What is your record cleaning regimen?

KL actually introduced the model w/ the separate reservoir, a filter and a water system hook-up before it withdrew from the business. Dave @Record Genie have no idea if he still posts here, bought one.

I don’t know what differences there are between this "new" model being sold by Chad in the U.S. and the old one. There’s information out there, readily available, about filtering, bath flow, what you need to remove surfactants if you ultrasonically wash with them. A lot of this was, and still is, part of the DIY community.

I in no way mean to disparage KL-  I’ve had their earlier big unit for some years and it is still performing well. (No surfactant in bath but pre-clean).

Records are not made or packaged in a clean room environment. I buy mostly older records, sometimes dead inventory, sometimes "used" and of course have bought new records over the years. QC is surprisingly off even for the audiophile stuff.

Every record that gets played here gets cleaned unless it comes from someone I know who cleaned it. Cleaning methods vary depending on the degree of apparent contamination (which gets reassessed if it doesn’t play well). I’ve salvaged many records through cleaning and I’m not dumpster diving-- it’s just that some older jazz and rock records weren’t owned by audiophiles.

There are accepted good practices and methods. Beyond that, everyone has their preferred approach based on the amount of time, energy and budget they want to devote to this. There is no "one way" that fits everyone’s needs.

And of course, if the record has been damaged, cleaning won’t do much to change that. But some records I had written off as irretrievable due to groove chew were simply contaminated, and needed an effective cleaning- which is manual, combined with ultrasonic, pure water rinse step plus point nozzle vacuum. Your sequence of steps, preferred fluids, applicators and machines may be different, but much comes down to method.

Sure. No mystery- just one generic name for the type of vacuum arm that the Keith Monks, Loricraft and a few others use:

That’s the business end of the nozzle- smaller aperture than the wand or slot type vacuum heads; also note the "string"- apparently no longer employed on some of the newest Monks models. The string acts as a buffer to prevent the nozzle from clinging to the record surface through suction and also gets continually refreshed from a motor driven bobbin on mine- thus the contact point with the record gets renewed constantly and old thread is drawn into the waste jar along with the vacuumed fluid or water.

The original and rebooted Monks machines were very Rube Goldberg but cool--mine, a reboot from around 2010, uses a German dialysis pump, is quiet compared to some RCMs. (The machine uses a Mini windshield washer pump actuator too-very British).

Its chief claim to fame is, I think, that is was the "first" record cleaning machine. If you read about the history of Percy Wilson, the tech editor of the old Gramophone Magazine, and his work on record cleaning, you’ll find that the Monks machine grew out of that work from the mid-60s. And there you have it. It does a very nice job. I had mine refurbished at the time I bought it, used.