Reducing background fizz and pops on Vinyl.

I have read really good reports about the Disc Doctor stuff, I am going to try it in conjuntion with my Nitty Gritty as well(seperate opperations). It is reported to work well on its own. My Nitty Gritty Pro is about 20 years old and built like a tank! The capstan(which is designed to be repalceable and is glued on) came off last night while I was brushing the cleaning pads and it got sucked into the motor! The old work horse ground it up and spit it out(makeing some strange noise and omitting the smell of burning rubber) and still works like a champ after putting a new capstan on it. John I hope you like the Linn, it's one of the true classics in high end audio.

D@mn! Maxgain, I got home from work today and that SOB sent me an e-mail that said he sold the Linn. He was afraid to ship, so I told him I'd come up and take it on Saturday. Because of the 4 hour round trip, I couldn't do it before Saturday. We exchanged a dozen e-mails, a few phone calls, agreed on a price, and he even gave me explicit directions. He even cancelled his Ebay auction for me, because he didn't want to ship. Then....he sells to someone else. Now I'm back to square one.

John

Sorry John,that sucks. It was too good to be true, he realized he could get alot more money for it than that and decided to weasle out of what you agreed to. It was too cheap and I would never ahve sold it for that. It still sucks. There is a good looking Sota Jewel with a Premier MMT arm listed here for $550, but you would still need a cartridge and pay for shipping.That leaves you next to nothing for a cartridge. If you are not up to installing a cartridge you maight better look at the Rega's listed here with one already installed or else you may have to go to a dealer for this purcahse. They can set the table up and make sure everything is working well. You won't get as much for your money buying new but it may save you some frustration in the long run if you are not an experienced analog type. Only one way to get experience though!

Okay, so the way I see it is with the info here, I should first find a good brush to use in order to get into the groves good and scrub with a solution to clean and then rinse with distilled water, and then use something like Gruv-glide to treat it for a final lubricant? What would be a good inexpensive brush to use and what could I use to mix my own cleaner. All the commercial cleaners and brush systems are so overpriced eg.(Disc doctor is 35 for each brush, you need two, and 35 for a bottle of cleaner.105.00 is just a silly expensive order for something you can possibly get together at the local grocery store, and the vac machine seems to exotic and expensive. I think the gruv-glide is a decent price and seems to work well, but I think I need a good cleaning before treatment. Thanks for any help on this.

I use a nitty-gritty pro auto record cleaner & LAST preservative. I find the record cleaner an indispensable component for vinyl playback. I use a rega 25 w/super elyse.

Sometimes however I get a beat up record with lots of pops and crackles. LAST does help with this.
My question to all is : Is there another treatment (Gruv glide ?) that is better at getting rid of crackles ?