Vinyl Accessories - Skip It or Buy It!

sokogear

My opinion for record cleaning machines is that they are useful if you buy a lot of used dirty records. I try to keep mine pristine and only use a carbon fiber brush to remove dust ...

Your LPs aren't pristine if all you use is a carbon brush to clean them. If you want proof, just look at the gunk that's accumulating on your stylus.

I guess pristine is the wrong word to use @cleeds. If I wanted perfect, I'd have to deep clean them every time I play them.

Life is full of compromises.....let's just call them excellent.

Compromise is right. The cleanest records I know are the Hot Stampers from Better-Records.com they are cleaned using the Walker Enzyme 4 step method on a very expensive RCM that uses a cleaning wand that continually feeds fresh cleaning thread so all dirt is continually lifted off the record. This eliminates the major problem with all other RCM designs which is that the cleaning brush is always building up crud, ultimately smearing it all over the supposedly clean records.  

Granted the crud we are talking about is not visible. But totally invisible crud does make a difference! My records scrubbed with Disc Doctor looked really clean. Same records after same cleaning process only with Walker Enzyme sound better. Not night and day, but definitely better. Not necessarily more quiet, but more fine detail.  

The downside is the VPI RCM is only used to suck off the final rinses. Because otherwise, crud smear. So a very laborious process, a good 3 min per record, almost all hand labor. 

But, I didn't have to spend $4k on the fancy RCM. Compromise. 

@millercarbon - we are in agreement on this issue! Better Records should have the best record cleaning process. It’s central to what they do. They charge much more than I’d pay for any record, but I can see them succeeding in the cost no object market.

Funny thing is, not only does my brother in law with the expensive RCM have his records shelved erratically from a perfect 90 degrees to 45 degrees, which gives me high anxiety, he doesn’t even use a brush to get rid of dust before playing a record. I think he only uses his RCM when he buys a used record. His system is probably 3-4 times as expensive as mine and he doesn’t even use a power conditioner! He put his stereo on a dedicated circuit. I tried to explain how the power company feeds noisy juice,  but he thinks power conditioners limit the dynamics of amps.....

He’s had problems with hums and tubes, you name it, but he won’t put the PC in.

The worst part is that I started him down the rabbit hole when I recommended a $500 manual Music Hall table 20 years ago when I was amazed at the improvement over my old fully automatic Phase Linear 8000 and he started getting upgradeitis ever since. He took my advice then, but now gets victimized by stereo salesman after stereo salesman. Oh well....

I have not bought anything from a stereo salesman, not since Jafco, 1974.