What Vinyl quality should I be using?

Dcstep, I just went through the process of cleaning just about every one of my 2,000 albums (stored for the past 20 years or so) with Disc Doctor cleaning system. Yes, the cleaning with carbon fiber brush, zerostat, micro fiber cloth, the whole deal. While the albums were much cleaner, I was still not completely happy, too much surface noise. Recently I purchased a VPI 16.5, only then did I learn how dirty these records remained after the previous cleaning. Much quieter, lower noise floor adds up to increased resolution. Any cleaning without vacuuming leaves a residue which you will hear. Vacuuming is absolutely necessary!

dave is right....i have records that i've owned since the seventies...still clean, quiet and visually mint. labels are perfect, and they've never seen a cleaning machine.

Sns, I don't want you washing my dishes... ;-) Did you remember to rinse? LOL

Good lord, I'm sorry to hear that you cleaned 2000 records and didn't realize that you weren't getting them clean? Too bad my mother wasn't there to inspect for you.

Ok everyone, it IS absolutely imparative that you rinse with distilled water and the DD rinsing brush AND clean the brush EVERY TIME.

Dave

I DIDNT EVEN READ THIS THREAD. IT IS THE RECORDING ENGINEERS AND SO FORTH THAT MAKE IT IMPORTANT. If it is done rite (look to Madonna; Immaculate Collection) DONE RITE and it is standard vinyl. They should start firing like the automotive company's are.

Roger Busby

Come on, I'm not dumb enough not to have rinsed with distilled water. There is still residue left on those records, I hear and see it after each play.
Have you guys even tried a rcm with vacuum? The vacuum simply cleans off that remaining residue better than rinsing. Now for high pressure rinsing, I might go for that.

I could also make an analogy to the automatic car wash. Would you rather have your car dried with the vacuums or clean rags, I choose the vacuum. No matter how clean those rags are they pick up some of the remaining residue and drag that around. Again, I hear a quieter surface with vacuum cleaning.