Your Thoughts And Experience With Last Record Preservative.

Just Bought A Bottle of This Product And Was Wondering If Anyone Else Here Is Using It. I Have Treated About 20 Records And Do Seem To Notice A Difference In Sound Quality And Much Less Static. Would Love To Hear Your Thoughts.

 

I only know that I hate the stickers found on jackets and sometimes record labels that the company must have encouraged users to apply.

Was the product some kind of coating on the surface of the record? It had its fans back in the day.

 

I used it many years ago but I noticed that it leaves a residue behind so I never used it again. Maybe I was using it wrong?

 

^ Never noticed any residue here.

I've used LAST for thirty years and love it. I've got stickers all over the place, early on stuck to the labels and later on the sleeve. It works. Somehow it smooths things out and makes records last, no pun intended.

I have a record I love, which has bluegrass heroes Norman Blake, Jethro Burns, Sam Bush and Vassar Clements playing with the great jazz bassist, Dave Holland. Back when we played phonograph records in a stereo store, that album was played at least 100 times. It still sounds good. I used LAST on it before I took it into the store. I can tell by the early label on it.

But it's more than that. LAST does have a sound. It can smooth out the rough edges of a record, warming things up. I don't know how it does it but I can hear it. It's never made a record sound worse and on many records it has made them sound better.

I have heard Michael Fremer is also a big LAST fan.

 

When I had a turntable I used to put last on my LPs all the time. I felt the Lps sounded better & quieter plus they lasted longer.

 

I pulled out the Norman Blake et. al. record I mentioned upthread to listen to this morning. I was amazed how beat up it was from in-store demo use.


hi res version

If you visually graded it, you'd have to say Poor. Play grading it would give you a grade of VG+, and a strong one at that. It sounds fine to me. Outside of sheer luck that we didn't run over it with the vacuum cleaner in the store, the only reason I could play this record today is LAST.

 

I have some used records with LAST applied prior to my purchase. I have to say they are great.
I use 'Stylast" stylus presevative all the time. But am too cheap to buy the LAST record preservative..
If I was not so cheap, I would be using it.
(Mostly I buy used Lps anyway. And I view LPs as a discardable media, and not as 'treasures' I must protect. Yesy yes hate me if you must)

 

Yes, those labels are not cool. Very difficult (sometimes impossible) to remove from record labels and jackets. It's disappointing to find an otherwise mint collectible record with those (IMO) unsightly "Last" labels, definitely lowering the value.

 

Agreed. It's terrible. Why do people put the darn sticker on the label or sleeve and deface their treasure? Just crazy man. It should be put on the inner or outer plastic sleeve if it must be put on at all.

 

Try Ronsonol lighter fluid. Works like a charm.

As I do now. Back then, heck, back then I judged the distance between places by how many beers I could drink while driving between them. Back then I thought Moonraker was a good James Bond movie. Back then I had a mullet. Back then I stopped listening to The Monkees and listened to Adam Ant instead.

And back then I never thought anybody but me would ever want my records. I did with them as I pleased.

 

I have used Last preservative, stylast treatment and cleaner for years. I noticed that when I use a Nitty Gritty cleaner the record sounds like the natural vinyl lubricant is gone and the stylus is scraping through the grooves. It's not a pleasant sound. The Last makes it feel to me that is adds lubricant and the stylus goes smoother and the sound is smoother. That's just me however, I have never noticed a negative thing about it in the 20 years or so I have used it. And yes, I put stickers on my records. They weren't collectable when I bought them, and I bought them for me, not some collector.

 

Excellent logic and a deft put-down. I suppose you write your name on the cover too to ensure that everyone knows they are yours (and not some collector's record).

 

Sorry about the stickers you ruined your LPs with, lol!

Did the stud ever get bunked up with this record coating? There must have been some traces left behind sometimes?

 

Ruined? By a sticker? Your definition of ruined and mine are quite different.

LAST fluid is very volatile. It evaporates almost instantly. Leave the 3 oz. bottle uncapped and it will completely evaporate in just a day or two. Plus proper application has you putting it on with one applicator and drying it with a second one. Because of this, I have never found any residue and I've put LAST on hundreds if not thousands of records.

This drying the record with a second applicator brings up an issue in using LAST I've never seen answered. It buffs the record. That's got to be good for the vinyl but it is never credited as such.

 

Yeah. Ruined is way over board. I'll tell ya this. When I see a record with a last sticker in the used bins I know it's very likely to be a nice player.

 

I haven't used it since the 80s, but i love the stuff! I really should start using it again.

Every record I used it on back in the early 80s has held up in every way. They are clean, look nice, and have low surface noise with few or no clicks.

When the product was called Sound Design, they has little inch wide stickers. I used them because I wanted to be reminded of which records I used the stuff on. I never planned on selling them, so, what did I care?

 

I am seeing a lot of positive opinions on Last here which in a way makes me question my onw experience with it long time ago. Since many years have pasted since then, I am wondering if indeed it was Last that I used and not another similar product.

What's the difference between Last and Groove Glide? It might have been the latter that I tried.

 

Groove Guide was a spray on fluid. While it had its supporters I never got it to work. I tried a bottle and gave up on it, using LAST System #1, their cleaner in the 1980s and remarkable stuff, to remove it.

 

Is LAST still around and being used? I can't imagine using it on my MFSL or DCC LPs.

 

I haven't used it since the 1980's. I've got some early MOFI LP's that were treated with LAST when relatively new, and they still play fine.

jeff

 

If I find a used record that LAST has been applied to it I'm actually quicker to buy it than I would have been if the sticker were not there, because it tells me that the person who previously on the record cared enough to treat it and take care of it. I consider those stickers a badge of higher-quality somehow.

 

This is a weird post, stylus scraping the grooves? Sounds like a hardware problem.

 

I might be able to contribute something useful to this thread.

I used the Last preservative faithfully for about 15 years from '85 to '00. Then I stopped using it entirely.

Did it do any harm -- NO!

Did it do anything positive -- can't say for sure. Does it reduce record wear, as they claim? I can't say. I believe them, but with any decent quality system you don't wear out your records with normal play.

Basically I think that while it does nothing bad, most people don't need it either. If you really do play a record many hundreds of times, then maybe you should use this product.

 

Thanks For All The Input Guys. I Am Glad I Bought It. I See The Stickers Seem To Be A Big Issue! My Bottle Came With These Stickers As Well But I Put The Sticker On The Resealable Sleeve I put The Lp Jacket In. That Way I Know Which Records I Have Treated. The Reason I Bought This Product Was I Found An Old Used Brownsville Station Lp That Had A Last Sticker On The Label. I was Amazed At How Good This Record Sounded And The Lack Of Any Static. Seems To Be A Great Product And Will Definitely Buy More When This Bottle Runs Out.

 

Just To Let Anyone Know Who Would Like To Try It I Bought Mine Off Of Amazon. I See They Also Sell Other Last Products As Well. May Try Some Of There Other Products Too.