AdamWysokinski
Mmm... music...
Osage looks fine, but it's a bit expensive (damn it, it's just a piece of wood with some nylon bristles).. any reasonably priced alternatives?
Cheers, Adam
Cheers, Adam
I use one of these for my wet cleaning, but it looks like there is no savings over the osage:
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinf...thing will spread the fluid, albeit clumsily.
The Mofi brush is good if you are a soaker and not a scrubber.
I am not convinced that the VPI-supplied and other similar brushes work well. The bristles are too thick to get into the grooves and really only serve to spread the cleaning fluid around. For this purpose, any brush that works may be used. Further, more worryingly, the hard bristles tend to leave fine scratch marks on the surface of the vinyl (usually not audible, but not acceptable if you have valuable records).
You have voiced what I have been suspicious of for quite a while now. One would assume that the brush supplied with a quality RCM (like VPI) is not just an afterthought. Certainly £40 is not an afterthought price !!!
So far, the MOFI and Osage seem to be better designed to
a) get down into the grooves during a good scrub, and
b) be durable enough to both spread AND scrub.
However, my 4 inch VPI (for the 16.5) is the correct size, but others tend to be longer, though I can't see why. Why isn't (hifi) life simple?
The Manual Parastat incorporates the essential requirements for record cleaning and maintenance in a comprehensive and convenient form.
It has a central hand made brush supported by two velvet covered rubber pads.
The brush is closely packed with over 30,000, 0.006" diameter pure nylon bristles finely pointed to an average tip radius of 0.00025" and firm enough to probe down into the groove without harming the record in any way.
The short pile plush of the pads has a similar filament radius and will collect all dirt, dust and pollution dislodged by the brush.
Static control is provided by the use of a new formula Parostatik antistatic fluid, a free flowing non-toxic liquid which, when used as directed, cannot leave any kind of film or deposit in the record grooves other than a molecular trace of no physical significance.
1/8th of a mm isn't going anywhere into your grooves...