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Rushton's DIY approach to ultrasonic record cleaning published by Positive Feedback

Over the past several months I’ve invested a fair amount of time exploring ultrasonic cleaning because I’ve fallen way too far behind in my record cleaning. With over 6000 LPs, I needed a faster way to clean than my trusted multi-step manual wet/vac cleaning process. That manual process got the best results I’ve ever found, but I was not keeping up with my collection and it is just painful to me to play a record that I’ve not cleaned.

In exploring ultrasonic cleaning, my hope was to find that I could complete multiple LPs in a single US cleaning cycle and greatly speed up my rate of cleaning records. My goals were to FIRST do no harm and then SECOND see how close I could get to the results of my manual cleaning regimen.

My past experiences with ultrasonic cleaning demonstrations were completely underwhelming. What I heard did not approach the excellence I was achieving with my multi-step wet/vac cleaning regimen.

What I’ve learned, and now apply in my new ultrasonic cleaning regimen, are multiple elements to the cleaning process that must be used in combination to achieve the best possible results. And these results have far exceeded my expectations.

I’d thought of posting here on Audiogon the summary of what I’ve learned and am now applying as my new record cleaning regimen, but the inability to post images and to apply formatting here caused me to send my summary to David Robinson at Positive Feedback who has graciously published my comments as a guest essay. Please read that essay, and then come back here to Audiogon with comments and to share your experiences:

http://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/rushton-paul-diy-approach-ultrasonic-cleaning-lps/


I look forward to some further discussion and sharing of experiences.

.


128x128rushton
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,445 posts
 
astrog58go: What I have found that kind of keeps me going... even when I think I have had something... some little piece of useful info to share...then, only to have one or even no response, can be deflating.
astrog58go and slaw, it is kind of you both to comment. All any of us can do is offer the information, whether on this current topic, our experiences with different turntables, our experiences with different configurations of gear, of tweaks, of room treatment, of household wiring, etc. etc. As you say, it is nice when others add to the discussion or at least acknowledge. But, when I look at the number of views a given post has obtained, that often will be very gratifying.

For example, a review I posted 12 years ago on the Walker Audio Proscenium turntable has received over 250,000 views but only 40 comments. Was this contribution useful or interesting to the community? My guess is "Yes", and so I will keep contributing where I have an interest in something.

Hopefully the information on diy solutions for ultrasonic cleaning will find some resonance among members of the community even though the discussion here is somewhat limited.
astro58go
542 posts
 
Rushton,

Thanks for your response!

Interesting enough, my "following" count before my last post to this thread was 31, it has now, in the last hour, decreased by 2.

I was just trying to support your effort.

Coincidence, I think so.

Cheers!
rushton's avatar
rushton OP
2,445 posts
 
And I appreciate the support on this topic, astro58go! I think cleaning records well is one of the most important things we can do to enhance our enjoyment of vinyl.

My wife came into our listening room earlier this morning as I was playing something and asked "Has this record been cleaned with the new ultrasonic regimen?" When I said yes, she said "I thought so. It sounds wonderful. You need to keep going with your cleaning. It beats the pants off what you were doing before with your other RCM process. This is like having a new piece of equipment in the system."
slaw's avatar
slaw
20,403 posts
 
astro58go,

Some people "want you on that wall", "some people need you on that wall".

The problem is, those same people don't want to be the one to do the job.

Keep on, keeping on!
slaw's avatar
slaw
20,403 posts
 
... by the way, my "following # went down significantly as well.

Do I care?.. Hell no!
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