Before this thread gets yanked, I'm going to jump in on Paul's defense concerning the questions posed by 4Yanx on knowing vinyl compositions and measuring affects on plasticizers;
It is impossible to know all the plasticisers present in records as well as the base polymer blends. We are talking about formulating cleaners that will be used on vinyl records made over the last 50 - 60 years. There have been numerous reformulations and this doesn't take into account the affect of recycling of rejects. Manufacturers do not reveal what they use in their "vinyl" compositions except when they choose to patent the formulation. Even when they patent the formulation, the patent makes wide ranging claims on what polymers and plasticizers could be present. It is also impossible for Paul or anybody to track down a sufficient number of current and former vinyl record manufacturing employees to do interviews to find out what was in a sufficient range of vinyl compositions. Even if Paul could get ahold of these people, very few would remember the formulas exactly unless they wrote down/stole manufacturing documents. Furthermore, it is financially impossible for Paul to go to the effort of having all the variations of vinyl records submitted to a testing lab to break down the formulas. Trying to deformulate polymer blends is brutal. Let's assume that Paul could get samples of all relevant vinyl compositions and submit them to a laboratory for chemical analysis. Such testing would easily blow past $10,000 and very likely would exceed $100,000 due to the number of samples. The cost could even be considerably higher since I haven't consulted any laboratories on what it would cost to answer such a question on a per vinyl formulation basis. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Mass Spectroscopy (MS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) testing is not cheap; often ~ $300/hour or more.
I guarantee you that none of the current cleaning formulations and record treatment products currently sold on the market were tested on every permutation of vinyl composition made over the last 50 - 60 years. I've read the U.S. Patents on Discwasher, GruvGlide, and Last Record Preservative and they definitely didn't test everything in sight. They tested a few select records until they were convinced that they could proceed to beta testing, reformulate if necessary after beta testing, then commercialized. If they had to do exhaustive testing to prove their cleaner was safe on everything, the product would never make it to market because they would be bankrupt and it would take decades unless they had a large laboratory support staff. The record playing industry is too small to make enough money to fund the kind of research to answer these questions and still be profitable at selling record cleaning formulas.
I could go on-and-on about all the permutations someone would have to go through to answer the questions about product safety.
The bottom line is that LP record cleaning formulas are formulated in similar fashion to glass cleaners. The total non-volatile solids level has to be low to minimize residue that will show up sonically on records (analogous to minimizing streaking on glass). The sonic signature part is also dealt with by finding the surfactants that have the least inherent noise. I have often wondered that when current record cleaning formula vendors talk about their formulas having low inherent sonic signature, are they confusing this with the surfactants ability to quench static charge and its efficacy on removing soil. After finding the correct surfactants and keeping them at a low concentration, all you are left with is using sufficiently high purity water and possibly blending with ethyl or isopropyl alcohol. The alcohol content shouldn't be run too high because of flammability issues. Alcohols probably can leach some plasticizer as well as the surfactants but it will likely be very minimal because the cleaner ingredients cannot penetrate into the polymer network.
Let's get real for a minute here. If we are so worried about the potential to leach a trace amount of plasticizer from a record's surface, why are we even playing the records to begin with. The wear and tear of playing the record is far worse than what will happen with Paul's cleaning formulas (well, I can't vouch for Shellac or nitrocellulose-based records).
Mr. Kidknow
Note: I am a chemist who formulates water and solvent-based cleaners for aerospace and occasionally janitorial/sanitation applications.
I know Paul and have discussed record cleaning formulation ideas in the past. I don't know if his test formulas incorporate some of my ideas/suggestions but it is OK with me if he has done so in his latest cleaner formulas.
It is impossible to know all the plasticisers present in records as well as the base polymer blends. We are talking about formulating cleaners that will be used on vinyl records made over the last 50 - 60 years. There have been numerous reformulations and this doesn't take into account the affect of recycling of rejects. Manufacturers do not reveal what they use in their "vinyl" compositions except when they choose to patent the formulation. Even when they patent the formulation, the patent makes wide ranging claims on what polymers and plasticizers could be present. It is also impossible for Paul or anybody to track down a sufficient number of current and former vinyl record manufacturing employees to do interviews to find out what was in a sufficient range of vinyl compositions. Even if Paul could get ahold of these people, very few would remember the formulas exactly unless they wrote down/stole manufacturing documents. Furthermore, it is financially impossible for Paul to go to the effort of having all the variations of vinyl records submitted to a testing lab to break down the formulas. Trying to deformulate polymer blends is brutal. Let's assume that Paul could get samples of all relevant vinyl compositions and submit them to a laboratory for chemical analysis. Such testing would easily blow past $10,000 and very likely would exceed $100,000 due to the number of samples. The cost could even be considerably higher since I haven't consulted any laboratories on what it would cost to answer such a question on a per vinyl formulation basis. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Mass Spectroscopy (MS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) testing is not cheap; often ~ $300/hour or more.
I guarantee you that none of the current cleaning formulations and record treatment products currently sold on the market were tested on every permutation of vinyl composition made over the last 50 - 60 years. I've read the U.S. Patents on Discwasher, GruvGlide, and Last Record Preservative and they definitely didn't test everything in sight. They tested a few select records until they were convinced that they could proceed to beta testing, reformulate if necessary after beta testing, then commercialized. If they had to do exhaustive testing to prove their cleaner was safe on everything, the product would never make it to market because they would be bankrupt and it would take decades unless they had a large laboratory support staff. The record playing industry is too small to make enough money to fund the kind of research to answer these questions and still be profitable at selling record cleaning formulas.
I could go on-and-on about all the permutations someone would have to go through to answer the questions about product safety.
The bottom line is that LP record cleaning formulas are formulated in similar fashion to glass cleaners. The total non-volatile solids level has to be low to minimize residue that will show up sonically on records (analogous to minimizing streaking on glass). The sonic signature part is also dealt with by finding the surfactants that have the least inherent noise. I have often wondered that when current record cleaning formula vendors talk about their formulas having low inherent sonic signature, are they confusing this with the surfactants ability to quench static charge and its efficacy on removing soil. After finding the correct surfactants and keeping them at a low concentration, all you are left with is using sufficiently high purity water and possibly blending with ethyl or isopropyl alcohol. The alcohol content shouldn't be run too high because of flammability issues. Alcohols probably can leach some plasticizer as well as the surfactants but it will likely be very minimal because the cleaner ingredients cannot penetrate into the polymer network.
Let's get real for a minute here. If we are so worried about the potential to leach a trace amount of plasticizer from a record's surface, why are we even playing the records to begin with. The wear and tear of playing the record is far worse than what will happen with Paul's cleaning formulas (well, I can't vouch for Shellac or nitrocellulose-based records).
Mr. Kidknow
Note: I am a chemist who formulates water and solvent-based cleaners for aerospace and occasionally janitorial/sanitation applications.
I know Paul and have discussed record cleaning formulation ideas in the past. I don't know if his test formulas incorporate some of my ideas/suggestions but it is OK with me if he has done so in his latest cleaner formulas.