Cleaning Vinyl

I took the plunge and ordered an Elma P60H today. It's by far the most expensive unit but it also has by far the most cleaning options and is the only dual frequency (dual transducer?) unit on the market.

I already received the vinyl stack kit last week. It's definitely homebrew but still looks like it will do the job quite nicely.

BTW: If you are considering laying out the $$$ for the Elma I suggest calling Tovatech directly as they are the North American distributor for Elma and all the other dealers get stock from them. Tell them you are an individual building a DIY kit and not a reseller/lab/commercial entity.

 

UPS says the Elma is going to show up Monday so today I'm going to get the final parts needed for the setup:

- One fish tank filter (Top Fin 10) from the local pet supply store
- Distilled Water, Photo-Flo and some clear/no fragrance dishwashing detergent to make the tank mixture

I have a noisy copy of the AP re-issue of RCA Living Stereo/Reiner Scheherazade which I will use as my first test record. Will post up the before and after samples sometime next week. Hoping for the best!

 

Looking forward to your results Chris

 

Prep is complete... just need that bath. Let's go UPS!

 

Walter White of LP cleaning solution?

 

This looks like the ultrasonic thing I saw at the Wax Record fair yesterday, except they wanted to charge me $1500: http://www.ultrasonicrecords.com

 

Yeah, and I doubt he sold any...

 

Got the Elma in yesterday and have some first results.

I was unable to get photo-flo in time but will have some before the weekend. Also, they don't sell fragrance free Dawn in Canada for some reason so I substituted Green Works "Free and Clear" which is pretty close to the same formulation. I used ~30ml for 4L of distilled water in the tank which is probably way too much because I ended up having to rinse the record three times per side on the VPI16.5 to make sure all the residue was gone.

Anyhow, first results are very good. I used a nice noisy eBay purchase of a 60s boogaloo classic (Pete Rodriguez - I Like It Like That) for my test record. I think the press is the 70s re-issue. Record looks visually about VG+, couple surface marks nothing big; deep groove pretty thick vinyl. Bath time was 25 minutes (4 full rotations and change) at about 42C water temp.

Pre-wash:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39392/I_like_it_like_that_original.m4a

Post-wash:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39392/I_like_it_like_that_Ultrasonic.m4a

Pretty impressive. Not only does it play about 1000x better the whole frequency spectrum is improved especially the upper regions.

I'll be trying different formulas when I have the photo-flo. The Elma makes it really easy to drain the bath so it's easy to experiment. Only waste a bit of time heating and degassing the solution.

 

I also found the source of the annoying 60Hz hum in my recording. It's actually the TASCAM-DA3000! How inconvenient....

Gonna have to move it or isolate it somehow. The hum is about 70dB down but still annoying.

 

That's incredible. I haven't been able to get anywhere near results like that from my VPI 16.5

 

@Chris F

Awesome set up !!! Do you use the aquarium filter after you take the records out of the bath to clean the solution?

I'll be home from work in two more days... Then I'll start my ultrasonic Franken cleaner build...

 

Haven't played too much with the filter yet. I ran it last night but then I dumped the solution today when I got home...

One thing I have already discovered is that there are records which do not respond at all to Ultrasonic cleaning. My AP Scheherazade re-issue (previously mentioned) is one of them. The first half of Side A is noisy and there is no improvement even after three tries with three different formulations. I assume it's a problem with the press or the record is damaged in a way that cleaning can not fix.

Will need to clean a lot more records before I start making any consensus.

 

A bit more corroborative evidence about pressing quality vs ultrasonic cleaning. Yesterday I cleaned a couple of noisy 45s from Colombia with no effect. Visually they look mint and water literally rolls off the record surface but they still play VG- at best. Talking to my guy in Colombia he says stuff like that is fairly common where the record looks perfect but plays poorly due to a cheap press/poor vinyl quality etc....

Gonna do a bunch more records this weekend with before/after comparisons.

 

Yes, I've noticed a HUGE difference in SQ in different pressings. I've noticed stuff even in the same pressing (I think), where certain aspects are excellent, and other aspects are clearly bad or wrong. My guess is that that's a mastering issue though. I'm learning that it can be really difficult to get the full dynamic range of a mix within the limitations of a vinyl pressing

 

Still waiting on the BBQ rotisserie mount... May tape it into position in the meantime. Almost 80 LP's waiting to get cleaned

 

Nice work JK! That looks like it's gonna turn out well.

I have a bit more of an update. Cleaned about a dozen more records over the weekend so I have some more data points.

Latest observations:

• 30ml of dishwasher detergent seems to work better then just a few drops; gotta make sure to do at least a double rinse after though. I will have some photo-flo tomorrow which I will add as the final component.
• Ultrasonic will improve the results of records already cleaned on a vacuum machine like VPI. I measured a few before/afters of already clean records using click repair and in all cases the ultrasonic improved on were already very clean records.
• Ultrasonic will occasionally work magic with some previously unplayable records. I have a record from Guatamala that left a nasty black gunk on my stylus even after repeated VPI cleanings. I had put this record on the shelf likely never to be played again after I pulled the song I wanted for my DJ set off it. One trip through the ultrasonic and this record now plays mint and the gunk is gone. Awesome.
• If the noise on the record is not from dirt or contaminants Ultrasonic will not fix it. In other words it won't fix or help bad pressings.
• The fish filter I bought is useless. It's not strong enough to pull shit off the bottom of the tank to filter it. I will try and find a better one but in the short term I'm just gonna dump the fluid every 10 records. It's $1 for 4L of distilled water and about $4 for 750ml of detergent and $12 for a bottle of photo flo. I only own about 1000 records so I'm not exactly burning a hole in my pocket here.

 

@Chris F Any reason you went with the Elma over the other ones?

Also, I thought this guy was offering a far too high of a priced product, but it doesn't seem to crazy now: http://www.ultrasonicrecords.com

 

After reading the DIYAudio thread I decided I wanted an 80Khz unit and the Elma is the best commercially available unit.

The reasons were:

• 80Khz is more effective then 40 or 60Khz at cleaning a wide variety of particle sizes (see attached image)
• 80Khz is significantly more gentle on the record surface then 40Khz (while theoretically producing superior results as shown above)
• 80Khz units are much less noisy then 40Khz during operation. The Elma unit in particular is very quiet. I live in a condo unit and can not isolate myself entirely from the unit while it is cleaning. I find the ultrasonic noise to be very annoying so the noise reduction at 80Khz is very very welcome. I will make a video of this (with SPL meter) so you can hear the difference.
• The Elma allows cleaning at either 37 or 80Khz with variable power. I can experiment to my hearts content in order to get the best result. It also gives the flexibility to use the cleaner for other applications.
• The standing wavelength of an 80Khz unit is 0.75" which should allow for 3 records in a 6" wide tank with optimal results. I have only been doing 2. With a 40Khz unit (1..5" wavelength) I would stick to 1 record unless you get a tank wider then 6". 60Khz you can also do 2.
• People who own the Elma all reported excellent results and seemed particularly happy
• I feel more confident buying a unit from an established company that supplies equipment to corporations and labs all over the world. Little touches like having a plastic cover over the IEC receptacle to prevent possible liquid splashes and having the drain plug screw on so you can orient it in any direction convince me that actual engineering went into this thing. I'm also half German, like German engineering and Elma is a German company.
• I got a very good price on the unit direct from Tovatech

In practice using the Elma is really nice. It's a piece of lab equipment and behaves as such. In fact the only niggles I can level at it are that the timer starts going up in increments of 5 mins after 10 minutes and I want 12 minutes instead of 15. Also, the dimensions are very tight lengthwise. With the record properly submerged to the lead out you get about 1mm of clearance on each side of the tank.

Re: V8 ultrasonic
As far as I can tell the V8 is a generic 40Khz unit (larger tank) with a custom made filter/rotation motor. Convenient, but you could do the exact same thing yourself for lot less with a Vinylstack and tank of your choice.

 

Here is a 15 second video I made showing the difference in noise between 80Khz and 37Khz on the Elma.



80Khz is ~40dB which is only about 5dB louder then ambient. 37Khz is ~60dB. Big difference.