Kirmuss Cleaning System Discuss?

A friend of mine had the Kirmuss "restoration" system for a year or so. I used it with him several times for records that were older and had that old book smell.

The system works. It made the older records sound a lot better. As a lab scientist and a physician, I think the seminars that Kirmuss gives are not convincing. Just no evidence for a whole lot of what he puts our there as truth. If you really followed his method, I don't think you would ever stop the cycles of scrubbing, ultrasonic bath, drying and scrubbing some more. You end up just getting tired of it, giving up and moving on to the next one. Great example of how perfect is the enemy of good.

My friend now had a DeGritter machine (like I do) and cleans a lot more records. That system works too and is ten times more convenient. Just pay attention to water changes and filter changes. The DeGritter's drying system blows air to push the water off the record.  The small amount of residual fluid that you cannot see and rapidly evaporates, leaving a residue, is probably not significantly different compared to cloth wipes or vacuum suction.  

I had one and I liked it better than my Loricraft but it was a bit too much of a process. My Degritter is easier to use and gets better results. Plus I don’t have to deal with the white paste anymore.

I used an old Nitty Gritty 1.0 for many years.  A few years back I picked up a cheap ultrasonic cleaner off Amazon and have since used the Nitty Gritty for drying.  Works great but of course YMMV.

@neonknight , Air drying is an unfortunate mistake, towelling then air drying is even worse. You can safely assume everything, towels, the cleaning solution, etc are contaminated with all kinds of things like your fingerprints and fabric softener. You use fresh fluid to clean the record then vacuum everything off and don't touch the record with anything else. There are many machines that meet this requirement. I think from a performance and build quality perspective the Clearaudios and the Nessie vinylmaster are the best units out there. Fan and air drying are a definitive no-no. Air dry a record and leave a few large droplets on there to magnify the process. Orient the record under the light and examine the surface. What you will see are water spots, just like your car. If you think using distilled water will stop this, try it and see. Vacuum drying is the single best way to keep the record from becoming re-contaminated. 

Ultrasonic cleaning is a fad. It is in no way superior and complicates the process requiring a second device to vacuum dry the record. While you are drying one side the other is dripping all over the place.

I would not call cleaning records fun. The trick is to spend as little time as possible doing it. It should also be convenient and readily accessible. You pick out a record to play and notice it is dirty or staticy.  You want to waste 1/2 hour getting it to the platter? Wouldn't you rather toss it on a machine, push a button and have your record to play, crystal clean in 3 minutes? Pick a device that gets as close to that ideal as possible. No ultrasonic machine comes close to that ideal cleaning and drying the record correctly.  You may actually be better off using just a conductive sweep arm to remove any incidental dust and discharge any static.

Mijo, Your hubris in unabashedly recommending whatever it is you have already decided upon as the only and best choice for everything is so bald-faced that I find it inoffensive and sometimes even charming. You got wherever you are by thinking and experiencing your way to it, so that’s fine. In this case, I actually am in the same boat. I watched Mr Kirmuss clean an LP at the CAF some few years ago. I am sure it works wonders, but I knew in advance I would rarely if ever use it because of the time needed per LP. As a biologist with experience using detergents of both major types in a laboratory to solubilize cellular organelles, I was also a bit concerned about the white stuff that shows up after step 1.  Mr Kirmuss assures us that this is evidence of the grundge that needs to be removed, but I wondered whether the cleaning solution itself plays a role in its generation. (I also emphatically agree with Mijo that you’d want uncontaminated cleaning solution, fresh for each LP or at least every few LPs.) I use a VPI HW17, which does everything that the Clearaudio does but slower and more manually and probably more noisily, but also more inexpensively. I keep the HW17 in my basement workshop, and if I find an LP that I am about to play is obviously in need of a wash, I put it aside until I have a bunch of them that need cleaning. Then I take a small stack to my workshop for a cleaning session.