Record Cleaning Machine Fluid

Audiofeil,

"Dirt" and its removal are not as simplistic as you seem to believe. Read Oilmanjo's post, for starters.

I regularly promote the world's cheapest and most effective DIY stylus cleaner. An audiophile I am, but gullible? Try again my friend...

Psychicanimal,
I've owned a Groovmaster for years and it works well. Unfortunately, our public water supply is less pure than yours. It frequently contains deposits that ruin records so I dare not use it as you plan to.

The surface tension of RRL makes it easy to remove from the record. That is not marketing-speak. It is my real world, everyday experience. If you think that's 'crap', that's your business.

If you prefer to DIY I don't question your judgement. I don't have the time or inclination to become a home chemist, so I'm willing to pay for an effective product. If you make something better and sell it for less I'll buy it - unless you try to convince me with marketing crap. ;-)

"My experience is that AIVS went too far. Its rinsability is clearly inferior to RRL's. It left audible residue that took multiple rinse/vac cycles to remove. That is why I bring it out for hardship case LP's only. In our experience RRL (+ Vinyl Zyme) is the better performing product. YMMV of course, but I didn't want anyone believing that "beading up" is a downside with RRL. It's not. It's a carefully selected design feature."

1. It is my understanding, Doug, that your experience with AI was limited to the beta testing period, and the formulas have been greatly refined and improved since then. I believe we talked about this a few months ago.

2. Out of all the audiophiles who have used AI, only three ever complained of difficulty in rinsing it. When M. Fremer did his shoot-out, he personally called me and said AI could remove grunge and things no other product could, and that he detected NO sonic signature at all.

Also, Jim Pendleton and his company Osage Audio recently became the sole distributor for the AI products. As part of his due diligence, Jim had an experienced chem lab check the LPs after they had been cleaned using the AI three-step process. The chem lab found NO residue.

3. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to claim that a water-based product's beading-up is a "carefully selected design feature" because beading-up is a natural property of water that contains no surfactant. It's like saying that canned air has oxygen as a carefully selected design feature.

Almost all water-based cleaners employ a surfactant so the product doesn't just sit on the surface of the thing being cleaned. A cleaner using water's natural surface tension cannot easily be forced to enter tight spaces, such as a groove on a vinyl album. How much of a vertical distance is there from the surface of a record to the bottom of its grooves? 1/32 inch? Less? If your RCM can remove liquid on the surface of a record, but cannot suck it out of the grooves, the RCM suffers from an astouding lack of suction power, and surely then the results are RCM-dependent.

Psychicanimal ... you know more about water quality than just about anyone here, so I assume your reference to soap was just a slip of the tongue. There is no soap in any AI product.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

Best regards to all,
Paul Frumkin

Solubilization of salts, proteins, nucleic acids, fatty acids, and the resuspension of inorganic micro and nanoparticles, as a chemical action on vinyl, requires that a surfactant be used to reduce surface tension to enable removal. The amount should be such that it leaves minimal residue. It's a tradeoff function, there is no free ride and none of this is rocket science. I happen to like RR fluids because I think the deigner hit the correct balance that does the job well. I have never been disappointed by the cleaning ability of these products nor have I ever noticed residue build up on my styli after playing.

1. It is my understanding, Doug, that your experience with AI was limited to the beta testing period, and the formulas have been greatly refined and improved since then. I believe we talked about this a few months ago.

Your understanding is incomplete, Paul. You sent me two lots of AI, one from the beta test and a new one several months later - after we discussed the foaming and rinse-ability issues. Both lots behaved essentially the same way.

If the formula was changed a THIRD time you never told me and I admit I haven't tried it. Are you putting version numbers on the bottles? ;-)

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2. Out of all the audiophiles who have used AI, only three ever complained of difficulty in rinsing it.

It's good to see you admitting the problem. Out of all the audiophiles who have used RRL, exactly zero have ever complained of difficulty in rinsing it. :-)

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When M. Fremer did his shoot-out, he personally called me and said AI could remove grunge and things no other product could, and that he detected NO sonic signature at all.

So what? I called you and told you about problems. Do you only give credence to those who offer news you want to hear? If Fremer had a different experience that's okay with me, but it doesn't change mine.

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Also, Jim Pendleton and his company Osage Audio recently became the sole distributor for the AI products. As part of his due diligence, Jim had an experienced chem lab check the LPs after they had been cleaned using the AI three-step process. The chem lab found NO residue.

Again, so what? A lab test doesn't change my experience either. When a cleaning fluid twice leaves foam on my brushes (even the rinsing brush), I don't need a lab test to know there's a residue.

BTW, why wasn't this chem lab testing done BEFORE the product was offered to the public.

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3. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to claim that a water-based product's beading-up is a "carefully selected design feature" because beading-up is a natural property of water that contains no surfactant. It's like saying that canned air has oxygen as a carefully selected design feature.

If the canned air contains a non-naturally-occuring percentage of oxygen, or a cleaning fluid has a surface tension different from pure water, then it IS a design feature.

The designer of a cleaning fluid should seek to achieve an effective balance between cleaning ability and rinse-ability. More surfactants increase the former but impair the latter. Maximum effectiveness requires a balance, which requires the right mix of water and cleaning agents.

The designer of the fluids I prefer did that analysis, using a chemist's understanding of chemistry. You didn't do that analysis, presumably because you have a only lawyer's understanding of chemistry. You relied on beta testers, which is fine, but at least three of whom (by your own account) are not satisfied with the results. I'm one of them.

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Regarding RCM's: my Loricraft gets a record completely dry in one pass. Every single time. Does your VPI do that? Spare us the red herrings.

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Paul, a large number of users are very happy with AIVS. What are you seeking? A monopoly? That is very short-sighted of you. I tried your product. Twice. I didn't like it as well as a competitor's product. Twice. Suck it up and move on.

Doug

stevecham, great post. Bottomline the customer is pleased with the product results. Results usually win out over hype in the longrun!