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?
Vinyl foibles
I'd like to make this a space to ask questions about vinyl problems you're having trouble solving. I have a lot of questions, but I think it's better if we ask one at a time, or else I think we could have long lists.
Here is my first question. I have a Degritter album washer. I think it works great. I wash all my albums once, but not before I play them again and again. Somehow, though, and this includes new albums no one else has ever touched, they pick up ticks and what sounds like scratches. I rewash the album and it sounds like new again. I only touch albums by their edges. How do inner bands become so dirty that sometimes a smudge can last a minute or more? I've been playing vinyl albums for more years than many of you have lived, and I have learned to be very careful with vinyl. Are there vinyl gremlins haunting my album shelves?
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@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. |
@mylogic It wasn’t clear to me if the final paragraph was contingent on what went before. Apologies. Nevertheless, the SpinClean does use pads which rub against the record. |
As you say, if it has pads, the dirt and grime would mostly accumulate in the bottom of the reservoir of water afterwards, not remain on the pads. l have casually observed some really bad practices in some record shops where the owners have cleaned many records, using a spray and cloth, or tea towel. To the uneducated this may look fine, but unless a clean cloth, or towel is used each time, if someone wants to attempt to clean like this, records are only just being cross-contaminated. |
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