Does the Step 4 final rinse for Walker Prelude help?

Oops! I stand corrected in terms of extra ingredients in Step 4. So much for speculating from the sidelines, sorry...

That info and your listening reports (both Tbg's and Rushton's) do make me wonder though...

Having established that Step 4 is useful, the question remains: what's the optimal time to use it?

Some who know more chemistry than me (which means anybody) have argued that alchohol-containing fluids pose *some* risk to vinyl. You'll both remember the arguments against alchohol presented by Brian Weitzel of RRL (now MoFi). I don't remember that his concerns about the lingering effects of alchohol left behind on PVC were ever reliably refuted. To the extent that any risk exists, using an alchohol-containing fluid as the final step may increase it. Trace amounts not vacuumed off may linger to do whatever damage they may do. This may be a trivial risk, but if it can be reduced...

The four AI fluids we use also include one containing alchohol, but we use that one at an earlier stage. Paul points out that alchohol denatures most enzymes, so we use it immediately after the enzyme solution. We follow that with a surfactant-containing solution, to dislodge loosened contaminants and to begin dilution of any alchoholic residue. The final two stages are rinses with ultra pure water. The idea is to make the progression of fluids steadily purer, which reduces the chances of leaving anything behind.

Step 4 is clearly beneficial. I wonder if it wouldn't be as beneficial or more, and possibly safer, if used right after the enzyme soak. Maybe worth a try, if you care to.

Doug, I appreciate all of your efforts to elucidate and educate, but I'll have to disagree with your speculations about the optimum sequencing of the Step 4 Rinse, and I won't choose to experiment with it. The point of the Step 4 Rinse is exactly that: a final finishing rinse that reaches deeply into the groove to remove any remaining residue. There is no value to using it after the enzyme step but before the Step 2 surfactant cleaning step because of all the materials in any of the various surfactant cleaning fluids. As witnessed by all of our shared experiences with purer and purer water rinses, the Ultra-pure rinse eliminates residues better than plain distilled water. From my listening experiences with it, and from what Lloyd says he's doing with the formulation, the Step 4 Rinse moves us another step further ahead.
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Well, until Lloyd Walker chimes in with info as to what is added to the "Step 4 rinse" (he doesn't have to give ratios or quantities), Doug's speculation in the first response would seem to me to be much more plausible and realistic than other ideas put forward here.

Think about it: it makes absolutely no sense to follow an ultrapure water rinse with anything else other than another ultrapure water or a "more" ultrapure water rinse, if you will. By adding anything to the ultrapure you would be diminishing, not enhancing, its efficacy as both a solvent and a rinse and greatly raising the possibility of leaving both a residue and a sonic signature.

I'm not saying the Step 4 is not effective, just that I doubt it is, in fact, anything more than pure or purer water than the Step 3. No one has to sell me on the merits of ultrapure-I've been using it now as the final stage of cleaning for a couple of years, usually doing 2 passes with it and I have no problem believing that more passes may improve sound quality any more than I have no problem believing a 2nd or 3rd cleaning with the right technique and fluids may well improve things with many records.

I do have a problem with what the record cleaning companies are charging for ultrapure water, but if the market will bear it, so be it.

I tend to believe that Jim (and perhaps partly Paul) designed AVIS, just like Lloyd Walker designed his cleaners to be used in a certain succesion.

That the following step compliments the preceeding step. Jim P. has verbally enforced these beliefs personally to me.

Lloyd should at least explain what ingredients are in this last step, without giving away proprietary info.

We would all assume, tht the purest water rinse would be the final step, removing any loosened contaminants-residues left behind by prior cleaning processes?

I find it odd, that some sort of inal step would be better than a purewater rinse? I of course am not a disbeliever, dosagreeing what others have "heard". Markd

Guys, it is hardly true that a rinse with ultra-pure water leaves nothing behind. There is the friction of vinyl and the static electric charge on the record. I can remember when Lloyd recommended GrooveGlide and certainly the Talisman removing static charges have benefit. I have used both and find the benefits of Step Four exceeds them. I continue to use the Talisman, but do find it has less effect now.

While you guys fret about how this can be, I will keep doing a final rinse with Step Four on my previously Preclude treated records and enjoying them. If your ears tell you there is a benefit, shouldn't you conclude that your logic and theory must be wrong?