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ultrasound record cleaning machine damaged my records

I recently purchased an ultrasound record cleaning machine. For reasons which I hope you understand I won’t name brands, because I am not wanting to make bad publicity to anyone but to discuss the matter. 

Previously, I had anather ultrasound machine which broke. I cleaned more than a 1000 records with it, with no concerns at all. The machine broke and, due to its steep price, I decided to go for a less costly solution. 

With the new machine I cleaned 7 records. One of themLeonard Cohen’s “New Skin for the old ceremony”. When listening to “Chelsea Hote”, I remarked a distortion that wasn’t there before. IT was clear on the low notes, like the instrument being out of focus or vibrating. I had some old very worn records which had that problem due to bad stylus. At first I started to think that there was a problem with the stylus of my Lyra Atlas. So I went to another version of the same album I have at home, to check if there was a problem with the stylus. Clean passage. No problem at all. 

As on the previous cleaned record I noticed a similar problem, not so apparent, I decided to clean the second version of the LP on the new machine. Playing it i heard  the same distortion on the same music. Checking out all the 7 records I cleaned, I heard issues on all of them, some less apparent ( the mono ones) and some more appparent. 

I couldn’t believe it but the new machine was damaging my records. 

The combination of my atlas and my SME 312 arm gives some “needle talk” - music heard when with everything muted you put your hear next to the stylus on the record. Doing it, I heard the same rumble distortion that was being amplified by the system. 

 

I used distilled water (not a new one but one which was opened for the previous machine) but it was clear clean. I put the exact amount of surfactant liquid on the mixture of distilled water. I kept all the operating instruction rules. I don’t understand what is wrong, but the fact is this machines damages the grooves on the record. 

 

Does anyone had this problem before? Any help provided?

 

Note: I already contacted the dealer who sold it  and I am going to see him next week. It is a very good a solid dealer.  It I’d like to hear your opinion. 

 

Best regards,

128x128pfmaudio
pfmaudio's avatar
pfmaudio OP
19 posts
 

After my last post I made a complete TT set-up, to confirm what were the causes of the distortion.  Had it checked by an expert in TT setup. 
 

I found some issues. The O-rings of the suspensions towers were too stretched and one of the towers was no more suspwnding the table. Replaced all the O-rimgs. But the problem continued. 
then checked the needle with a microscope. Found some dirt on the back of the needle, hard to remove. Using the Lyra SPT with care, finally arrived to remove it. It got better, but the problem was still audible. 
 

and not only audible by me. Clearly audible by the person who made the new set up. 
 

finnaly, checked overhand, VTA, weight (1,71 g, on the recommended values). Everything is ok. 
 

Finnaly, put my spare cartridge back on the table, set it up and everything went into focus again. I must conclude that the problem is on the cartridge. 
 

I will send it to reconstruction. 
 

however, it is amazing that only on the cleaned records the problem was noticeable. It is very strange and unexplained thing. And audible by two persons, to eliminate psicológicas effects. In fact, in some cases even a deaf would detect the distortion. And only on the cleaned records. 

kennyc
1,459 posts
 

After such a lengthy ordeal, glad you found the solution 

best-groove's avatar
best-groove
842 posts
 

what could be better and more expensive does not always offer better results and sometimes products are marketed before actual testing and it will be the end customers who act as beta testers without their knowledge.
I have been using a manual Nitti Gritti for 40 years and never had any problems washing over 5000 records; a Teflon gasket first and a rubber one later (up grade) which are the intake ones are the only things I changed.
I'm sorry for the opener who damaged his discs, I don't want to think that if they had been very rare or very expensive copies for collectors, how much damage the machine would have caused.

pfmaudio's avatar
pfmaudio OP
19 posts
 

Dear all,

 

I got back my Lyra cartridge from Japan. They sent me the following email. 
“This cartridge has been bumped (hit against record or other object) by the customer. The front magnet carrier (purple piece) have rotated around mounting screw, and this has caused cantilever to be pushed out of position. This is not a warrantable problem. The reason for the distortion is that the rotated front magnet carrier touches the cantilever while playing the record. After the adjustments and revoking, all problems are now gone. The cartridge will play like when it was new.“

 

and it does play very well. The records which I believe were damaged are not damaged at all. 
 

what is more extraordinary is how the problem was visible only after cleaning. Which! shows how the stylus traces the groove in a deeper form after cleaning. 
 

thank you all for your comments. 

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