Whart, nice post. Thank you.
I've invested a fair amount of time exploring ultrasonic cleaning over the past several months because I've fallen way too far behind in my record cleaning. With over 6,000 LPs, I needed a faster way to clean than my trusted multi-step manual wet/vac cleaning process. It got the best results I've ever found, but I was not keeping up with my collection and it is just painful to me to play a record that I've not cleaned. I suppose my angst is related to Whart's comments that I'm only a caretaker of the vinyl on my shelves for the time being.
In exploring ultrasonic cleaning, my hope was to find that I could do multiple LPs in a single US cleaning cycle and greatly speed up my rate of cleaning records. My goals were FIRST to do no harm. Then see how close I could get to the results of my manual cleaning regimen. I've posted the results of my experiments in bits and pieces on the various threads where I found good advice to add to my experimentations. If you visit the VPI forum thread on cleaning, or the diyAudio thread on diy ultrasonic record cleaning, or the Audio Kharma thread on record cleaning solutions, you'll see my comments.
Perhaps I should summarize what I've learned in a new thread here on Audiogon to capture it all in one place. That might speed up someone else's explorations if they are serious about taking cleaning to the best result they can achieve. After 40 years of cleaning vinyl using a variety of methods and fluids, I think that's where I've finally arrived with my new cleaning regimen. My listening partner agrees and I trust her ears more than mine. :-)
I've invested a fair amount of time exploring ultrasonic cleaning over the past several months because I've fallen way too far behind in my record cleaning. With over 6,000 LPs, I needed a faster way to clean than my trusted multi-step manual wet/vac cleaning process. It got the best results I've ever found, but I was not keeping up with my collection and it is just painful to me to play a record that I've not cleaned. I suppose my angst is related to Whart's comments that I'm only a caretaker of the vinyl on my shelves for the time being.
In exploring ultrasonic cleaning, my hope was to find that I could do multiple LPs in a single US cleaning cycle and greatly speed up my rate of cleaning records. My goals were FIRST to do no harm. Then see how close I could get to the results of my manual cleaning regimen. I've posted the results of my experiments in bits and pieces on the various threads where I found good advice to add to my experimentations. If you visit the VPI forum thread on cleaning, or the diyAudio thread on diy ultrasonic record cleaning, or the Audio Kharma thread on record cleaning solutions, you'll see my comments.
Perhaps I should summarize what I've learned in a new thread here on Audiogon to capture it all in one place. That might speed up someone else's explorations if they are serious about taking cleaning to the best result they can achieve. After 40 years of cleaning vinyl using a variety of methods and fluids, I think that's where I've finally arrived with my new cleaning regimen. My listening partner agrees and I trust her ears more than mine. :-)