Thanks for solving that mystery for me, gentleman! I had been wondering about that for years. One of the albums I had cleaned on it is the CBS Masterworks' half-speed pressing of Michael Jackson's "Thriller". The horn section on the title track sounds awesome on that LP! I'll have to check out the Stereophile article. Cheers! -jz
Can anyone help identify this LP cleaning machine?
I am in the process of deciding which record cleaning machine to buy but I have a question. Several years ago, I used a machine at a hifi shop in Berkeley that customers could use to clean their albums. It was a heavy-duty commercial type but I do not recall the brand. What made it different from the designs I see for sale at Audio Advisor that use a vacuum "bar" (VPI, NittyGritty, et al), is that after cleaning, for the final drying stage it used a traditional tonearm with a small suction cup tip and a cotton string that would track each groove like a stylus for vacuuming out the cleaning fluid.
The record would spin backwards and you would start at the center of the wet LP and a very light spring tension on the tonearm and the record groove would guide it out while it vacuumed each groove dry.
The records I cleaned on it (they charged $.25 per side) are the quietest in my (modest) collection. Unfortunately, the shop has been gone for many years. Will the "consumer grade" designs work as well?
The record would spin backwards and you would start at the center of the wet LP and a very light spring tension on the tonearm and the record groove would guide it out while it vacuumed each groove dry.
The records I cleaned on it (they charged $.25 per side) are the quietest in my (modest) collection. Unfortunately, the shop has been gone for many years. Will the "consumer grade" designs work as well?