Record-playing Rituals?

In previous conversations, Brian told me he prefers to spread RRL fluids with CF brushes, the same kind you dry brush with, using one for DC and one for VW.

I've tried those, the Last brushes, painting pads from Walmart and DD brushes. DD brushes work best and CF brushes are a close second. The CF brushes will occasionally shed a fiber. If your RCM doesn't pull the fiber out of a groove, your stylus will. Still, if I didn't have DD brushes I'd use CF. Those zillions of tiny fibers do a great job of getting the RRL fluids down into the grooves.

Has anyone here tried Vinyl Zyme Gold for cleaning there records??? Claims to remove the bacteria and other nasties that RRL fluid does not.

R.

I use it on records with obvious mold growth or that don't clean up completely with a couple of RRL passes.

It removes some (never all) mold growth deposits. Not perfect but better than not using it.

"The less 'wet' the RRL solutions act on a record"

It's kind of like if you wash your hair and the shampoo doesn't lather up: you got greasy greasy hair.

Just sharing my experience, confirmed by both listening tests and constant visual inspection of the stylus.

I guess the theories don't interest me as much as the results, and my records have never been cleaner. I can and do go for many, many sides without needing to do more than brush the odd cat hair off the stylus. I have not opened my bottle of LP #9 in months, and even my preferred DIY stylus cleaner isn't needed more than once every 6-10 sides. This tells me my vinyl cleaning methods are working.

If you prefer a solution that makes more sense from a particular theoretical perspective, go for it. Jyprez likes his DIY stuff, I like RRL. Hmm, we live only ten miles apart. Guess we could do a comparison...