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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?

audio-b-dog
mswale
382 posts
 

Everything depends. Like this time of year humidity will create more static. If you are not using nice inner sleeves then you can create more static. 

For me nothing beats static like water. If you just spray and wipe a static record it will not longer have static. 

All my records, get a hand wash with Groovewasher products, then go into the UC, after a brand new quality sleeve. 

If they happen to get any static when playing, I'll just give them a spray with Groovewasher fluid, brush them clean. No more static. Never really been an issue for me. Have some records that were cleaned years ago, played a few time, and still have no static. I'm sure if I lived in the desert it would be different over the wet PNW.

tablejockey
4,405 posts
 

"It's not really a huge concern for me except when it drags my cork mat off the metal platter."

GASP!  Mat on a VPI-sacrosanct!

No mat VPI user.  Random days of static discharge here, at the beach.

 

kennyc
2,995 posts
 

It static is an issue, I’d consider either the DS Audio ION-00 or the CS Port Static Eliminator IME1. Static guns only work for short durations  

kennyc
2,995 posts
 

 Pops and clicks, Sweetvinyl Sugarcube.  

rsf507
2,577 posts
 

+1 @kennyc 

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