Steam cleaning records 2

Axelwahl i should not have made that statement. What you mention above as a reason is not where i was going with what i said. It was meant for Crem and his harsh reply to Kipdent. And in truth its not my business and my apologies to you Crem.

I dont have a problem with my method of cleaning lps. My vinyl cleaned this way compared to all other methods i've used in this new age of vinyl playback is what drives me to proclaim the advantages of steaming vinyl records.

Of all of the posts here there have been some who would rather use other methods to get the best playback and i say great. We would not improve if descent and negative response were not included in a topic of doing something, like steam cleaning vinyl.

Like i said if steaming is not for you great i'm happy if you are.

dont sweat the small stuff and enjoy your music
Mike

Stltrains--thank you for the clarification! I was scratching my head until your last post, especially since I had already apologized to Crem1 after reading his reaction! I agree to each his own about the best way to clean records, and I thank everyone for the learning experience this thread has afforded me. I listen almost exclusively to vinyl as I can barely tolerate digital formats, and I just was trying to share my personal experiences with this technique--that's all.

By the way, does anyone want to pipe in about my question regarding NOT cleaning new vinyl at all as a choice to minimize noise? Any opinions or experiences?

Hi Kipdent
I'm so pleased all seems back on track. The social responsibility to rationality prevailed :-)
As to:
>>> does anyone want to pipe in about my question regarding NOT cleaning new vinyl at all as a choice to minimize noise? Any opinions or experiences? <<<

I'll have a mixed report, and I am still not entirely clear what causes the much different result, but I will share my suspicion.

I had more recently bought some new 'Classic Records' at the RMAF. I did the cleaning after I had first listened to them. They sounded very 'smooth' , in fact too smooth, violins had not proper 'grip' (no rosin on the bow etc.) So I went and clean them (I use a Hannl MERS as mentioned earlier). After cleaning I got a shock, the start wax was noisy, there were some more ticks and groove noise about the first 1/4 groove area, plus I could here some ticks that are clearly scratch related. Hells Bells! I had cleaned about 3 and stopped in a panic.
had some long discourse with Günter Hannl in Germany about cleaning fluid, his cleaner etc. no explanation evolved.

It is but a few day ago, that I decided to give it another try and cleaned some more LPs of that batch I had purchased at the RMAF. AND, you go explain it they sounded clearly better than what happened to the first few that had caused my panic. (Not funny to ‘destroy’ 30 pop a piece, I say).

The batch I had cleaned just now has been played some, but not a lot ---- again they sounded lacking in definition, dynamics. I’m sure you know what I mean. After cleaning there was more THERENESS there, no ticks, no added groove noise.

My suspicion? It is pretty well documented but now that Classic had press-plant problems some time ago. In fact it was reported to be related to the ‘lip-less’ mould process. Apparently the lip at the start groove helps with the proper (easier) mould sealing. If there is non like Classic’s process, if things go wrong some vinyl can ‘bleed’ in to the start groove area. To make matters worse, I understand, some less ‘trained’ operators did either cause some mishandling (small, and not quite so small, scratches) and/or did not sort out the minor damaged items for recycle.

So, in conclusion and taking the above into account (Classic is reported to have fixed their production problems) cleaning new record most certainly does improve play-back quality YMMV.

Lastly, I do get NOS records once in a while. The softener of the inner sleeves always has bled out and produced a kind of sticky, creased, patchy looking pattern on the vinyl. It sounds really horrible and one wash will take it off (usually) and that NOS record looks like fresh out of the press.

Greetings,
Axel