I have moved several times over the past couple decades and am now able to sit back and unbox the vast LP collection I have amassed. When I was just starting out (in the 60's, no less) I had a GE fold-out stereo for a number of years that then morphed into a used Thorens TT with, no kidding, idler drive. By the late 70's I had a nicer Thorens, then a SOTA, then an Immedia, and now a Technics SL-1200G. Why am I going down this list? Because I am opening up LP's I haven't played in 50 years, which were played on those old units and well before anyone had a RCM or a Degritter like I do now. I started using a Dishwasher brush maybe around 1980 or so, and somewhere back then, before that actually, I buffed on some sort of groove-glide stuff, but I didn't have my VPI 16.5 until the mid-80's. Those records from back then, now seeing the light of day (I would scribble the month/year I cleaned them on the inner sleeve) now sound like new LP's. That's before cleaning them again! If I do clean them they sound like CD's, insofar as surface noise goes. I can't tell you how shocked I am at this. My early record care manly involved in careful handling of them and making sure the inner sleeves were oriented. Nothing special. Now I can get something from Discogs that sounds like it should be thrown away. A run through my new Record Doctor X (why didn't anyone make something like this years ago???) can do remarkable things (my VPI's vacuum motor died after 40 years) and then a distilled--water journey through the Degritter makes the former throw-out into something to treasure. I do this with all my new stuff now. Why not? My digital setup is great (usually) but the vinyl is pure magic for reasons I can't really fathom. The main thing is that I have always treated those items carefully, but, honestly, not really obsessively until now. You don't have to be crazy about it. One more vote here for that Record Doctor X......
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- 42 posts total
- 42 posts total