Walker prelude vs. Audio Intelligent

 
To quote myself from an earlier thread:

I spoke with Lloyd today about the Step 4 final rinse and was told it is composed of ultra-pure water, a teeny bit of alcohol, and 1% of a secret ingredient. It replaces the second pure water rinse in the Prelude regimen and Lloyd suggested it made a 10%-15% improvement.

I've tried a bunch of different cleaners over the years, though not the AIVS. And I trust my ears. I can tell the Walker is the best I've tried because its results are clearly audible.

After using the original Prelude regimen for many months, I then tried the new Step 4 Final Rinse. It was better than I expected and again, results were clearly audible. After rinsing records previously cleaned with Prelude, results were not subtle. I heard less surface noise, but more impressive was the real, substantive increase in harmonic and overtone information. Record after tediously cleaned record, I continue to be impressed with the Prelude system.
 
Tim
 

FWIW, my experience with Walker Audio Prelude and the Step 4 Final Rinse matches Jtimothya's experience. But regardless of my choice of Prelude, I'm convinced that you can't go wrong trying one of the top cleaning regimens recommended here and then trusting your own ears and experience. Using either Walker or AIVS is going to be way better than most (if not all) of the other alternatives out there.

And, I do agree with Markd51's observations about testing any of these very good products against one another. I've heard of lots of comparisons, but most that I've heard about are the serial cleaning with one product followed by cleaning with another product. Not a very good methodology in my opinion for a controlled test, for all the reasons Mark highlights. The only viable way to do a controlled comparison test would be with multiple identical copies of the same LPs from the same pressing run and adjacent to one another in that pressing run. I don't have a reliable means for doing this type of controlled comparison.
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Agreed Rushton, I think life is too short, or full of other things, that would make us normal end users resort to such scientific testing.

And that's why we have these forums, to hear of other's findings, because perhaps in some instances, we might take then advertisement of "miracle claims" by manufacturers (for any product) with a grain of salt, believing "it is perhaps too good to be true".

I think there is one things we will all conclude to agree upon, is that with any cleaning product, a good rinse-rinses as a final step will increase the efficiency of "any" cleaner, be it L'Art Du Son, LAST, Disc Doctor, Nitty Gritty, VPI, etc etc.

I recall Doug Deacon stating that he, and Paul use two final rinses with AIVS, and at first I thought this might be a bit of overkill, but I myself am also doing this too now, with every record that goes on my 16.5.

More costly, and a little bit more time consuming, yes, but aren't our treaured LP's worth it!? :-)

I feel it insures that any remaining cleaning residues are "hopefully" whisked away in the process. If as Jtimothya says, that he noted an improvement with a final step 4 rinse, after the Prelude Cleaners, this "might" indicate that something was still left in the grooves that the step 4 finally removed?

As noted, this rinse, with the addition with an alcohol, is no doubt acting as a surfactant in a way, reducing water tension, enabling the rinse to perform better? Mark

Markd51, like you, I also do a double rinse with Ultra Pure water -- doing so made a difference and I continue doing so even with the addition of the Prelude Step 4 Rinse to my process.

As you surmise, the Step 4 rinse does have less surface tension than the Ultra Pure water and Lloyd tells me that this is the reason for the addition of that small amount of alcohol. He says the alcohol also acts as a drying agent. The nature of the additional secret ingredient is something Lloyd keeps to himself, other than to say it leaves absolutely no residue and aids in the final removal of anything remaining in the grooves.

For those who have experimented with steam cleaning, or are dedicated users of steam cleaning, you may be interested to know that experiments with steam cleaning are what pushed Lloyd to develop the Step 4 Final Rinse. A member of the local Philadelphia Area Audio Group used Prelude and added a steam cleaning step. Lloyd heard a further improvement by using that steam cleaning step, and Lloyd is ever pursuing any improvement in sonic results that may be possible to obtain. The Step 4 High Resolution Rinse is the result of his push to make the cleaning process even better. The audio group member has now adopted the Step 4 Rinse saying it provides an even greater improvement than the steam cleaning step without the risk of heat damage.
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OK. Thanks to all for the input. I'm impressed by Walkers fresh enzyme approach, but AI seems to present less of a problem in terms of what is left on the vinyl at the end of the process than step4 of Prelude (although there appears to be a method to Lloyds madness). Any chemists have an idea as to whether a small amount of alcohol in last application can lead to any dryout or breakdown of vinyl? After all, my approach to vinyl is like a doctor-patient. First, do no harm.