Good Quality Distilled Water???

The garden-variety Steam Distilled Water sold at my local supermarket is labeled "Purified Water USP, and marked "purified by distillation and ozonation." It also has an NSF International certification. I checked the NSF International standards for drinking water, and their testing protocols are pretty rigorous.

Plus, the "USP" means the water is pharmaceutical grade, which is pretty much as good as it gets outside of extraordinary purification measures.

So - if regular supermarket distilled water is certified AND is pharmaceutical grade, why isn't it good enough to clean LPs?

OK, so tap water has minerals, chemicals, and various other assorted nasty stuff. The big question is how big is the biggest particle of this stuff that you would find left behind on your record after cleaning it with a good machine, and if this particle is big enough to be audible.

I think not.

I followed the link above about Art Dudley trying the RLR stuff. He played a record, cleaned it with RLR, and it was better. So what, did he compare it to other records cleaned by other means? No. Is that a controlled experiment? No.

How would you do a controlled experiment anyway? Clean a record by one method, play it, then clean it with another? Who is to say that the order in which was cleaned had an affect? Maybe cleaning with method A followed by B is better than B followed by A or maybe throwing in method C would help. The very fact that you cleaned it by any method could affect the vinyl in irreversible ways and make it impossible to compare it to other methods.

Don't get me wrong here. I have a very expensive cleaning machine and there is definitely a difference in a clean versus a dirty record, but quadrupled deionized water?? hee hee hee

Herman --

"RLR stuff"

Maybe YOU were the guy that visited me and drank my record cleaning solution ---

And to quote you,'hee hee hee"

(but he had a fun time doin it now didn't he) heee hee hee

FX~

Herman,

Don't get me wrong in my answer to your post. My gut is with you on this as I think the biggest factors in a great cleaning fluid are its ability to dislodge and suspend particles which are removed through vacuuming. There are additives in the formula which aid water in doing its job. Here's where both our thinking may be wrong. Many respected folks have posted here about trying numerous cleaning solutions on the same record without satisfactory results. When they tried the RRL products the results were much improved. It all really comes down to trying it. We aren't talking huge sums of money to give it a try. We needn't continue buying it if there isn't a benefit.

As an example of mineral laden tap water leaving residue behind, anyone that has owned a custom vehicle with an expensive paint job could easily tell the difference between one washed and dried by hand using regular tap water versus softened tap water. Is what clouds the finish hard water deposits or soap residue? The same can been seen when washing clothes. Clothes routinely washed in very hard water never look clean. That's why we have these commercials about dingy looking versus vibrantly colorful washed clothes. Laundry detergents are trying to overcome the deficiencies of your tap water. People would fall asleep listening to a scientific explanation during a commercial and in the end buy a water softener so that they could use the cheapest soap to get the best results.

Water is the universal solvent. Minerals in the water are a result of this. Like any solvent there is a point at which it no longer behaves like it should by having reached its saturation point. In the case of washing a show car or clothes, really hard water prevents the soap from doing its job which is breaking down solids and keeping them in suspension long enough to be rinsed away. That is why a record cleaning product needs to start the formula with pure water. How pure? I don't know and in the end I really don't care as long as it works.

I work in a lab and get my ultra-pure 18Meg-ohm water from "Wade's" still. I then mix up my own secret cleaning formula and vacuum filter it through a 0.45micron filter. It's then fed to my VPI-17 and it slurps it up. -JT