@fjn04 - distilled as a rinse is fine. I use reagent grade 1, but I’m a bit anal. The folks at the Culpeper facility (the intake archive for the Library of Congress) told me in an interview that deionized water is sufficient for a rinse.
@cleeds - I like the KL. But as mentioned elsewhere in some of the DIY threads, using a surfactant (which is inappropriate in the KL) with temp adjustment, degassing the water, etc. can enhance cavitation.Along with a recirculation pump and filter to keep the bath clean. More work, since you have to rinse rather than forced air dry, but my experience with challenged records is that I get better results from pre-clean on the Monks, including rinse, then US, then final rinse on the Monks using reagent water and vacuum rather than forced air to suck up any remaining contaminant. Lot more work. Probably unnecessary for new or pristine records, but I’ve been buying a lot of stuff from the late ’60s and early ’70s- proto-metal, early prog obscurities, just straight up hard rock, and despite the high grading, many of those records need help. I don’t go through this more involved process with every record, but it’s good to do when the old pressing is hard to find or rare, and has some grunge.
@stringreen I do think with conventional record cleaning, you need a surfactant, but I’ve never tried just water alone and am simply restating a "truth" that I’ve never tested. The trick in my estimation is to find a fluid you like and to be able to remove it from the record once it has done its job. I use different fluids depending on the condition of the record. Less may be more though.
