Premium distilled water for ultrasonic record cleaner

I run the ultrasonic record cleaning service Record Genie and use 2 Klaudio machines, plus 2 Audio Desk machines. I also have a VPI 16.5 which is useful for pre-cleaning very heavily soiled or moldy records before doing any ultrasonic cleaning steps.

Audio Desk recommends using only "supermarket" distilled water for some reason, but I was curious about using purer "lab grade" water in the Klaudio machines in the hope of getting even better results. I've always used distilled water from CVS (which is also filtered to 0.5 micron) but just like Whart, I bought some NERL "lab water" from Optics Planet.

I bought 3 grades of NERL of varying cost. The 2 lower grades came in 5-gallon "cubitainers" (LDPE bladder in a cardboard box) at about $8 and $12 per gallon. The top grade came in 6 x 1-pint bottles and was more than twice as expensive. This was back in 2013, and the water had to be delivered to my business address because lab water is (or was) restricted from being delivered to a residence since it is required for certain illegal manufacturing activities!  

I asked some of my customers if they would like to try "lab grade" water, and clearly marked those records as such, running one Klaudio with CVS water, and the other with NERL water. Only one of the half-dozen customers that I worked with on this "testing" expressed a preference for the records cleaned with the more expensive water. I didn't charge anything extra for using the more expensive water.

In scientific terms, I'm sure my "experiment" was seriously flawed due to a tiny sample size if nothing else (only 6 customers) and I've gone back to using CVS distilled water in my Klaudio machines since then as I couldn't really justify the additional expense of the lab water.

One other thing, I use a TDS meter (total dissolved solids) to measure how clean the water is, rather than just using a "fixed interval" of x-records between water changes. It's quick and easy to drain a beaker-full from the Klaudio's drain spout every 10 records or so, and pour it back in afterwards, with the small funnel. A quality meter only costs about $60, so I highly recommend using one to ensure consistent and repeatable results..     

jtimothya,

I tried that link, and it's not working since it's got an extra http:// on the end, so here's the correct one:
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/finding-ultra-pure-water-locally

whart,

Great to see you are actively furthering the cause of cleaner records Bill, and I agree that the "super lab water" in the pint bottles is very expensive for medically related reasons, not really relevant to record cleaning. LOL about your own nuclear plant, but I've recently acquired a RODI (reverse osmosis deionized) water purification system and have been experimenting with it. I use a lot of water, and even just buying the distilled water from CVS adds up! I can recycle the used 5ppm distilled water from my Klaudio machines and turn it into very nice 0ppm RODI water. I haven't used it in the machines yet, only for making up cleaning solutions (L'Art du Son, and a triple-enzyme mold treatment) for my VPI and of course rinsing, but I really should try it out in the Klaudios on some of my own records..

The TDS water meter I use is available from Amazon.com for $60:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VVVEUI?keywords=tds%20meter&qid=1454777636&ref_=sr_1_14...

Anyone who is reading this thread is going in the right direction towards cleaner records, it's good to have these conversations!

For those interested in ultrasonic record cleaning and curious about what the Audio Desk and Klaudio machines can do for YOUR records (either separately, or better yet, when "double-cleaning" with both) then just ask me or get in touch through my website (it's on my profile) to have a few of your own records cleaned. It's affordable for pretty much anyone, and for those who are lucky enough to be looking at buying their own $3-4k machine the first hand experience will help you make a much better informed choice!

Take care,
Dave Burton

lewm:

The thread you've linked to is the "Justin Time water thread" and is mentioned in the thread that jtimothya linked to earlier here. It's excellent technical reading, very detailed, but may not interest those who don't care about the science of it all and just want to know which water to buy and use, and how to use it effectively to achieve the best results..

B.S. or not (and I don't know if it's anything I wrote) surely the bottom line is that anyone who is seriously interested in record cleaning is doing it with the sole aim of achieving better sounding records! It's not like I'm cleaning records just to look at them, I want to play them and hear more music, although I suppose reduced stylus wear might also be a nice bonus consideration if you have an expensive cartridge..

Given that thousands can easily be spent on buying hi-fi equipment, upgrades, and tweaks for a "really good" system (the hardware) it surely makes sense to pay close attention to how best to clean your record collection (the software) and get the best from your investment in both.

Just my 2 cents of course, I spend a lot of time cleaning records!

audiotomb:

If you love records then cleaning them sounds like a fun job right? I do love wearing my Record Genie hat, as otherwise I'm a stay-at-home dad to my three relentlessly energetic youngsters, and music, or music related stuff, is my escape!

Honestly, if I didn't have some kind of part-time business going on I'd probably have gone (completely) nuts by now, although my accountant thinks I'm nuts anyway since I haven't actually make a significant profit with all the equipment expenditure in the last 3 years, so I'm hoping 2016 will be better!

If you're happy with the cleaning and drying times that you've been using, then I can't see any reason to change. It's not a fast process anyway, especially double-cleaning, and I use 5 minutes cleaning and drying to be sure I'm getting the best results possible for customers while I have their records here. It doesn't make sense for me to try to cut any corners when the whole success of what I'm doing is purely based on the results, so I just accept that it takes longer to do it that way. The only way to speed things up would be to add more machines.

I understand about the Klaudio "Silencer" being only a bit bigger than the machine footprint, but I've got my 2 Klaudios slightly angled on one end of a stainless work table (one behind the other) and access would be tricky, especially since I regularly take water samples for TDS testing to ensure quality results.

I think you and your friend with an Audio Desk really should get your machines together - On a decently resolving system, I bet you'll easily hear the difference between cleaning on only one of the machines, and cleaning on both of them. I use the Audio Desk first, and the Klaudio second, but I keep the water very clean in the Klaudio. The CVS distilled I use starts at 0 ppm and I change it out once it exceeds 5ppm. My TDS meter has 0.1ppm resolution.

I keep the inside of the Klaudio tanks clean by using a large clean microfiber cloth, getting into all the corners and making sure it picks up as much dirt as possible. There is a large area of the tank that's not visible from the "access port" on the back, so I push all of the microfiber cloth "around the corner" with chopsticks, then pull it out again, a couple of times, to try and keep that part clean. The metal threads on the access port are razor sharp, so chopsticks are safer than risking your fingers!

How do you keep your Klaudio tank clean?

I've never bought QRP sleeves, although I've replaced plenty with MoFi sleeves on records I've cleaned. They seem to be very similar to MoFi sleeves. I know MoFi had some serious problems in 2012 or 2013 with sleeves that had a powdery residue which left nasty fingerprint marks, and I've cleaned some records "with prints" for one customer that was affected. I was lucky enough to miss those problems in my personal use, and I didn't start ordering sleeves in bulk for the business until later in 2013.

Bill Hart (whart) has a Keith Monks and is definitely a believer in multiple cleaning steps, so maybe you should be experimenting with your Loricraft and Klaudio together, and please do post here about the results of trying "double-cleaning" if you can get your Klaudio and your friend's Audio Desk together for a cleaning and listening session!

One last thing, I have a customer in NYC who asked me in 2014 to do some cleaning for him, to do blind testing. He sent me a couple of 4 record box sets, and I had my wife randomly pick which record would be cleaned by which method, plus one "control" that wasn't cleaned at all. They were assigned "A", "B", "C" and "D" and then cleaned by Audio Desk, Klaudio, both, or none, and returned to the customer. I kept a note of what was what, and he told me what he thought they were after careful listening.. It's unscientific of course, but it was fun, and we did a couple of batches like that. While he couldn't tell the difference between Audio Desk or Klaudio cleanings, he did pick out the ones that were cleaned with both. I'd be more than happy to do this again for another customer if requested! 

Audiotomb:

On the Klaudio machines I normally do a full 5 minutes wash, and 5 minutes dry, to make absolutely sure records are 100% dry before putting them in new sleeves. I use either MoFi or Diskeeper 2.0 sleeves, based on whether I’m single-cleaning or double-cleaning, and customer choice.

I do the same with the Audio Desk machines, a maximum 5 minute wash, and the drying time is fixed at 4 minutes.

I’m doing more double-cleaning than anything else right now, that’s been very popular with customers, and I use the Audio Desk for a 5 minute wash first, and then Klaudio for another 5 minute wash and 5 minute drying. This works out well, since the Audio Desk drying power isn’t nearly as good as Klaudio’s more powerful fan, especially when the "wipers" get worn on the Audio Desk..

Aside from the expense, I don’t have room for the Klaudio "Silencer" boxes (reminds me of when noisy commercial dot-matrix printers went in something similar) since all my equipment is on two 6-foot stainless steel tables, and my old desk. I’ve got 2 Klaudios, 2 Audio Desks, a Furutech DeMag, and VPI 16.5, and a Furutech DF-2 flattener.. So it’s a bit crowded, and all of this shares space in my music room, which I’m lucky to have since it’s a "no-go-zone" (with a baby gate) for my kids 6, 4, and 20 months!

Honestly, all of this equipment is way too noisy, couldn’t these machines have been designed to be quieter, knowing they’d most likely be used in an environment (room) where the owner also wants to listen to music?! The Klaudio and Audio Desk are bad enough, but the worst offender is my VPI 16.5 which I use for pre-cleaning chores when needed. Depending on what customers send me in any given week, I can literally be cleaning for hours at a time, often late into the night after the kids have to gone to bed, so I have worn earplugs at night (when I can’t turn up my system volume) and I now use some Klipsch X7i earphones that fit snugly and offer very good sound isolation.

You’re smart to protect your hearing from prolonged exposure to the audible noise the machines make (without even knowing what the potential effects of the ultrasonics might be) otherwise you may not be able to enjoy the better sound from those super clean records!

lewm:

Absolutely no apology needed for posting an excellent link, all I said was that it was referenced from the other link.. Given my interest, I had seen it before, but have to agree that Justin Time's "water thread" is one of the best threads ever on the subject of pure water for record cleaning, really detailed information!

I feel I should apologize if some of my posts have a commercial tint to them, I'm sure I'm guilty of being over-enthusiastic in wanting everyone to experience how good ultrasonic record cleaning results can be! 

You are lucky to have access to free lab water, and no doubt powerful microscopes so you could look closely at record grooves before and after cleaning! I have a 220x Dinolite USB scope, it's not powerful enough for looking really closely at record groove walls, but can be useful for looking at general cleanliness and seeing skips and damaged lands.

None of my cleaning processes use any alcohol. I know some people use it, and I purchased a bottle of 99.9% pure isopropyl ($18 from Amazon for 2 pints) to experiment with cleaning mixtures (on my own records). Yes it's effective, but there is divided opinion on the long term safety of using cleaners with alcohol on vinyl records, with concerns about how they might affect plasticizers. Ultrasonics are so effective (helped by a mild surfactant in the Audio Desk cleaning solution) that alcohol really isn't needed.

LOL about Recordgenius, my wife came up with the name Record Genie, inspired by our Diaper Genie, and the URL was available, so that was it!

I've still got some of my NERL water left over, so I may go back and do more testing (plus customer evaluation) in the Klaudio cleaners, and let's not forget that audiotomb has 5 gallons of NERL soon to arrive which he will hopefully report on!