleased to read that carbon-fibre bristles get further into the groove (my Audio Quest brush had half a million bristles at last count) so I will continue to use it to stir up the larger lumps of detritus and hope that my ultrasonic machine (still en route from China) will blast out some of the smaller stuff.

Cheers

@zarf 

I probably only have a tenth of your collection, but then I switched to CDs almost as soon as they came out. Before then I mostly borrowed classical records from my local public library - a free service even in uncouth Australia.  And I recorded all my Dad's records to cassette when I went back to the UK for a visit.

My interest in records was rekindled when I discovered the prices being asked for 1960-era Garrard 301 turntables.  My Dad gave me his at the same time I went CD and I had hardly used it since. Now the rest of my system is much better than it was then, and I have tried to give the 301 a reasonable shot - new main bearing, idler, micro-line cartridge and plinth internals. I am blown away by how good some pressings sound!

I've got an ultrasonic cleaner coming from China - it cost less than the best pressing of Kind of Blue!