Proper Use of Record Research Lab Cleaners

First, as an aside to Doug: As a writer and sometime English professor, I loved your post regarding the wording of the RRL instructions--one of my favorite yet on Audiogon. Nice to see that some folks here pay attention to language as well as to our systems!

I've been following the various cleaning threads in this forum for some time. The 16.5 I bought used 5 months ago came with some DD brushes and fluids; I've been using both by default, and rinsing with the dreaded grocery-store distilled water (in fact, I've tended to do anywhere from 3-5 rinse passes, since after the first two rinses I'm often still lifting suds with the vacuum tube). I've noticed that sometimes all my cleaning and rinsing has really improved the surface noise of certain LPs, but other times hasn't done much with others. (Recently I even made some pre- and post-cleaning recordings on CD-R to see what kinds of surface noise improvements I was getting.) So I think I'll be trying some RRL fluids soon too.

I came into this hobby via the software route, and was at first suspicious about cleaning LPs with a vacuum machine; the 16.5 and my own odd method have already turned me into a believer. If the RRL fluids are as big an improvement over others as David suggests, I think I'm in for a real treat (now I just need to upgrade my entire analog front-end!).

Joshua

Joshua,

Thanks for kind words! ;)

Perhaps Audiogon should open a language forum. After all, spoken or written language is just another transducer. Language converts my mental energy patterns into a physical medium for transportation to you, for conversion back into your mental energy patterns. I wonder if we're wired as MM or MC?

David's not the only experienced user who recommends the RRL fluids. Albert Porter is another. Very few of us would question his LP playback methods, and even fewer of us should. By all means give the RRL stuff a try.

Ha! Doug is correct. I am not even the only one in my house that uses the RR fluids. My son, a recent convert to vinyl, is now stealing mine to clean some of his new acquisitions!

I will place a qualifier with respect to the LAST brushes. Some will say that they feel the LAST brushes do not have sufficient "nap" to reach the bottom of the grooves to scrub out gunk. Many of these folks use the carbon fiber brushes or similar. As always I respect the , "whatever works theory". I use them mainly because they are effective for me and relatively inexpensive, especially if one gets gunked by accident and I feel it should be pitched.

Without going into boring detail of my admittedly anal regimen for cleaning, which is posted elsewhere, I will only say that I think it obviates the need for other brushes. Unless an LP is new or is less than moderately soiled, I give it a good cleaning at the sink first. This step allows deep cleaning of the grooves and, as such, the LAST brushes are always sufficient for me when using the VPI.

However, the actual brushes used (unless they could scratch) are less important than a good, clean, effective, no-signature fluid. RR is that for me.

As for Albert, my front end pales in comparison, and he bows to very few. But, I'll wager my records are just as clean! :-)

David