Is the Walker LP system necessary if one already uses a good RCM?

Record cleaning fluid is a big can of worms. Distilled water is safe. Some additives may leave a residue on the record. I have begun to believe this is not a problem as long as it does not build up on the stylus. In some instances it may actually be of benefit but I am not sure....yet. 

Years ago a company came out with pure water based cleaners and was the new kid on the block back then. That company who's name escapes me, is now owned by MoFi. I use their cleaners for years with the enzyme cleaner being the main one on used records. However I bought an inexpensive ultrasonic cleaner last year and have been using it with a minimum amount of simple green cleaner. Follow that with a fan which has a filter over it to blow clean air over the records as they spin above the water. I prefer the US cleaner

I knew Lloyd Walker for a few years before his death. He was a very engaging and interesting guy, and I enjoyed my brief encounters with him. But don’t separate Lloyd who made the world class Proscenium turntable from Lloyd who marketed some devices that could be said to have been "gimmicky". Those two guys were one and the same person. First, in his defense, many/most of his seemingly cockamamie ideas actually worked. Others I would summarize in the nicest way possible as "overpriced". I bought one of his enzyme-based kits and tried to compare its efficacy to that of my VPI HW17 RCM. In the VPI, I use distilled water plus 25% lab grade isopropanol plus a few drops of Triton X100 per half gallon. I cleaned opposite sides of one of my favorite jazz vocal LPs that I’ve owned for more than 30 years now, according to the Walker Audio method vs my VPI RCM method. The HW17 squirts the cleaning solution on the surface of the LP,  brushes in both directions, and offers vacuum suction of the cleaning solution at the end of a run. After both the Walker procedure, on side A, and the VPI RCM procedure on side B, I rinsed with only distilled water and dried both sides using the vacuum suction of the VPI. I have found the rinse to be necessary to remove residua of the cleaning solution(s), and I can hear the difference if I don’t rinse. Unscientific though this comparison was, I gave a very slight edge to the Walker components over my own RCM concoction. But I also concluded that the Walker method was too time consuming and complex for routine use; the difference was not major.

I think I read somewhere that Walker uses enzymes derived from a bacterium, B Subtilis. If so, these are the same enzymes in the laundry cleaner, Shout. I am pretty sure the half-life in powder form would be very long, but I don’t know how long. Shout lasts a very long time on a shelf at room temp, even though the enzymes are in solution.

@lewm- I'm with you on the rinse step for several reasons, not the least of which is that it gives you another shot at removing the residue. Yeah, I used Lloyd's magnet to "demagnetize" records for a while- it seemed to work, but I got out of the habit of using it (partly because I didn't want that thing anywhere near my cartridge!). 

My record cleaner is collecting dust....too much work for not much benefit