Vacuum Record Cleaner Rreplacement

@oberoniaomnia 

I will have to find a dealer with a Rega Naia and have a listen!  I have been trying to get a copy of the book at under A$110, but the first dealer the Rega distributor sent me to had no idea there even was a book!

Almost every demo I have been to at HiFi shows where vinyl is being played uses jazz tracks which have nothing like the dynamic range of 'big' classical music like Mahler's second symphony, which varies from off-stage murmurs to hundreds of singers and musicians at full throttle, plus an organ which I did not notice at the actual performance but is definitely there on the record!.

I have several recent classical recordings, from Hyperion in particular, where the noise floor actually increases in the interval between tracks.  Odd.

Do you have any records that sound particularly free of background noise?

@richardbrand There are two copies of the book on AbeBooks, both likely under A$110. If you consider to buy a Naia, the book is a rounding error. Re auditioning, good luck with that! I bought mine unheard. No regrets.

I'm not a classics person, more new wave - electronica, and then HIPP baroque. For the latter there is nothing on vinyl, only CD. The closest to big dynamic range classics is the recent Laibach record "Alamut", contemporary classics with Iranian symphony orchestra. 

@oberoniaomnia 

Re higher temp, in general grease (fingerprints) dissolves easier at higher temperatures, very simple kitchen experiment with a frying pan will show that. Same with salts. Concentrations of those are so low when cleaning records that temperature-dependent solubility products are of no concern.

What you state is true. However in an ultrasonic bath, the bath temperature, (within the range suitable for vinyl records) has little effect on the overall cleaning efficiency. In a water only ultrasonic bath, the effect of cavitation will remove most contaminants and the addition of a suitable surfactant will improve the efficiency of the process even at room temperature. The cavitation process itself produces high localized temperatures. So there is no need to run the ultrasonic bath at excessive temperatures when cleaning records. At elevated temperatures, the chance of inducing damage to the record is greater than any improved contaminant removal.

Don't know what "CMC minimum" is.

CMC stands for Critical Micelle Concentration. For many surfactants, a plot of CMC vs solution temperature results in a U shaped curve. The CMC decreases as the solution temperature increases, reaches a minimum and then begins to increase. For some surfactants, this minimum occurs between 40 and 50 degrees C. So operating at the minimum CMC temperature requires using less surfactant.

richardbrand

1,292 posts

05-16-2026 at 08:45pm 

@oberoniaomnia 

No surface noise, no pops, no clicks, just nothing

Wow!  What records meet this standard?  And what are you playing them on?
 

 

oberoniaomnia

331 posts

05-16-2026 at 09:16pm 

@richardbrand To be sure, there is music when playing my records.  And in the breaks between tracks, nothing. If I would turn it up silly loud, I would likely get some tube noise. So nothing above tube noise floor.
 

what SPL do you register at your listening position at normal volume levels? There’s absolutely zero chance that you hear nothing between tracks, just tube rush and that’s only if you turn it up silly loud. Are you saying that your E glow petite filters out surface noise? Or you eradicated surface noise by filtering it out in a digital domain?

@ljgerens 

My partner had a CD that was smeared with fingerprints or similar and was unreadable.  She cleaned it in her ultrasonic jewelry cleaner to no avail.

At that point, I read the instructions.  Using warm water and a drop of dishwashing detergent did the trick.  The CD came out like new.

I think the surfactant was more important than the temperature.

By the way, I follow Neil Antin's recommendations for washing and rinsing agents, which are Polysorbate20 and Ilfoton respectively in Australia.  About A$20 per litre each.  A litre will likely see me out at about a teaspoon per batch of records 

I treat my polycarbonate reading glasses for maybe 30 seconds through the same process, making sure the lenses don't touch anything.