Clearaudio Double Smart Matrix or Loricraft PRC4

I'll try combining all that's been recently said. No I'm no PHD authority, just some comments to what others wrote.

Ad for the velvet protective strips coming off the Double Matrix, perhaps give Dr Duane Goldman a ring at Disc Doctor. He sells replacement peel+stick strips for something like $15 for 4 strips, enough to do the double matrix. You might have better luck with these? Worth a try anyway.

As for Bill's (audiofeil) suggestion, about manual cleaning, that's a good point he brings up, especially if a person's starting out, and has a relatively small collection, 50-75 records give or take. Again, with some good cleaners, like AIVS, Disc Doctor, MoFi, etc, you'll get pretty decent results if you use care.

As for the VPI 16.5 roaming around the record with "wet lips", I think this is over-exaggerated. In fact, run those "dry" lips around the record more than two revolutions, and you'll have some excess static built up.
The suction of the 16.5 literally sucks the lips dry as well during a vacuum step. With the 16.5, it is wise, to have an additional Vacuum Wand Assembly, that is dedicated for a seperate rinse step, so no cross contamination occurs.

Is the Loricraft better than wand style machines? Probably so, and it should be, for the asking prices.
The benefit I see, is no wand even touching the surface to possibly grid contaminants into the vinyl.

With the VPI machines, one will just about invest 20, or so minutes per record as well, if using a 3-4 step AIVS cleaner-rinse.

In any case, it is the cleaners that must do their job. Without good cleaning fluids, rinses, one could probably use a machine that cost $20K, and won't achieve the desired results. If the cleaners, rinses cannot remove-dislodge the contaminants, and the rinse removing any residuals, I guess the party's over as far as state of the art, pristine cleanliness goes. Mark

Thx, allot a great info. above.

It may not be the best but I have decided to order a Loricaft PRC4, after seeing my friend use his PRC3 it was pretty straight forward.

I like that there are options to cleaning methods, soaking etc. The way there seems to be no cross contamination with the thread method, no changing pads.

I think your choices are good ones, and as long as you can afford such a machine without hurting yourself, then I say god bless you, and go for it!

There's some tricks, and small roadblocks to using the TOTL Loricraft, and you might hit a snag using one, noting a couple of specific issues.

But there are a good number of folks here who have the same machine, and will be able to offer good advice, and their experiences, to guide you past such.

I reckon nothing's perfect. But this quality of machine is a work of art.

Doug Deacon is one who owns the same machine. I know he's written much here. Just search the archives on this forum for all posts pertaining to these machines.

That's one thing to love about this forum, the wealth of information on virtually everything audio, that can be accessed with a simple search.

Again, and I know the gurus here will not argue this very important point I make. Use high quality cleaners, and ultra pure water rinses, and you will enter the holy shrine of vinyl-nirvana!

Ok I thought you guys might just get a bit of a chuckle out of knowing this, my whole collection prior to having my new table set-up recently was seven, yes only seven records.

Ok so how many of you guys are laughing so hard right now that your ribs are hurting, hope you didn't have any food or beverage fluids in your mouth or even worse well we won't go there.

I've seen some pics of your crazy collections, I know a few that have rooms, basements full myself, one guy I know has a room set-up like a library 22ft ceiling with a ladder and cat walk, absolutely anal.

Now my collection consist of still only 50 new and 20 used and another 30 new coming but they are all cherry picked pces that I know that I'll enjoy listening to for a long time, well I have already listened to most of them and really enjoyed. I went out and got some used pces too, found a nice mint "THE BEATLES" "HELP!" UK album, amazing sound quality and the music, well it's the Beatles. The owner was nice enough to clean each one for me and on my way out said see you soon smileing, ya cha ching cha ching, I'd smile too.

Well it's only the beginning, my redbook collection is up there and really includes all the pces that I enjoy listening to. Long time ago I just started going through and the pces I had not listened to or really did not enjoy, possibly the music or crappy recording just got rid of them and that's what I'll be doing with the vinyl.

Since I have had my vinyl rig set-up and it's still only in break-in mode my RedBook has not been listened too.

My collection is meager to some I know, probably about 800-850 records. To go back to the point of just having 7 records, well that would have to be late 1963, early 1964, and I was about 9 years old.

But we all have started somewhere. And there's no shame to your "confession".

It would be like me saying "Yeah, I was riding racing bikes when Lance Armstrong was still in diapers", but what does that proove?! If I could keep up with him on a hill for a block, it would be a miracle!

About all I can add, is do reseach your options fully, and sleep on your decisions. As many might say, for the price of a Loricraft, one could buy a fantastic Phono Stage, a great Cartridge, or something else.

As for the truth of this statement, I am unsure, but I have heard from a couple of people, that the Loricraft can be a bugger getting total fluid pickup off a record. That it might mean the necessity of a unscented kleenex (or the "mop" of your choice) to sop up any fluids left.

This of course isn't unusual, that it as well can happen with any other RCM, if you spill-spread fluids into the label area, or they leak over to the underside lip of the record. The plusses of the Loricraft probably outweigh the minuses.

Again, I've think I made it known in this thread, I own the VPI 16.5. And I excluisvey use AIVS products.

It is a basic simple machine, but I like the fact that I can manually control the applications of fluids, let them sit as long as I like, scub as little or as much as I feel necessary, use multiple cleaning-rinse steps with ease, and that the cost was not too unreasonable, especially for the improvement of playback I attained.

My only regret was not buying one sooner. Mark