Some of you are already using expensive cleaning fluids on microfibre cloths or with dedicated brushes. These do work reasonably well for casual players, but they only remove the top 75% of the dirt. They make your records look nice and shiny, but they leave a small amount of dirt in the bottom of the grooves, and the wiping action with the cloth pushes it in. Then when they dry naturally in the a
ir, all that remaining stuff hardens and comes back to haunt you as reduced amounts of snap crackle and pop. If you use the manual method on a flat surface (not a turntable) then you will also leave a little "lift-off mark" where you took the cloth off, and that will contain tiny particles of dirt and a bit of extra moisture. If you do it on a turntable, you can eliminate the lift-off mark, but then you will end up dragging your cloth/brush (now covered in the dirt you just removed) and spread some of it into the runout groove. If you are using fluids that "leave a magic protective layer" on the record, you should stop using them, as they are just taking dirty particles out and replacing them with clean film that your stylus will chisel away at and turn into crackles that will eventually weld themselves into the bottom of the groove after repeated plays. I have cleaned several records that were treated with "Permostat", soap and other wonder methods, and they are a nightmare if they were badly applied, and quite literally create little balls of swarf on the stylus as they are scraped out. This won't bother you if you are using a Crosley or other cheap turntable, but when your stylus alone costs as much as 5 Crosleys, you will be painfully aware how clean you need to keep everything. WHY IS A LORICRAFT BETTER THAN THE OTHER VACUUM UNITS? Loricraft and the older Keith Monks machines are at the top of the pile. This is because they use a pinpoint moving vacuum arm rather than a wide fixed slot. This is important for the following reasons.
1: The pinpoint nozzle cleans a very narrow field (about 3 grooves at a time) and tracks across the record like a regular tonearm, as opposed to "Bitty Grotty" type designs where you have a fixed slot arm that does the whole record in one go. Those are cheaper and faster for the home user but they can leave patches and can go out of alignment easily. Also when you stop the motor and lift the arm, yes you guessed it, you can get "lift-off marks" if the velvet is wet at the edges. Loricraft machines focus on a small bit at a time and vacuum all the gunk out accurately.
2: Cheaper fixed arm machines have a velvet or microfibre lip around the vacuum slot. A great idea in principle if they are kept scrupulously clean and checked between every record, but they trap a small amount of dirt and can smear it all over your freshly cleaned record. Most of it goes up the vacuum pipe but there will always be remains left on the velvet.
3: Loricraft machines are almost "zero contact". Once you have applied the liquid to the record, the nozzle rides on a very thin piece of nylon thread, this is the only thing that touches the grooves. The nylon is advanced every side you clean, so that portion of thread will only ever touch one side of a record, and because it is nylon, dirt doesn't stick to it anywhere near as much as it would on velvet or microfibre. Also, the fluids are sucked straight off into the vacuum pipe so practically none of the residual dirt will get recycled back onto the record. Result: no cross-contamination. WHAT CAN I EXPECT FROM A CLEANED RECORD. Deep cleaning will not get rid of physical scratches. You can reduce crackle and pop from dirty grooves, but if you have any scratches, hairlines or scuffs that are causing noise issues, you are stuck with them unless you have access to a microscope and a VERY steady hand to manually de-click them. Having said that, the amount of noise reduction on the rest of the record is still worth the cleaning job, but just be aware that with a lower noise floor, your hairlines and wispy marks will stand out a little more, if you see what I mean. This also applies to visual inspection to a degree. If you have a rather dirty record (especially nicotine grime) then sometimes this film actually patches the grooves slightly, and when you take that dirt layer off, you reveal the little hairlines that were underneath. There are two types of marking on vinyl that deep cleaning will not remove:
1: "Bag Rash" (aka "Vinyl rot")
This is where the record surface has reacted with a plastic sleeve over the years and taken on a rippled or milky pattern. That unfortunately is a chemical reaction and cannot be removed. Thousands of records that collectors safely stored away in clear PVC outer sleeves have suffered this over the years. Some plastic lined inner sleeves from the 1960s - 1980s are also liable to do this.
2: Very old grease marks. Occasionally you will see fingerprint marks or mottled surface patterns, but they are a sort of dark dull silvery colour and they don't trap dust when you brush them. This again is a chemical reaction. You can normally get fingerprints off and the fresher they are, the easier it is, but once they are over 5 years old they get harder to remove as they actually start eating the surface of the record ever so slightly. Those silver marks can very occasionally be improved, but they are nigh on impossible to get rid of without highly specialised methods that are probably not worth it unless you are talking about 1000 pound rarities. WHAT IS IN THE MAGIC LIQUID? For regular records, I use a mixture of lab grade distilled water, a wetting agent to break the surface tension and help it get deep into the grooves, a small amount of vinyl-friendly solvent to move the grease and penetrate deep dirt, and an enzyme base to attack any little mould spores that may have transferred from a damp room (especially useful for that neglected gem you found in the charity shop or car boot sale).
78s and Acetates use a similar fluid but without the solvent and with some extra cleaning agents. I can use solvent-free liquid on your regular records on request. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.
