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Rushton's DIY approach to ultrasonic record cleaning published by Positive Feedback

Over the past several months I’ve invested a fair amount of time exploring ultrasonic cleaning because I’ve fallen way too far behind in my record cleaning. With over 6000 LPs, I needed a faster way to clean than my trusted multi-step manual wet/vac cleaning process. That manual process got the best results I’ve ever found, but I was not keeping up with my collection and it is just painful to me to play a record that I’ve not cleaned.

In exploring ultrasonic cleaning, my hope was to find that I could complete multiple LPs in a single US cleaning cycle and greatly speed up my rate of cleaning records. My goals were to FIRST do no harm and then SECOND see how close I could get to the results of my manual cleaning regimen.

My past experiences with ultrasonic cleaning demonstrations were completely underwhelming. What I heard did not approach the excellence I was achieving with my multi-step wet/vac cleaning regimen.

What I’ve learned, and now apply in my new ultrasonic cleaning regimen, are multiple elements to the cleaning process that must be used in combination to achieve the best possible results. And these results have far exceeded my expectations.

I’d thought of posting here on Audiogon the summary of what I’ve learned and am now applying as my new record cleaning regimen, but the inability to post images and to apply formatting here caused me to send my summary to David Robinson at Positive Feedback who has graciously published my comments as a guest essay. Please read that essay, and then come back here to Audiogon with comments and to share your experiences:

http://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/rushton-paul-diy-approach-ultrasonic-cleaning-lps/


I look forward to some further discussion and sharing of experiences.

.


128x128rushton
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,445 posts
 
moonglum, if the surface noise is due to contaminants in the grooves (dust, dirt, oils, etc.), surface noise will definitely decrease. But this is not a magic bullet - if the grooves have been damaged, no cleaning will get rid of that; same if noisy vinyl compound was used in manufacturing the record. 
moonglum
619 posts
 

Thanks Rushton. ;^)

When encountered, do you feel the damaged areas of e.g. 2nd hand LPs, are more audible, less audible or about the same nuisance value?

terry9
2,353 posts
 
Moon, when I first started using US, I found that noise always diminished compared to VPI 16.5, so now I clean everything with US to protect my stylus. That said, some records are just intolerably noisy, although a mono cartridge can help with mono records.
moonglum
619 posts
 
Your feedback was much appreciated, Terry. :)
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,445 posts
 
moonglum: When encountered, do you feel the damaged areas of e.g. 2nd hand LPs, are more audible, less audible or about the same nuisance value?
Moon, I'm looking to get my records as absolutely clean as I can. Sometimes cleaning, whether via USC or RCM will make badly damaged records sound even worse because you've removed a veil by allowing the stylus to actually track the groove. Accurate tracing of the groove delivers more information, for both good and bad. I don't find US cleaning any more like to do that than my previous RCM regimen. What I do find with my current US cleaning regimen is that I'm hearing much more of what is important to me on the record the vast majority of the time.

And, I keep reminding people, it's not just the US tank. It's the attention to the full regimen of detergent, rinse, temperature, time in the tank, not overloading the capacity of the tank, etc. etc. As I've said many times: I've been completely underwhelmed with MOST ultrasonic demonstrations I've heard. My manual cleaning was better. Only with the right cleaning solution in the tank and with pure water rinsing did I finally start hearing good results that got my attention.
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