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

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.

terry9:  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.

I concur with this.

@moonglum

Moon, one little experience to relate from my end. One of my favorite "go to" pieces (for when the uninitiated come over to visit, look at all the tubes glowing, and invariably ask why I don't get something "new") is Roberta Flack's "First Time Ever I saw Your Face."  Incredibly good recording, very quiet parts that go to very loud parts, and one of those "she's in the room" kind of reproductions.  I have 3 copies -- one bought new, and 2 bought at used record stores.  Both the used copies were very noisy -- pops, clicks, pow's, and a lot of surface noise, and all that noise destroys the whole emotional grip of the piece.  No distortion, so I figured it was mostly crud and not groove damage.  But after several cleanings of both on the VPI 16.5 including a couple rounds of enzyme, the noise was significantly reduced but still intrusive.  So I bought the new one (paying a lot more than I wanted to) hoping to get a nice quiet copy.  Well, the new one was absent most of the pops and clicks except for the lead in area, but there was background hiss that was worse than either of the used copies.  Fast forward to the US setup, and amazingly the worst of the used copies is now the quietest and best sounding.  The hiss is greatly reduced on the new copy, but still audible during the quiet parts and the clicks at the lead-in are better but still there.  The used copy that cleaned up the best has one noticeable click towards the end of the song, but is otherwise completely quiet -- no hiss, no pops/clicks other than that one. Took me a couple tries to get it that way, but part of it was just learning the US process and figuring out what works best with my tank and cleaning formula (which is a blatant copy of Rushton's).  And reducing or eliminating noise is only one of the positives the US brings to the table.  There's more harmonic information, low level detail that in some cases was inaudible before, more pristine high treble notes, etc.  More music, quite simply.  I'm sold on the US, and as Rushton and Terry both point out it won't redeem a screwed up record, but it can work a miracle on some that you thought were screwed up.  No real way of knowing which is which until you clean one with the US process and listen to the result.