How often do you folks vacuum clean your albums?

Dear Tom: It seems tome a good idea but remember that micro-dust it will be always present through the inside plastic " box " that hold the record. It is almost impossible to avoid record micro-contamination and I'm not of the idea to clean often the LP that could suffer some kind of damage through those often clean times.

I think that other that that first time to clean it we have to make a clean machine way only when we think it need it: because some ind of distortions, noises or any other thing that are not normal.

What Swamwalker post will be interesting to see it specially if we can/could see it through 3-4 different kind of music records and through 3-4 different kind/shape stylus cartridges.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Since this appears to be a serious discussion, I would like asking about the Vinyl media-material itself, and if it is then true, that Vinyl over time leeches oils to its surface, thus requiring at some point in the future cleaning again, regardless of even being played?

I have been told by somebody more knowledgeable than I that one cause of mold contaminants on LP's is due to these oils.

This of course is something all together different than what's being discussed, such as "microdust" caused by the Stylus from successive plays, or just plain recontamination from dust-mishandling, etc. Mark

Hmm... I have to clean a record first before I put it on a VPI machine? I would have hoped the VPI machine could do all the cleaning for me, considering how much it costs!

Anyway, I rarely buy LP's in such condition that they would be in need of a vacuum cleaner, but if I did it would be only once.

>>I would have hoped the VPI machine could do all the cleaning for me, considering how much it costs!<<

Don't confuse convenience with performance.

Even the overpriced Monks and Loricraft machines can't do the job as well as manual cleaning.

My collection is testimony to that.

I do manual cleaning of my LP's, with the assistance of the VPI 16.5. It's just there to rotate and vacuum for me. AI's three step proccess with seperate brushes and nozzles for each step. The results are pretty amazing. Yes, a RCM is a costly investment (not nearly as much as the turntables many have here) but I consider it safer then try to use towels, a sink, and a dishdrainer.

A_L