MoFi enzyme based cleaner and pure rinse


I must admit, I am a little disappointed given the buzz surrounding enzyme based cleaners. In this first foray into them I have not gotten results that I would call monumental.

Maybe I am doing something wrong. I have found it to reduce some of the noise floor, but not dirty pop/click grunge sounds. I have tried it on about 5 LPs and have found that it is really not working any better than VPI cleaner thus far.

And yes, I do use dedicated brushes for each stage and I clean the vacuum tube of my VPI 16 well after each application.

Opinions?
chashmal
It occurred to me that enzymes might do nothing for certain molecules, even though they might be great for things like mold. Maybe someone has a rec for a step between the enzyme and the rinse?

I have read that MoFi's older products like the 'deep cleaning fluid' leave residue with a sonic signiture. Ooo, no one wants that.
There's others here who certainly have greater knowledge than I, I still feel I'm a relative "greehorn", but I constantly strive to learn more, and more, and bu participating in forums like this one, I feel I have come a long way from as little as the past year, even though I've been spinning vinyl for around 36 years.

With that being said, I do get an impression that many products on the market are sort of "incomplete". As Mo-Fi has now come with this Enzyme Cleaner, I feel "well then, what's the next step after this?" Just a pure rinse, nothing else in between these two steps?

I gather the MFSL Super Deep Cleaner is still marketed.
Then, should that be used after? I believe some do, but reading many other's posts with what they use, and with what order that they use them in, it really has begun to sound like a veritable hodge podge combination of different assorted products, which there's no set in stone regimem-rules?

This is where it can get real confusing! (Ah, the ole "Who's on First, and What's on Second!") lol

And then there's the Steam?

I've concluded (at least for now at the present time) that there should be some order in which specific steps should be used.

I believe two companies like Walker, and AIVS had/have recognized, and concluded this importance of specific, orderly steps, with highly specialized products to achieve the very best results.

I do get a strong impression, that these two singular products in themselves are perhaps not adequate to achive the desired results you wish to achieve, and your final results seem to suggest this.

Others will no doubt chime in with very good advice, but my advice is, I do suggest you perhaps try either AIVS, or Walker products.

I would also like mentioning the obvious, that the cleaners do need time to do what they are designed to do, but I'm sure you probably already know this. Mark
I got some good advice from a guy named Roger at Music Direct, who suggested I try MoFi when I started listening to vinyl again last year.

On Lps with dirty pop/click grunge, I use the MoFi Super Deep Cleaning fluid. I also use a MoFi brush. I get the fluid on and spread it around, then I use a gentle scrubbing motion for about 30 seconds. (Roger didn't mention the scrubbing--I decided to try this after I found I wasn't seeming to have enough success without scrubbing, and I saw some suggestion somewhere that scrubbing helped, and let me emphasize -- GENTLE SCRUBBING ON PROBLEMATIC RECORDS REALLY WORKS.) Then I walk away for about 2 minutes, then come back with the brush for 30 more seconds or so, then vacuum it off. (I use a VPI 16.5)

After that, I do a simple and quick "rinse" with the Super Record Wash, vacuum it off, and I'm done.

Does that work 100% every time? Nope. There are some records that I haven't been able to fix. I'd be inclined to try an alcohol-based cleaner for those (whether it's viewed as a no-no or not--once isn't going to kill a record, in my view), however, I haven't looked hard enough to find one. (I think VPI cleaner used to have alcohol in it, but I really don't know.)

I've read darn near every long post on Audiogon on record cleaning fluids (which are exhaustive and exhausting), and I do not recall ever having heard that MoFi fluids leave a residue. And, frankly, if they do, and that's why the records sound so fine after a good cleaning, then I'll take the residue.

One note of caution. I think I even did a post about whether scrubbing is potentially damaging to records...but I'm past 50 and don't remember everything... I suppose there is some theoretical danger to gentle scrubbing, but if you're having a problem getting a dirty record cleaned, I think it's worth the trade-off, risk-wise, and out of the 100 or so records I've cleaned with scrubbing, I don't think I made any of them worse-off. But you've got to be GENTLE.
Yes Eweedhorme, I have heard this too. The enzyme based cleaner and pure rinse were supposed to be a departure from all this. That was what had disappointed me, and it doesn't really work all that better than the cheap VPI stuff.