Dumb (Manual) record cleaning tweak

Forgive me if this is obvious to many of you - it's just something that I never thought of before.

Also forgive me that I cannot afford a VPI machine (or similar). I can afford to upgrade my hardware occasionally, but with a wife and college aged-kids, I can't afford that kind of outlay on a piece of support equipment. I am stuck with the "Dishwasher-type" hand cleaning brush and solution.

Anyway - it dawned on that I always cleaned my records in the same direction as the rotation of my turntable. What if I did it in reverse? Would it make for a better manual cleaning?

I choose 2 albums - The Faces "A Nod..." which will shortly become obsolete , and a $1.00 trashed copy of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Greatest Hits.

On the Faces album - I always thought that inner groove distortion was the reason the "steel drum" part of "That's All You Need" sounded distorted. After cleaning in both directions, there was absolutely none of that "overloaded" sound.

The Brass album faired even better - what I had considered un-listenable was now warm and fine - with an "acceptable" level of background noise.

Now - nether album was made new, and both were (are) poor copies. However, this simple tweak made them listen-able. It will probably do even better on more acceptable copies.

Don't know why I never thought of it before.

 

The upscale VPI is bi-directional, you may be on to something. I scrub in both directions prior to vacumming on my VPI 16.5 (the downscale unit). Good tweak!

Brian

 

I have the VPI 17. Like certain folks who will remain unnamed, it goes both ways.

 

Alex, if you are ever interested in a record vacuum, but don't want to spend a lot on one, go over to the KAB Electro-Acoustics site. They have a record "vacuum" called the EV-1 that requires you to hook up an external household vacuum to it to vacuum records. It's based on a Nitty Gritty. What you get is the unit itself (I don't know what the walls are made out of now - the older ones like mine were made of real wood), with a slot surrounded by velvet lips (that sounds a little dirty ), and a roller bearing small platter which makes turning the record easy - important since you do the turning yourself (with a puck on top of the record label). I've been using one of these for many years now, and I've been happy with it. It's not as sexy as a VPI-17, but it gets the job done for me quite well. It now costs about $150. There's also the "Model 1" Nitty Gritty, which includes a built in vacuum, for about $250. Just trying to help.

http://www.kabusa.com/

 

The Record Doctor sold by Audio Advisor is still $199, and it's also made by Nitty Gritty. I bought mine about a decade ago. No way I could (or still can) afford anything better, but I've learned how to make it work well for me.

 

Al, you are on to something. To get a record as clean as possible you have to use your brush in a back and forward motion. I have recently started to clean my records in 3 inch increments with a back and forward scrubbing motion. Then vacuum it off with my 16.5. I use to clean in thirds but found that smaller increments was better. Works for me.

Al, you should check out those vacuum systems the guys have mentioned. You will not regret it.

 

I use a manual record cleaner system ( The Spin Clean Record Washer ) and the instructions recommend spinning the disk in both directions.

For more info : http://www.garage-a-records.com

My only connection is that of a happy customer.