VINYL SURFACE NOISE

the record dr. IS a nitty gritty, which i know by experience, isnt that good. im going to splurge th $400 on the less expensive one. the fan blades on my rdII came off and tghe whole thing is put together with hot glue. such crap. anyway, i dont think that is your problem. you havent revealed you speakers and electronics; im sure theyre fine if you were smooth enuf to buy rega. if the rega was used, are the bearings properly adjusted. i know they dont go out of adj as often as a grace arm but its a thought. tweeter level could also be a problem. my ohter thought is vta. difficult to adj on rega but dont they supply shims? you could use wedges between the cart and shell. if you cant find the plastic ones that used to be avail, try making them out of balsa. i have recently seen where someone makes a commercially avail vta adjuster for rega for reasonable, ill try to find where i saw that. search al the rega posts on this site. dont bother with LAST, you wont after you buy it. too much of a pain like cd stoplight ti do every disc. yes, im from outer space where we can actually hear the cd stoplight difference, and cables too. am i wierd or wut? if you have a normal record collection, or a very large one, only a small fraction can be "audiophile" and at that , many times the selections avail on those labels arent what youd wanna listen too. windham hill is audiophile qual and who can stand geo winston imitate keith jarrett for more than one side? the truth is most record are not bad and actually pretty good. forgetr retutrnig copies, youre lucky to find vinyl to begin with. if i got a bad copy of say tom waits mulle variations, i wouldnt give up the vinyl until a replacement came..chances are they will be depleted before you get a replacement. if it tuirned to be that horrible, then you would have to settle for polycarbonate. another item to comnsider is that some import labels reduce noise by EQing it out. yes, some imports are better, the japanese ones ususally are. the self titled "Osamu" is an example. this is before mr kitajima actually rolled over into the genre he was grouped into: NEW AGE. its his best if you can find it. minnie ripperton vocalizes on it, soooo beautiful. it was cutting edge when it came out. theis was way before new age existed as a category. he deteriorated into that style a few albums down the road. keep the zereostat if you have it and USE it to kill the 50kv charge excited upon lifting the black thing off yur rega. the static draws sust and dirt particles right into the grooves wher the stylus hammers it into the vinyl at 40,000#/sq.in. zero or milty every record right as you remove it from the platter while groundingt your had (i sue my little finger) to the spindle so the static has a pathway to drain. hope you get to the bottom of this, vinyl is so much better sounding than 44.1.

If you have not used Record Research fluid to clean your LP's, you are in for a treat. I have tried all the fluids, and it is by far the best. As far as noise, all the comments are correct. You should not have that much problem with good, clean LP's. Most of my LP's, even the ones that are 40 years old are fairly quiet, provided they have not been abused. I use a Zerostat after cleaning with my VPI 17F. I did own the Nitty Gritty machine, and got rid of it. The VPI is almost as much better than the Nitty Gritty as the Nitty Gritty was to not using anything at all. By the way, the Last treatment works well, especially if you wash again after treatment. The effect has already taken place, so washing does not remove it. However, the Last gets UNDER some of the crap, and then it washes away on the second cleaning. Again, the Record Research cleaner, including the stylus cleaner is quite a shock after using the Toromat and Nitty Gritty fluids.

Albert: What do you think the difference is in the formula, between VPI's cleaning fluid and RRL's?

albert.....i never considered washing after last but it sounds logical. most of these things are so damn expensive, that ists nearly not worth using more than dawn+water. the parastat and vpi brushes are a real necessity imho. too bad preeners arent avail any more, not as the only brush but you can tell if there is really any fine dust that needs to be washed off. an aq or equiv is also handy properly used. forget about the fibers getting in the grooves as one responder mentioned. i think youd have ot work fairly hard to accomplish that; sounded like speculation to me. nothing like experience, eh? wish i ahdntg given away the last now, but it probably would have dried up by now. their little stylus brush isnt bad although i prefer the real estate on the discwasher stylus brush. my friend and i have found that very dilute dawn in distilled water is about the best and safest on styluses, alcohol could damage the suspensions. keeping the dawn water fresh is a key too.

I thought the key was distilled water. Still wainting to hear about the RRL solution. About the AQ carbon fibre brush: I've decided not to use mine very often anymore, since I tried it on a blank side (reverse of 12" 45 rpm reissue), and could see fine circumferal scratches when held to the light, that were NOT there right before I used the brush. I used only very light pressure. I saw no loose bristles, of course. I'll try to get one of the horsehair ones. I think applying Gruv Glide every third or fourth play is better than applying Last record preservative, and then washing again to get the residue off. I don't think a multitude of machine washings for compulsive's sake is the way to go, either. Just my grumble opinion.