Record Cleaning Machine

I find the SOTA LP Cleaner to work very good for me.

I'm sure the Monks or Loricraft are great machines, but for between $3,000 and $5,000 they should be. If you are really interested in cleaning vinyl, there is a huge amount of info in the Vinyl Asylum at Audioasylum. After spending a bit of time there, I came to the conclusion that you should go cheap or go very expensive but not waste a lot of money by going in between. Obviously, the Monks and Loricraft are very expensive.

I ended up with a KAB EV1, simply because I didn't want to have to deal with the extra noise from a shop vac (which can be very, very noisy) along with the space that shop vacs consume. The KAB is simply the "guts" of the Nitty Gritty machines, which you in turn hook up your own vacuum cleaner to (it can be a wet or dry vac as the KAB traps all fluid). Having sold Filter Queen vacs about 28 years ago, I have 3 kicking around the house and use one of them with the KAB. There are distinct advantages to going this route using a quality vac if you already have one:
1) you will, in all likelihood, end up with better/stronger suction than you will with any of the Nitty Gritty or VPI motorized versions 2) you will not experience overheating that can occur with those models and 3) if your vac breaks down, it is no big deal, you can buy another one used for next to nothing as opposed to paying a huge buck for a replacement motor from VPI or Nitty Gritty.

Going DIY with a shop vac is even less expensive than the KAB route, which will end up costing you about $200 by the time you buy a carbon fibre brush and some RRL Super Vinyl Wash (which I would recommend). A beater turntable (buy one at the Goodwill) is also a must have, in my opinion, with this kind of setup for applying the fluid before vacuuming.
Keep in mind that your choice of fluid is probably at least as important as your choice of cleaner, and there are certainly many choices.

I am certainly no expert, simply having drawn my own conclusions from the vast amount of info at the Vinyl Asylum, but I have had records cleaned on a Monks as well, and am not interested in spending that kind of money on a machine. I had an opportunity to buy a used Monks (well used, not in the greatest of shape) for around $800 and skipped it (many will say I'm crazy of course for that), and honestly don't feel like I am missing that much. But I am a bit of a cheapskate and $800 will buy me vinyl for the rest of my life the way things are going. I just picked up 30 albums last night for $10-a very serious score at the thrift store, actually the best I've had in the 3 months since I purchased the KAB, and it is working beautifully. So at that rate, $800 can buy me 2400 albums, not that I think I'll be doing that (or at least keeping them!).

Hdm, your figures are off a bit. The Loricraft PRC3 is $1895.

10 years ago when i got serious about vinyl i purchased the VPI 16.5 RCM. i've likely cleaned at least 3500 records with that machine over the years.

recently i built a new dedicated listening room with a foyer outside the room with a dedicated space for record cleaning. the space has a tile floor and hard surfaces and when i tried my 16.5 in that space the noise from the vacuum pump made it just too uncomfortable. if i hate to clean records i will just avoid it.

so i did some research and decided to go with the Loricraft PRC3. during the research i learned a few things....particularly that all the machines that use a wide sweep arm (like the VPI 16.5 and the Clearaudio among others) will to one degree or another leave at least some dirt on the record due to the nature of the cleaning process. also that these machines need a large noisy vacuum pump due to the size of the vacuum opening.

OTOH the Loricraft (and Keith Monks) machines use a new and clean bit of thread for every cleaning so the cleaning process itself will not leave any dirt. the Loricraft website does a much better job of decribinbg this process than i could do. suffice it to say that if clean is what you want this approach has a better chance of doing it.

in addition; since the Loricraft has only a tiny orifice to provide vacuum to it gets away with a much smaller and less noisey pump; and is very comfortable to be around for extended periods of time. whereas i would have my hearing assaulted by the VPI 16.5 and it would take me out of the mood to listen i am still feeling at ease using the Loricraft.

remember that the machine is not the whole issue; there are still questions of which cleaning solution to use and keeping the RCM platter clean constantly.

i do recommend the VPI 16.5 at it's price point as a great RCM. but if you use the PRC3 once you will likely find a way to afford $1895.

My apologies with respect to pricing on the Loricraft; I was unaware that they had introduced the lower priced model at $1895.

There is certainly no doubt that the Loricraft and Monks are good machines and will do an excellent job. They both offer much quieter operation and the ability to really churn through cleaning records at much higher speeds than budget alternatives. The threading system on both is an excellent way to prevent cross contamination (the thread is really only a spacer to prevent vacuum lock up and does not contribute anything to the cleaning process other than preventing potential cross contamination) although in my experience with the KAB providing one is diligent in keeping the vacuum slot clean (ie. by vacuuming it occassionally following cleanings and by pre-cleaning records with a carbon fibre brush and Nagaoka roller if really filthy before the wet clean process) the threat of cross contamination is negligible. As an example, an almost new record cleaned on the Monks with Nitty Gritty Fluid (without a rinse) sounded noticeably better when cleaned a week or two later with the KAB using RRL Super Vinyl Wash followed with a lab grade water rinse, which is now my standard cleaning procedure. There are two pieces of info to be taken from this in my opinion and they are: 1) that as I said above, the issue of cross contamination if you're using a bit of common sense is negligible and 2) as Mike and I said previously, selection of cleaning fluids and/or cleaning regime is just as important as cleaning hardware.

I am in no way trying to knock the Monks or the Loricraft; my intention is only to make someone new to cleaning vinyl aware of the fact that they can get very high quality cleaning with a bit of effort and a relatively modest financial outlay.