advertisement


RCMs: Vacuum vs Ultrasonic

clivem2

clivem2

pfm Member
I’ve used my Loricraft RCM for around 15 years. It’s been very effective at getting rid of noise on my records, it bring up sounds quality a little too. 18 months ago I bought an ultrasonic RCM. I still use the Loricraft but only for a quick clean and for drying my records.

I find that using the ultrasonic cleaner takes longer than the vacuum but the results are a significant improvement. I know that some believe ultrasonic cleaning can damage records, possibly it’s true but only in my view if you use very contaminated water.

The thing with vacuum RCMs and brushes is that aside from old mono records with wide grooves I don’t believe brushes can reach sufficiently into the grooves. Getting the groove walls truly clean seems a challenge. Someone must have used a microscope to compare results...I find that my ultrasonic RCM not only removes all noise due to dirt but it’s as though there’s an emulsified film that’s removed from the groove. The resulting sound is more “immediate” and has greater clarity.

Whether I use microfibre brushes or goat hair etc and scrub away with a magic cleaning formula on the Loricraft I don’t get near the SQ lift from I achieve with ultrasonic cleaning.

How have others found comparing vacuum to ultrasonic cleaning?
 
What's your Ultrasonic?

the problem I have is that

1: the US cleaning solution is so mild that it won't touch stubborn deposits, as you may find on second hand records, and

2: the solution is recycled, so you're leaving a contaminated film over the disc as it's dried.

the VPI will remove anything on the surface, with the alcho mix, and it's all removed through the vacuum.
 
robbyd said:
What's your Ultrasonic?

the problem I have is that

1: the US cleaning solution is so mild that it won't touch stubborn deposits, as you may find on second hand records, and

2: the solution is recycled, so you're leaving a contaminated film over the disc as it's dried.

the VPI will remove anything on the surface, with the alcho mix, and it's all removed through the vacuum.
Click to expand...
My ultrasonic is a Kirmuss. I don’t care for their marketing and I don’t use their cleaning process. I don’t put cleaning solution in the u/s tank...this just has water and alcohol. I pre-treat the records with water containing surfactant, I tried 3 different ones, Tergitol comes out best as but they all work well.

Before I dry my records in the Loricraft I spray water on them, I doubt even without this whether contaminated water is an issue. There’s 6.5l in the tank so any contamination will be very diluted. I don’t clean more than about half a dozen records per tank of water.

I’m going by the results I’m getting...much better with ultrasonic. It’s not pops and crackles I’m talking about, it’s SQ. U/S cleaning the way I do it is admittedly much more work.

If I have a really gruesomely dirty record I clean it with the Loricraft first.
 
I kept my Nitty Gritty when I bought an Audio Desk a few years back.

New records get only an ultrasonic cleaning, while used records are first scrubbed and vacuumed.
 
clivem2 said:
The thing with vacuum RCMs and brushes is that aside from old mono records with wide grooves I don’t believe brushes can reach sufficiently into the grooves. /QUOTE]



I don't think those brushes are designed to fully penetrate the groove as their function is to 'push' the fluid into the grooves by various manipulation techniques I'm sure my nylon VPI brush doesn't. . There's no brush in the ultrasonics either, so it's down to the soaking and dissolving of impurities or the removal by agitation. Where the two machines differ is in their ability to abstract and dry the record, and the common RCM wins hands down on that one.

Why have two machines to do one job? I cannot understand, when ultrasonic cleaning is generally perceived to be better, why an effective abstraction and drying function cannot be incorporated. A warm air fan might dry, but not abstract, with the downside of blowing the air about.

I have a common or garden VPI which does all the tasks needed in record cleaning; it'll do me (actually, it's done me, having cleaned over 2500 records over a decade or more). Who knows, maybe there IS an all singing all dancing ultrasonic cleaner nowadays, costing a small fortune.
Click to expand...
 
Proving that ultrasonic, or other types of record cleaning devices, are actually better than others is, by their very nature, almost impossible to judge. The machines, Moth, Nitti-Gritti etc., that use fluid to saturate the record and then vacuum it, and the dirt, off, seem to be extremely effective. The brushes used to distribute the fluid over the surface of the record might not all reach to the bottom of the groove, but then neither does the stylus. If you do one clean with these machines, they do an excellent job of restoring most vinyl to silence. With the occasional very dirty record, I find an additional cleaning cycle does the trick, and any subsequent cleans won't make any difference because the record's damaged.

A friend has an ultrasonic machine (the name escapes me), & he's convinced it makes records sound even better. I do take some albums over to him & we put them through but I confess, although he was convinced they were improved, they didn't sound any different to me.
 
Last edited:
I bought my Moth second-hand but I assume that the brush that came with it is original. It is just a length of long bristle draught excluder - the sort of thing that usually gets attached to the bottom of doors.
The bristles are just parallel plastic filaments and I have measured them - I beleive they are around 100 microns (4 thou) - they are doing no more than making sure that the liquid spreads over the entire record, nothing more.
As many of us have said many times - one run through the machine does the job in the huge majority of cases, a second run may ressurect a very few more, anything still noisy is damaged.
 
I use a wet vacuum cleaner and occasionally inspect records before and after cleaning under the electro microscope and there is a significant difference. I have tried a second clean and inspection but as far as I can see one clean is very effective. After one clean I can’t see much left that an Ultrasonic could improve on but I’ve never used one tbf.
 
I have been using a Loricraft PRC 3 for 13 years now. It's a quirky machine and even now, I'm finding different ways of using it. A couple of moths ago, I ran out of thread, so I contacted SME and bought a reel from them, but it clearly wasn't the same as I had been using before. The thread would unravel and it was shedding fibres like there was no tomorrow. At the end of a cleaning session, the liquid in the jar looked like I had been scrubbing the floor; a closer look revealed it was bits from the thread. I contacted SME, but they were most unhelpful and now they have suspended production of the machines, albeit temporarily. I managed to get some of the Original Talbot thread from eBay and that was better, but I have also purchased some thread from Keith Monks and that seems better still. I purchased one of their Pyr/\mats too. These have raised pyramids, so that debris from the dirty side of the record can fall into the recesses, thus not contaminating the clean side of the record. They are too thick though and this means that the arm isn't level, and suction may be reduced. Sean from KM suggested that I peel off the 3mm thick rubber backing and I have done that and now the combination of the Pyr/\mat and the KM thread seems to be working well. I have some days when the process seems difficult, the mix isn't right (L'Art du Don), the arm will skip and the human element (me having a bad day).

I have tried different mix ratios (L'Art du Son suggest quite a lean mix), but I still find 4.5 ml to 5.0ml per 150 bottle works best . Leaner mixes can result in insufficient wetting of the record. I had the belt break a couple of weeks ago, but I guess 14 years service isn't bad and the replacement was only £5 on eBay.
 
Last edited:
clivem2 said:
Drying is available with some ultrasonic machines.
Click to expand...

Sure, I mentioned that, but as far as I know, warm air fans. Not only do they dry anything left on the record, they move (contaminated?) air around. For my money, the abstraction by vacuum is the most effective way of both cleaning and drying. Even after vacuuming, you need to leave a record on the platter for +/- a minute (depending on ambient temp.) to fully dry; that's with an IPA mix; may be longer with other fluids.
 
Woodface said:
Cleaning records is a right faff, I don’t use mine nearly as much as I thought I would.
Click to expand...
My experience is the opposite; I bought a VPI 16.5 about a year ago and never used it because I was not looking forward to the faff. Yesterday I dug out a few records, made up the solution and got going. Nightfly - visibly unclean - took a few minutes to get back to clean. I played it after and those few minutes were very well spent so I did some more.

Noise is the only issue - so I did it at 0900 to hit the sweet spot of my lazy kids sleep 'pattern'. Made the whole process a million times more enjoyable.
 
Both , US first clean with new and used vinyl , Then Prc4 wet clean and vac from then on , and a new sleeve
 
clivem2 said:
The thing with vacuum RCMs and brushes is that aside from old mono records with wide grooves I don’t believe brushes can reach sufficiently into the grooves. Getting the groove walls truly clean seems a challenge. Someone must have used a microscope to compare results...I find that my ultrasonic RCM not only removes all noise due to dirt but it’s as though there’s an emulsified film that’s removed from the groove. The resulting sound is more “immediate” and has greater clarity.

Whether I use microfibre brushes or goat hair etc and scrub away with a magic cleaning formula on the Loricraft I don’t get near the SQ lift from I achieve with ultrasonic cleaning.

How have others found comparing vacuum to ultrasonic cleaning?
Click to expand...

I’ve used a Loricraft for some years too and will concede that ultrasonic cleaning can give slightly better results. It’s my experience though that when using the Loricraft no amount of scrubbing helps clean the records better. The brush is only used to distribute the fluid evenly across the surface and the important bit is to let the fluid lie and do it’s job. Times vary depending on record condition but 2 minutes followed by vacuum and distilled water rinse and I find most records come up very nicely. I use the Groovinator fluid and it’s the best I’ve found.
 
Whilst on this journey with both vacuum and ultrasonic machines I have naturally wondered where the differences lie as with the vacuum I don’t have issues making records noise-free. Yet I feel there’s an SQ improvement with ultrasonic...I realise some here think I’m imagining this, a la cables...I sense this could become a cable-type thread, entrenched beliefs and all that.

Here’s a hypothesis. We know the vinyl plants have debunked the Idea that a mould release agent is used. I believe the formulations for vinyl vary wildly. I’ve read that oils can leach out of vinyl and just when new, possibly this could be encouraged by the heating effect of being played (my guess). If oil leaching does occur maybe it’s these oils that ultrasonics remove better than a vacuum.
 
That’s why I let the surface soak in what is basically a detergent. I do believe ultrasonic cleans a bit better but I made my investment a long time ago.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top