Record-playing Rituals?


I'm curious what everybody's riuals are when listening to albums. How often do you clean the records? Every Time? How often do you clean and lubricate the stylus? Every time?

David
deshapiro
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...
I have become aware that I should provide an update to an earlier post that I made where I recommended using a couple of household cleaners (i.e. Dawn) as record cleaning agents as a precursor to using Record Research Labs fluids. I have since learned a great deal about record cleaning ingredients and the importance of avoiding ingredients which attack the plasticizers in vinyl, which certain additives (i.e. fragrance additives) will do. As such, I retract my recommendation of those products and apologize to anyone whom I may have misled.