@Bill Hart who has used a KL Audio for some time may be able to give some hints. I know he uses very high purity water versus grocery store distilled water. The issue could be the quality of the distilled water - it may be clean/pure from the filling tap, but maybe not after they filled the jug. A cheap way to check is to buy a total dissolved solids meter - Amazon.com : total dissolved solids meter - get one with 1 ppm resolution (note that accuracy is not great, but should be good enough). I currently do not have one, but as I am typing this - it would be good to have since I only use distilled water. Otherwise, new records can have ticks, they can be microscopic burs left from the pressing process and are removed after the 1st few plays. I do recommend using a UV light to inspect records after cleaning - Alonefire SV005 10W LED 365nm UV Flashlight Blacklight Portable USB Rechargeable Black Light Full Metal Case Pet Urine Detector with UV Protective Glasses, 18650 Battery Included for Resin Curing - - Amazon.com. Lint and hardwater deposits not visible with white light can show-up with UV light. Depending on your environment, the air drying/fans of the KL Audio may be depositing dust/lint back onto the record. I know that @Bill Hart keeps the area around his KL Audio very clean. Good Luck, Neil
@Tommyboy-i have no idea what is going on there. I was using reagent grade 1 for a couple years but eventually switched to standard grocery store distilled. Never had this issue. Are you saying the clicks disappear completely after a play through? Otherwise, I wonder if there is something going on in the machine that would cause damage that might be visible under close inspection. I dunno. As you know, reaching KL at this point is tough, another user who bought one right before they shut down production was not connecting with them for repair (I think out of warranty) and one possible approach was to reach out to Koolance, which owned KL and seemed like the next best step in talking to somebody at the manufacturer's side. Neil @pacvr -- would a newly made scratch fluoresce under UV? Sorry I'm not much help here Tommy. I can see why you've soured on the product. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me though. For example, if some "hard" debris was caught in the brush rollers of an Audio Desk, I could see how damage might occur. But the KL-- there's not much to it other than the rotating mechanism/motor system and the ultrasonic transducers. PS: good catch by Neil on the fans. I don't know how easy it is to get to them and clean them, but that's a very good point!!
@Bill Hart, @Tommyboy Bill, scratches do not fluoresce. Pictures of the KL Audio internals are here: Klaudio LP200 Ultrasonic Record Cleaner - Driver Board Replacement - Audionirvana.org. It reads like the front and back panels can be removed without disturbing anything else. Once the panels are off looks like there is pretty good access to brush/blow away any dust. Just make sure to ground yourself (discharge any static charge you may have) so you do not accidently take out the control board. @Tommyboy - how do you clean-out the reservoir? If you are using cloths, depending on the cloths you are using you can leave a bunch of fiber/lint behind. KL Audio's direction "If the unit will be shipped or transported, paper towels can be placed inside the reservoir to absorb residual water (along with replacing the access cap)." to use paper-towels is not the best - pretty much guaranteed to leave fibers/lint behind.
Hey Bill I’m at a loss too. It’s been this way for quite a while. A new LP should play close to silent after a clean, unless there’s a pressing defect or some hairlines that exist on the LP due to neglect at the pressing plant. Neil brought up some good points. If the issue is related to the fans, I’m not going to open the machine. I’m not a technically oriented person. I have been using CVS brand distilled water for 6 years. Could it be the water? It’s cheap. I just ordered several gallon containers of Reagent distilled water via Amazon. I’ll put some in the KLaudio later this week. We’ll see. In theory the KLaudio should not be introducing noise. If I can’t use it for a deep clean for older records, due to the need to pre-clean these types of records before using an UC and due to the fact that the manufacturer warned against using surfactants in the machines bath, what good is it. I’m very frustrated and am ready to move on.
When you get the reagent water, try 1st filling and draining the unit to flush-out the unit; then fill with fresh and use. Bill (@Bill Hart ) will be able to guide you with how he uses his KL Audio in his cleaning process, but he pretty much follows what I wrote in the book regarding a pre-clean step followed by final clean. "XIV.8 But, if the record is exceptionally dirty, such as trying to resurrect a Goodwill® or flea market find, attempting to use a single ultrasonic tank to clean presents a number of challenges because of the variety and concentration of contaminants. Lower UCM frequency and/or more aggressive chemistry is preferred. The record must first be degreased to remove any oil/grease film, otherwise, the underlying or trapped particulate may not be removed. The user has a number of options, but as previously discussed, standard industrial guidance used by nearly every precision aqueous cleaning procedure is pre-clean (degrease/remove visible contaminants), rinse, final-clean (polish), rinse, dry." So, a pre-clean step prior to final clean/rinse/dry with the KL Audio is very common with older records. New records should be able to be cleaned with just the KL Audio, but some new records are no better than old records. And, the KL Audio has no filter, so if a really dirty record is cleaned, the debris is just floating in the water and as it drains down some is going to redeposit on the record.
I think your point about the fans is really good, Neil and made me think again of how these "one button" machines combine functions. It isn't just the so-called cleaning process, but how the disc is handled throughout the process. (Of course, there's the "what's this stuff on the record even after I cleaned it and put it in a new, high end after market liner" question, which has been bugging me, but) Tommy's problem seems pretty basic- the thing should do no harm and should sound better, not worse, after the process. I'm torn sometimes in the sense of dealing with older and sometimes "challenged" records that may be revivable (today, one copy had not only the shadows of fog of some rectangle shape, but some bite marks, that looked like a zipper, on at least one of the four sides of the rectangle imprint over the grooves-- what I would call a "bad copy" that may have been in shrink for 20 years until I opened it. It's going back). And on the other hand, not messing with the record, its surfaces, or anything about it more than necessary and more than what is appropriate to preserve it as a specimen. I have issues that I've encountered along the way, some of them solvable (e.g. warps, thanks to a big ticket record flattener) but I'm very cognizant of doing no harm to rare copies. I will buy new stock of records that are perennials -- like the one that is going back-- beyond defects, some of these standard issue records may not be the best presentations of the recording on LP.
I use a handkerchief or paper towels. Do you have any suggestions? Should I use a microfiber clothes, the kind that are used to clean eyeglasses instead? It’s a pain to 1) drain the tank completely and 2) clean it. I have to squeeze my right hand into the back of the machine where the opening to the tank is.
Just for general knowledge, you can readily buy cleaning wipes that purport to be for clean room use, they seem to employ poly-fabrics- not natural, but the point is to leave no lint. I think Kimberly Clark offers them in the U.S. cheaply. You want to make sure those wipes are not impregnated with any cleaning or other agent. We are not wiping against germs, simply cleaning out the tank but we don't want the wipe down process to leave undesirable residue. Bill
I stay away from thrift store records or anything that I perceive to be less than EX condition. I fall short plenty of times due to errors in judgement or online sellers not being truthful or thorough when grading a record.
Probably the same- I looked up my order- it was for Kimtech Science KimWipes Delicate Task Wipers; 4.4 x 8.4 in. (11.2 x 21.3cm); 1-ply 280 count-- main thing to verify is that there is no chemical on the wipe. I bought a set of rubber tipped long nosed tweezers to use with them, also el cheapo--- you know you can cut your hand on the threads to that port--- but, knowing that, you work around. We are only cleaning the residue in the reservoir. There are other paths of the liquid through the machine and whatever contaminants the ultrasonic process effectively remove would, I assume, be suspended in the bath water and be deposited along every path that water followed throughout the machine to the return to reservoir, before the drying function kicks in. Is that a fair explanation, @pacvr, knowing that you don't have direct, hands-on experience with this machine? In other words, we are cleaning the walls of what amounts to the "dry sump" if you were a car guy who was worried that the attitude of the car at full chat might affect where oil was available in the engine. The problem as I see it, short of an industrial tank, is that you can only effectively clean certain parts of the machine within reason; and some of those parts may contain residue of contaminants. How much of a problem that poses over long usage, I dunno. I like to think I treat my KL gently simply because I pre-clean any used record, but like you, T-Boy, I want the ability to clean new out of the sleeve records quickly and effectively, without complications.
These are excellent, and actual better (cleaner) than the Kimtech Science KimWipe kimtech-science-wipers-sell-sheet_23feb16.pdf (kcprofessional.com.au). However, the Kimtech W4 is much more expensive and could be overkill for what you need. Here is the spec-sheet for the Kimtech W4 Dry Wipes msds-kimtech-pure-w4-cl4-tds.pdf (kcprofessional.com). If you read this spec-sheet you will see that it can leave behind some lint. What you need to understand is that this is real-world engineered/tested 'low-lint' wipes for clean rooms. A handkerchief or paper towel may as well be on another planet and would not be allowed in a cleanroom.
I went with the Science Wipes. I ordered a box for $3.79 from Staples. The price for the W4 wipes are too expensive.
Hi Joe. I'm using the Kirmuss but it is a pain.... I'd ask your advice but maybe I should just call you. That would make more sense, huh? I was just surprised to see your post as I was looking through these.
I've also found it MUCH more effective to clean dirty/greasy used vinyl with a chemical cleaner (I just use a Spin-Clean - cheap and easy) prior to cleaning in the KLAudio US. The only downside I have with this unit is that you aren't supposed to use any chemicals in it. Just before KLAudio stopped selling these units, I returned mine for servicing. Came back with a nice metal filter that filters the water as it is being pumped up to the record chamber. I clean it whenever I'm cleaning the tank and nearly always wipe away small bits of vinyl when I do so. It doesn't appear to have a particularly fine mesh so I'm sure microscopic 'bits' get through, but it definitely filters larger particles from the water. Finally - I've found that reverse osmosis water, which you can purchase in bulk at Whole Foods for around $1 a gallon - seems to 'wet' the record surface better than plain distilled bottled water. I don't know that it really makes a difference but it SEEMS to. -rich-
Question for those who have used US to clean their record for some amount of time....can US cleaning damage the groove? I ask this as I have now noticed a few of my previously pristine sounding albums sound very noisy after a single US clean! Could be that I had not listened to the album for some amount of time and had noticed the deterioration...but?? Thoughts..
I have cleaned 2000+ discs using my US cleaner and not noticed any deterioration in sound as a result, ever.
@DaveyF -Not in these hands. I think your concern is over-wrought. It is certainly possible to damage even metal parts with ultrasonic if powerful enough and at the lower frequencies. But we are dealing with a pretty controlled setting, using higher frequencies and limited time exposed (through rotation). I don't regard US as a panacea, but another tool. Taken in that light, you should feel comfortable using it. There are alternatives, at the expense of more time and effort. (and for what it's worth, I'm dealing not only with new records, but many older ones that benefit from an effective cleaning). PS: I guess I'd have to ask you what the parameters are of your US cleaning. For what it is worth, I have found that US alone is not sufficient in many cases. But, have you damaged your records? Tell us what set up you are using.
As @Josquin des Prez & @Bill Hart have said, the likelihood that the ultrasonics caused the problem is very remote. Your experience is likely residue left behind, and this could be caused by a number of reasons - the cleaner, too much cleaner, do you filter? and do you rinse after cleaning? Any of these could leave the record in worse shape than before. But more details would be required to pin-point the problem.
No, but it may have tweaked your hearing if you haven't been wearing ear protection around it. I made the mistake of using a generic US off of Amazon for about a month of record cleaning. I'd put a new batch in and hit start while I bagged the previous batch after drying. I was maybe a minute or two in front of it each time. After a month of cleaning I noticed I became sensitive to high frequencies, not just the records I cleaned but everything. It freaked me out as I thought I permanently damaged my hearing. Fortunately everything went back to normal after a month. I put the US away and no longer use it. I only buy clean records and I use my old Spin Clean now which does me fine. If you use an off the shelf US cleaner be sure to use ear protection.
Without knowing what US machine you were using, good ear protection could allow you to resume. Mine sounds like a bug zapper on constant. But, I'm running a point nozzle vacuum at the same time and I just zone out. Maybe my high frequency hearing is shot anyway, due to age, but I would think you could do US cleaning without hearing damage.
