"Cleaning" Vinyl Makes It Worse Not Better!

I use KLaudio 200 ultrasonic with distilled filtered water and no additives with very good results.   Every time i play vinyl a use Furotech III static removing device

I don't like the concept of adding anything to the surface of a record: Solvents always a risk. Soaps, additives, surfactants etc all accumulate and removing anything is rarely possible once applied

Anyone try the Mobile Fidelity Ultra Record Wash, 1oz bottle, for ultrasonic machines?

Woo all this process for a record.Not my tune, I switched to CDs to avoid all this, now I breath on the disc wipe it on my shirt, put it on the tray, push play and chill.

First if after you "clean" a record it keeps leaving deposits on the needle, you did not clean said record. You just released some dirt. You might not be using enough fluid, letting it soak in enough, or removing enough of it after the final wipe. 

For me, do a manual clean with Grovemaster products, then it goes in the ultrasonic. After that it goes into a new premium sleeve. Use 6 drops of Grovemaster ultrasonic cleaner per gallon of distilled water. Some used records need to go through the process a couple of times. 

Most of my records have 0 pop, hiss, clicks, very low noise floor. If they do, they get cleaned again. My needle almost never needs to be cleaned. I got a nice little ultrasonic cleaner for that. 

Look at all these comments and go to the sites recommended for more in depth discussion about cleaners and such. I was where you are now: Trying the manual spay and wipe cleaner something like GrooveWasher. It was leaving gunk that required me to clean the stylus several times during play - and causing distortion. Not good. As others note, maybe not following instructions and using something like a Spin Clean with a few drops of surfactant in distilled water to do a final rinse might help immensely. But talk about labor intensive. It gets old quickly.

I got fed up to the point of building my own vacuum record cleaning machine similar to the guy below for about $250 and have called it a day. I would love to have something "real" like an ultrasonic Degritter but I don’t play vinyl enough to justify the expense of one. I think about how many CDs I could buy for the price of one, or an "end game" DAC.

If I had to do it over again, I’d probably just buy a Record Doctor VI because by the time I bought all the tools needed, bottles, and such, I was very close to the price of one. And that automatic turntable thing I use is no longer available on Amazon. Pity. It helps a bunch.

Note that while it does have fanboys, the Humminguru is underpowered with those wall wart power supplies and simply does not produce cavitation bubbles to do the cleaning like the far more expensive Degritter does. That doesn’t mean it can’t help, but your expectations might have to be tempered a bit or do two or three passes to get decent results. There are many videos where this is discussed.

While just a guess, I think vacuum cleaning done right can get you about 80% of the way to Degritter sound quality. Of course if you are going to get into vinyl heavily as your primary source and you have the funds, a Degritter sounds like the way to go. Sure would save you a heck of a lot of time. Time you could use for more listening and less cleaning.

Fortunately, I’ve found I can clean my records once in the humid summer, put them into good quality sleeves and then merely Zerostat them and use a carbon fiber brush prior to playing for many plays before they need cleaning again. Static electricity sucks - literally.

https://youtu.be/U1Au-WFeWQ8?t=2

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGfmZ6-x-Fk&pp=ygUQY2xlYW5pbmcgcmVjb3Jkcw%3D%3D