Anybody using the last record preservative


Back in the early '80s I started using last record preservative now here 40 whatever years later just picked up another bottle because I noticed all my new records have a lot of noise with the exception of a few analog Productions and some Rhino records are pretty quiet but the most have a lot of surface noise long story short picked up a new bottle of last record preservative put it on one of my records and OMG the difference is amazing my system nowadays is way more resolving than it used to be noise floor has dropped into the basement and the musical and the music has jumped to the foreground

pointtrucking

Let me do a little myth busting here.  There is a guy who wears a chemist smock and hawks ultrasonic record cleaners.  Any of you who have been to a trade show know who I am talking about.  Anyway, he scrubs and scrubs until all the white gunk stops frothing out of the record grooves.  It is quite a process.  He hates records that have been treated with Last because it is next to impossible to remove the stuff according to him.  It seems to bond pretty well- kind of as claimed by the manufacturer.  Next, some time around 1979 or 1980, toward the very end of my years in hifi retail, the rep for Last came into our store and set up a demo as follows:  Two brandy new direct to disc copies of Dave Grusin on Sheffield Records were opened and one was treated with Last and then both were put on identical Dual changers (1219 model if memory serves) and left on repeat for a week plus of continuous play.  Come Saturday a week later to much fanfare and in front of a considerable crowd the two records were compared.  The untreated one was quite noisy, but the treated one was still quiet.  As quiet as a freshly opened copy.  Last sold well at that store from then on, and I for one have used it ever since on literally thousands of records with stellar results.  It is a one time treatment, even if the treated record is later cleaned again and again.  And no treated record has ever  needed more than an occasional re-cleaning.   Oh, by the way, in all the years and all the time I have used Last there has never been one problem with either their bottles or the labels.

@billstevenson I use the Kirmuss KA-RC-1 on ever record and then treat with LAST great combo and after treating just give my LPs and occasional bath in the KA-RC-1 and freshen up the LAST treatment.

Love it.  

I've used the LAST record preservative since the 1980s, always after cleaning the LP first (mostly with a Nitty Gritty vacuum cleaning machine).  I don't recall the preservative being claimed to improve the sound of the record, just prevent wear--which would maintain the LP's sound quality.  On some of my LPs, I think it added low-level surface noise; after realizing that, I've been reluctant to use it on LPs with quiet music.

I've not done any careful comparison of treated and non-treated LPs.  Pretty much all of my LPs that I bought new still sound fine, whether treated or not, in part because of using an antistatic gun and carbon-fiber brush before each play, with the record under a direct light so I can see any visible dust particles.  I rarely wet clean them more than once.  I store them in rice-paper or poly-lined sleeves.  I play them with the dust cover of the turntable down.  All of this effort to minimize dust collection on the LPs pays off in fewer ticks.