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In the Forum: Analog Playback
In the Thread: Sensible record cleaning: vinyl piranhas and record Vaseline
Post Subject: How often to clean records?Posted by drdna on: 11/15/2009
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
What however I would like to ask you is the subject that bothers me the most: how can you determine that the record is cleanable? So, my question is – how you differentiate the noisy record that might be cleaned and improved further and the records that are beyond the cleaning help. Are any of you come up with any more or less objective or demonstrable test that would recognize the noise as some kind of special noise that might be cleaned?
To me, there are three types of problems:

1a) grime piled on top of a record
1b) defective vinyl piled on top of a record
2) scratches cutting into the vinyl

Type 1 deflects the needle upward and Type 2 deflects the needle downward. Because I am always listening to the absolute phase of each song (it is always different for each album), I think I can hear this. Certainly I know if I switch the absolute phase of the system, I can hear the noise clicks also change their sound. This is the easiest way to tell if something is to be cleaned.

Many times also if the noise is Type 2, a lot of this is actually Type 1B, due to small jagged edges rising up around where the scratch is. If only we could cut those tiny jagged edges off! The best I can do is to use an old heavy needle/tonearm with a lot of inertial mass and play through that area.  The needle just sort of rams through the obstruction and removes a bit of the noise, like using a lathe. This is a lot less destructive than it sounds. I just play the area with an old needle; when I go back to my usual needle, the noise has reduced, not gone away of course, but reduced.

Adrian

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