Vinyl foibles

@billstevenson 

"I feel a little bit foolish to be constantly repeating myself, but setting all the armchair theorizing aside it has been my experience that there is a solution for the static on records problem and it works quite effectively when used as directed.  Furutech Destat III." 

The Frutech Destat III is over $300. I guess if I were to spend that much money I'd want it to affect the sound of my system. It seems as though static doesn't. If I were going to spend $300, I'd probably invest in better interconnects from my phono to preamp.

I remember the days in the 60s and 70s when record manufactures recommended cleaning a record with a barely damp cloth. EMI even recommended using their “EMI-tex” velvet (dry) cloth” to remove dust off the record. 
Both are way out of date ideas in my opinion. A barely damp cloth and permeable dirt would soften and get pushed into the groove. A dry cloth will just increase static and attract more dust. 
 

Hi-fi has come a long way now, and the idea mentioned earlier (in a post) of spaying distilled water onto corduroy, and applying it to the surface of an LP is nightmare stuff to me. I know the idea was a genuine believed honest comment, and l am not intending to victimise the poster on his opinion. 

Am l wrong ?

Is applying water (other than using a professional record cleaner) to the record surface bad practice?

Distilled water in my SpinClean and my ultrasonic cleaner. 

Is applying water (other than using a professional record cleaner) to the record surface bad practice?

@noromance ”Distilled water (is) in my SpinClean and my ultrasonic cleaner”

I would expected that. Not an answer to what l asked. 
 

“If applying water (other than using a professional record cleaner) to a record surface bad practice?
 

You made no reference to using distilled water in conjunction with applying it to the record surface using a corduroy material. Plus the usual every day practice of the original poster doing this each time a record is played.

l don’t want to rub it in, but surly using a cloth with distilled water just moves most of the dirt and dust around.

The Degritter is excellent, but on the expensive side. I've had mine since 2021 and it's a workhorse. But it does take at least five minutes, up to ten minutes. Generally when I wash a record it stays clean for a long time and when it picks up ticks they can be taken off with a second run through the Degritter.

I put a removable sticker on the record jacket with the date I've cleaned the record. If I see several stickers applied within a short period of time that means the noises on the records can't be removed. If it's a favorite record, I'll look for another in mint condition.

I think we all need to be careful of buying reissues beause a lot of them have been digitized. I recently bought a reissue of Wayne Shorter's "See No Evil" because it had been mastered by the original audio tape. The same with Joni Mitchell's Hijiera. But before I knew that some vinyl had been digitized,  I had purchased so many digitized records. 

I know a lot of people distrust chatgbt but it has become very helpful to me as an audiophile. When I ask about a particular album it immediately knows the whole history and which dates of release sound good and which don't.