Thumbs up for ultrasonic record cleaning

I pulled out Ben Harper's "Both Sides of the Gun", yesterday. It had previously been cleaned with Disc Dr. fluid and a vacuum dry around 10 years ago?

I listened to it like that, then steamed it ( I use Audio Intelligent Down With Dirty Concentrate mixed @ 1.5 Tbs. per 16 oz.) brushed on then steamed off w/ distilled water, then a vacuum/rinse.

It isn't a reference disc but it is I'd say a solid 8. It has enough of every part of the frequency spectrum delivered at high enough level for anyone to hear what is there and what could be there. After hearing it improve somewhat just by steaming, then to the full US bath, it went up one notch to a 9. It's interesting and fun to listen to this happen.

@boneman73,

Welcome!

When my Us cleaner is finished it’s cycle, I raise the lps out of the bath, let them spin a while, then take them off, pat them dry with a clean micro-fiber cloth, then to the VPI 16.5/distilled water. I have had no issue with spots.

I'm another 'air-dryer'.  Because I don't have a vacuum.  So my process is to Spin Clean w/ their solution first, put them on the VinylStack, drop into the bath for 10 minutes and then take it over to the kitchen sink and run warm water over them while the labels are protected.  Then I use a spin clean with distilled water and then put them in a file rack with a fan running.  Occasionally I'll see a drop but it's pretty rare.  They normally come out spotless.  But I know a vacuum would be much better.  I might head down that path at some point.

@terry9,

Your mention of a "high speed vinyl stack spinner" ..could you elaborate? Is this something you put together yourself?

This IS fun isn't it.

@slaw 

As you say, this is fun. But no, I didn't put it together - got too much on my plate with my air bearing turntable (working close to the limit, but a quadrature power supply should improve it further) and pre/phono (Version 2.0 with air-gap and vacuum caps ONLY in the signal path).

I asked the good folks at Vinyl Stack to put a special motor on their spinner, and they found something that works brilliantly. I run the unit at about 60 RPM to do a fast rinse and uniform cool-down under running water (about 10C). If you have pure tap water, it's fast and convenient. Recommended.