Record-playing Rituals?

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.

I clean new records first with Last Power cleaner on both sides, then with Nitty Gritty fluid and vacuum it off with a Record Doctor II. Used records get the Audio Intelligent treatment. Before and after each play I run a couple of revolutions with a Super Exstatic brush. Before the record gets put away I zap it with a Ionoclast.