* Mr. Kirmuss insists that the vinyl residue seen in his cavitation tank in this video is not damage caused by his device. Rather, he insists, it is vinyl residue "locked" into the grooves by soapy residue from other machines that his process has removed.)
We first encountered at AXPONA 2018 Mr. Charles Kirmuss and his "In The Groove" Ultrasonic Vinyl Record Restoration System. The system is based upon an ultrasonic bath-type cleaning machine from China, another of which that looked identical was being sold but a few feet away.
This video was shot a few weeks ago. The editing was completed today, the day SME announced it had purchased Garrard and Loricraft. Just a coincidence but a neat one! For those who don't know: Loricraft's Terry O'Sullivan is a Garrard 301/401 idler wheel drive expert who rebuilds and restores them for customers world wide.
AnalogPlanet.com editor Michael Fremer describes the features of, and shows you how to use Pro-Ject's recently updated VC-S wet vacuum record cleaning machine. The usual occasional hilarity ensues. Though in the video it appears that more than 2 revolutions are required to dry a record, 2 will do it for most records.
The most expensive record cleaning device in this video is Pro-Ject's $499 VC-S. That's good news! The other gizmos include the new Allsop Orbitrac 3, the Vinyl Vac (about $30 on Amazon.com), which is a wand that you use with a shop vac, and a few others.
If you were preparing to archive your LPs to CD-R, what would you do first? Right. You'd scrub your records and whip your turntable into shapemaybe even upgrade your cartridge and/or phono section. In March The New York Times's "Circuits" section published "Janis and Jimi, Come Back from the Attic," an article about digitizing and archiving vinyl that I don't think even mentioned the word "turntable." Obviously, analog is news unfit to print.
We started lobbying Allsop to bring back the Orbitrac almost as soon as its demise was announced. We got no response so started a campaign on musicangle.com to no avail.
Cleanervinyl.com's cavitation-based record cleaning system consists of the One single LP powered cleaning device ($189), the Pro ($389), which allows you to simultaneously clean up to a dozen records, and the $129 Dry, fan-based record dryer. You also need to get a PS-30A Ultrasonic Cleaner, which sells on EBay for around $150 or $169 through Cleanervinyl.com.
An analog planet reader emailed to say his Audio Deske ultrasonic cleaning machine has ruined some of his collectible records and not because of ultrasonics.
If you're of a certain age you'll know that "let your fingers do the walking" was the Yellow Pages slogan. If you're of a different certain age, you might not even know what the Yellow Pages is! It doesn't matter really because it's just a play on words. The slogan meant you could thumb through the Yellow Pages rather than walking around to find a particular retailer or service.
Got pets that shed? You probably have at least one of those pet hair removing rollers with the split replaceable sticky roller. Roll it over your clothing and it picks up the hair. When its covered with hair and/or lost its stickiness, you peel off a layer and throw it way, using the fresh layer underneath to continue hair-removal.
The success of the Audio Desk Systems’ ultrasonic record cleaning machine made it inevitable that others would follow. A few have since been marketed that use existing technology and hardware such as Bob Ratcliff’s V-8, a stainless steel vat that can clean but not dry eight records simultaneously. It uses available hardware adapted by Mr. Ratcliff along with his motor driven rotating spit-like contrivance.