’Twas the original "automatic" record cleaning machine borne out of Percy Wilson’s papers on vinyl record contamination. There was a test mule, photograph of same floating around on the web somewhere, and Monks was the one to commercialize it. I saw my first one circa early '70s at the high end salon in Pittsburgh, run by the debonaire Tasso Spanos (lovely guy with ears and a real sense of the high end back the day). Tasso was one of the few I knew who had one-- they were really aimed at libraries, radio stations, and in the UK, facilities that would offer record cleaning as a service.
Tasso’s old machine showed up on E-Bay or Audiogon several years ago as a rusted out hulk.
When Monks the Elder died, the company became dormant, though there were still folks out there servicing them. Monks the Younger rebooted the company a decade or more ago, and this is one of the newer models-- finish may be a little nicer than the early ones, but the unit is in many respect the same British engineering- quirky, but it gets the job done and I like it as an artifact. (The pump actuator is from a Mini with a windshield wiper icon-- I don’t use the fluid brush head dispenser because I use various fluids and a pure water rinse). The machine is still made as far as I know, although Monks recently introduced a line that doesn’t rely on the thread buffer that was part of the design of these-- I have not seen or played with these newer ones, which I gather are priced at a few grand as opposed to several few grands. It’s a keeper.
Tasso’s old machine showed up on E-Bay or Audiogon several years ago as a rusted out hulk.
When Monks the Elder died, the company became dormant, though there were still folks out there servicing them. Monks the Younger rebooted the company a decade or more ago, and this is one of the newer models-- finish may be a little nicer than the early ones, but the unit is in many respect the same British engineering- quirky, but it gets the job done and I like it as an artifact. (The pump actuator is from a Mini with a windshield wiper icon-- I don’t use the fluid brush head dispenser because I use various fluids and a pure water rinse). The machine is still made as far as I know, although Monks recently introduced a line that doesn’t rely on the thread buffer that was part of the design of these-- I have not seen or played with these newer ones, which I gather are priced at a few grand as opposed to several few grands. It’s a keeper.