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Vinyl LP and Turntable Discussion


RussTCB

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On 8/16/2016 at 10:02 AM, classicrawker said:

had not heard of that Russ but a few fellow vinyl sniffers on the Hoffman forum rave about it

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/flux-hifi-sonic-electric-needle-cleaner-works-wonders.435857/

Audiogon also recommends it so it sounds like it could be a good investment

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/flux-hifi-sonic-stylus-cleaner

Pulled the trigger on this while I was traveling for work this week. I may not get to try it out for another couple of days, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll let you know if it lives up to what I read prior.

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On 8/10/2016 at 2:35 PM, classicrawker said:

So after much research I finally sprang for a Record Cleaning Machine which arrived today....I was considering a VPI,  which based on reviews is great machine, but it was more than twice what I paid for the Record Doctor which is basically a Nitty Gritty  machine without the platter turning motor so you spin the record by hand to spread the fluid. Considering how many records I would clean at a time I can live without the platter motor I think.

RDV_1.jpg

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=RDV&gclid=CO7N5_G8t84CFdBZhgod-qsMsQ

Looking forward to giving it spin this weekend to see how it does. I might even do a 2 step cleaning using my spin clean for the first step or for a distilled water rinse.........

Someday I would love to get an Audio Desk which uses Ultrasonic cleaning but that is way out of my league financially right now

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=ASVCP

the wife and kids were out to fhet house today so broke the Record Doctor RCM out for  trial run and all I have to say is WOW! what a difference it makes properly cleaning a record.

The Joe Walsh "So What" lp I recently bought off of Discogs looked very clean but it had a skip on the track one cut as soon as you put the stylus down and was a little noisy. After cleaning with the Record Doctor, and a hit from the Zerostat gun to get rid of the static build up,  no more skip and it is incredibly quiet now compared to pre cleaning. Same with the original pressing of the Woodstock I 3 LP set I bought a while back. It had so many snap, crackle and pops even my daugthers complained when I tried to play it. Same result after cleaning in that most of the surface noise is gone.

Next effort I am going to try is pre-clean the LP's with the Spin Clean unit I have and a then do a good vacuum with the Record Doctor to get all the dirty cruddy cleaning fluid  off  to see if this does an  even better job cleaning.

I highly recommend this or some other vacuum type Record Cleaning Machine to anyone serious about vinyl and has the coin to invest as it makes a world of difference in sound quality of your vinyl when you play them. Takes a little time and effort to use but worth every penny IMHO.

Edited by classicrawker
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4 hours ago, classicrawker said:

the wife and kids were out to fhet house today so broke the Record Doctor RCM out for  trial run and all I have to say is WOW! what a difference it makes properly cleaning a record.

The Joe Walsh "So What" lp I recently bought off of Discogs looked very clean but it had a skip on the track one cut as soon as you put the stylus down and was a little noisy. After cleaning with the Record Doctor, and a hit from the Zerostat gun to get rid of the static build up,  no more skip and it is incredibly quiet now compared to pre cleaning. Same with the original pressing of the Woodstock I 3 LP set I bought a while back. It had so many snap, crackle and pops even my daugthers complained when I tried to play it. Same result after cleaning in that most of the surface noise is gone.

Next effort I am going to try is pre-clean the LP's with the Spin Clean unit I have and a then do a good vacuum with the Record Doctor to get all the dirty cruddy cleaning fluid  off  to see if this does an  even better job cleaning.

I highly recommend this or some other vacuum type Record Cleaning Machine to anyone serious about vinyl and has the coin to invest as it makes a world of difference in sound quality of your vinyl when you play them. Takes a little time and effort to use but worth every penny IMHO.

Every record that comes in my house new or old hits my VPI before it hits my turntable. Up til now, I'd be using VPIs fluid:
https://www.musicdirect.com/record-cleaning/vpi-rcm-fluid-1oz-concentrate

which is $25 and makes only 1 gallon.

I ordered this today:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019YI38Z2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This stuff is $24 and makes 30 gallons. I was extremely skeptical when I first heard of it, but I looked into reviews/forums/etc and found people RAVING about it. It will be here Tuesday and I'll get a chance to clean some things with it. I'll report back ASAP because if it works as good as people claim, you'll want to switch to it.

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23 hours ago, RussTCB said:

My Pearl Jam Live At Third Man Vault package arrived yesterday. Everything about it is top notch as usual. Won't get a chance to spin it til this weekend, but everything I've read says it sounds great.

Mine arrived this morning, completely forgot about it as well, so was  welcome suprise when the dick courier banged on the door this morning. Such a professional well put together cared for package. The main piece, the Pearl Jam live records, is absolutely brilliant - from the playing, song selection, audio etc. Really pleased I signed back up to vault subscription. 

Dumb question: Looking to upgrade my old player, and noticed heaps of the modern more up market record players don't have dust protectors/covers. Why is that, and how to you stop gunk and dust from collecting on it? My old player has the shitty plastic lid cover thing, and on top of that is so much dust and stuff, that without it I would not consider playing records on the thing as they'd get fucked (or would require extensive cleaning on a far too regular basis of both player and records post and pre spinning them).

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22 minutes ago, hudsonsaul said:

Mine arrived this morning, completely forgot about it as well, so was  welcome suprise when the dick c. Such a professional well put together cared for package. The main piece, the Pearl Jam live records, is absolutely brilliant - from the playing, song selection, audio etc. Really pleased I signed back up to vault subscription. 

Dumb question: Looking to upgrade my old player, and noticed heaps of the modern more up market record players don't have dust protectors/covers. Why is that, and how to you stop gunk and dust from collecting on it? My old player has the shitty plastic lid cover thing, and on top of that is so much dust and stuff, that without it I would not consider playing records on the thing as they'd get fucked (or would require extensive cleaning on a far too regular basis of both player and records post and pre spinning them).

Every Third Man Vault is done that well and I love it. Can't wait to spin the album on Friday night. 

With regard to the dust cover thing, I don't get it either. A lot of them are that way. Not sure if it's just a way to charge you for an accessory you'll need or what. 

If you don't mind my asking, what's your budget for a new player? You might be able to spend less than you're planning on to be honest. 

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3 hours ago, RussTCB said:

Every Third Man Vault is done that well and I love it. Can't wait to spin the album on Friday night. 

With regard to the dust cover thing, I don't get it either. A lot of them are that way. Not sure if it's just a way to charge you for an accessory you'll need or what. 

If you don't mind my asking, what's your budget for a new player? You might be able to spend less than you're planning on to be honest. 

Anywhere between 500USD to 800USD (assuming you deal in US dollars, but that i think is the rough conversion from NZD).

Was thinking a Pro-ject Debut (http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=debutcarbondc&cat=turntables&lang=en) or a Rega RP (http://www.rega.co.uk/rp1.html). I've survived years on a beat up old cheap player, and its time to move on as I'm probably doing more damage than good. No particular reason for these ones other than their ease of accessibility to me (and potential ability to test them out prior to purchase).

 

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10 hours ago, hudsonsaul said:

Anywhere between 500USD to 800USD (assuming you deal in US dollars, but that i think is the rough conversion from NZD).

Was thinking a Pro-ject Debut (http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=debutcarbondc&cat=turntables&lang=en) or a Rega RP (http://www.rega.co.uk/rp1.html). I've survived years on a beat up old cheap player, and its time to move on as I'm probably doing more damage than good. No particular reason for these ones other than their ease of accessibility to me (and potential ability to test them out prior to purchase).

 

I have an AT-LP240 right now which gets REALLY mixed reviews. I haven't had any problems with mine over the last 5 years or so, so I kinda feel lucky. If I were buying a new turntable today, I'd go this route which is a slightly different version of one you're already looking at:

https://www.turntablelab.com/products/pro-ject-debut-carbon-dc-esprit-sb-turntable-gloss-black

it's got an acrylic platter which I like a lot and it also has a speed switch which I like instead of moving the belt like you have to on the lower end version. You can add their dust cover to it for $50 or so I think. 

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Just got this from Amazon today....This is a Friday Music reissue supposedly mastered from the original analogue Columbia Tapes.....

JWAND.jpg

I have a couple of original copies as I used to play this album constantly in college but I am sure they are a bit beat as I got them before I had a decent turntable......I have about 150-200 albums I bought back in the 70's buried in a spare closet in my house I am going to excavate for them this weekend. They have been buried since we moved into the house 16 years ago and have not seen a turntable since I started buying CD's in the late 80's so I need to move a ton of stuff to get to them but it will be like Christmas for me once I get them out.

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6 hours ago, RussTCB said:

I have an AT-LP240 right now which gets REALLY mixed reviews. I haven't had any problems with mine over the last 5 years or so, so I kinda feel lucky. If I were buying a new turntable today, I'd go this route which is a slightly different version of one you're already looking at:

https://www.turntablelab.com/products/pro-ject-debut-carbon-dc-esprit-sb-turntable-gloss-black

it's got an acrylic platter which I like a lot and it also has a speed switch which I like instead of moving the belt like you have to on the lower end version. You can add their dust cover to it for $50 or so I think. 

Your Audio Technica is basically a copy of my old Technics SL-1700 MK2 I just brought out of moth balls and tuned up...The Tonearms look almost identical...........The old Technics are great turntables and built like tanks but even mint examples like mine will need a good tune up before they work properly again which means taking them apart to clean up and relube the gears on the tonearm...They retailed  for $350 back when I bought mine in 1980.

Mine has a Stanton 881S Moving Magnet cartridge with an original low hours stylus on it.  They are not made anymore but back in the day they were one of the best MM cartridges you could buy and sound fantastic even by today's standards.

Technics1.jpg

http://www.vintagetechnics.co.uk/showitem.php?id=YToyOntpOjA7czoxMDoic2wtMTcwMG1rMiI7aToxO3M6MTU6ImRpcmVjdF9kcml2ZV90dCI7fQ==

If I was buying new again there are a lot of very high quality turntables for less than $1000 US you get get these days, Rega, pro-ject,  Music Hall etc......so you have some great choices...Also like the VPI turntables but now you are getting over the $1000 barrier...............Just make sure you get a decent cartridge as that is as important as the turntable itself and if you go for a Moving Coil cartridge you may need an additional preamp as they have very low output

http://electronicdesign.com/components/what-s-difference-between-moving-magnet-coil-and-iron-cartridges-turntables

http://vinylmeplease.com/the-best-turntables-under-500/

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/the-8-best-budget-turntables-that-wont-ruin-your-records/

http://coloredvinylrecords.com/blog/recommended-new-turntables-under-500/

 

it truly is a great time to collect vinyl...............

 

 

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3 hours ago, classicrawker said:

Your Audio Technica is basically a copy of my old Technics SL-1700 MK2 I just brought out of moth balls and tuned up...The Tonearms look almost identical...........The old Technics are great turntables and built like tanks but even mint examples like mine will need a good tune up before they work properly again which means taking them apart to clean up and relube the gears on the tonearm...They retailed  for $350 back when I bought mine in 1980.

Mine has a Stanton 881S Moving Magnet cartridge with an original low hours stylus on it.  They are not made anymore but back in the day they were one of the best MM cartridges you could buy and sound fantastic even by today's standards.

Technics1.jpg

http://www.vintagetechnics.co.uk/showitem.php?id=YToyOntpOjA7czoxMDoic2wtMTcwMG1rMiI7aToxO3M6MTU6ImRpcmVjdF9kcml2ZV90dCI7fQ==

If I was buying new again there are a lot of very high quality turntables for less than $1000 US you get get these days, Rega, pro-ject,  Music Hall etc......so you have some great choices...Also like the VPI turntables but now you are getting over the $1000 barrier...............Just make sure you get a decent cartridge as that is as important as the turntable itself and if you go for a Moving Coil cartridge you may need an additional preamp as they have very low output

http://electronicdesign.com/components/what-s-difference-between-moving-magnet-coil-and-iron-cartridges-turntables

http://vinylmeplease.com/the-best-turntables-under-500/

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/the-8-best-budget-turntables-that-wont-ruin-your-records/

http://coloredvinylrecords.com/blog/recommended-new-turntables-under-500/

 

it truly is a great time to collect vinyl...............

 

 

If I were spending over a grand, I'd definitely go with something from VPI or Clearaudio. I have a Clearaudio preamp that I absolutely adore. 

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Started building a new record table last week and finally finished it last night. Just wanted to spread everything out a little more so there's not too many albums leaning on each other. 

I spread out all the records to include the new table (seen on the left) just now and I'm really happy with the result:
2r7wk5h.jpg

 

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So I finally dug out my old vinyl records from the storage closet today and had more than I remembered as I had 4 peach crates instead of the 2 that were not buried that I could see in the closet.......... I counted the largest crate which was over 100 so I am guessing I have close to 350+.........if I add the 100+ I have been buying the last couple of years I think I have around 500 total.

A good number are from my high school/ college days so not sure what shape they are in but will have to start cleaning them and see what I have..........I did a quick flip through and there were albums I forgot I even owned and was actually thinking of buying again so hopefully they clean up nice and I won't have to repurchase......a good number have my name written on the sleeve and label as I used to lend them out to friends and classmates........who ever thought they might actually be worth something all these years later!...........

 

albums.jpg

 

 

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1 hour ago, classicrawker said:

So I finally dug out my old vinyl records from the storage closet today and had more than I remembered as I had 4 peach crates instead of the 2 that were not buried that I could see in the closet.......... I counted the largest crate which was over 100 so I am guessing I have close to 350+.........if I add the 100+ I have been buying the last couple of years I think I have around 500 total.

A good number are from my high school/ college days so not sure what shape they are in but will have to start cleaning them and see what I have..........I did a quick flip through and there were albums I forgot I even owned and was actually thinking of buying again so hopefully they clean up nice and I won't have to repurchase......a good number have my name written on the sleeve and label as I used to lend them out to friends and classmates........who ever thought they might actually be worth something all these years later!...........

 

albums.jpg

 

 

Post a list so I can calculate how much I hate envy you right now. 

Also, I've always wondered where you live, whether you have a security system or dog and where you store your vinyl. 

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8 hours ago, username said:

Post a list so I can calculate how much I hate envy you right now. 

Also, I've always wondered where you live, whether you have a security system or dog and where you store your vinyl. 

LOL, those LP's were all bought by me over a lifetime so when I was your age I probably did not have much of a collection at the time. You are lucky you have a cool father to get you started on your collection..........

I have never been to the Netherlands but from what I have read you have some of the best Record Stores in the World there so in a way I do envy you as well..........:)...My wife goes to Amsterdam usually once a month for her job and I plan on tagging along someday just to hit the record stores........

I was visually checking some of my old vinyl out and was relieved to see that I was always so anal about handling them and keeping the dust off with the crude record cleaning devices I had back then as even the LP's I have from my high school days look really nice and clean virtually no surface scratches other than sleeve paper marks. The outer jackets show wear and many are about VG with some ring and scuffing but the vinyl all looks to be EX to NR Mint on the ones I had time to visually look at.

Some of the ones I am most excited to clean first and check out include

The Band- Rock of Ages------------listened to side 1 tonight and this is like new so I must have bought this and not listened to it but a few times

The Beatles- Abbey Road which looked mint-------another I listened to and it does have some surface noise at first. Hopefully it just needs a good cleaning but it sounds very good overall........

Thin Lizzy- Complete albums set

Ten Years After- Recorded Live

Uriah Heep- All the Byron era albums

Led Zeppelin- Complete album set

Mott the Hoople

UFO- Strangers in the Night 2LP

David Bowie- Ziggy Stardust

Lou Reed- Rock N Roll Animal

Ian Hunter- Welcome to the Club

Jimi Hendrix- The Jimi Hendrix Concerts but I have all his albums

Climax Blues Band- FM Live

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band- Will the Circle Be Unbroken

The Who- Quadrophenia and Who's Next

Grateful Dead- American Beauty and Workingman's Dead

Nazereth- several album

Queen- first 3 albums

and for Lenny I have what looks to be a mint copy of The Sex Pistols- Never Mind the Bollocks..............just popped on "God Saves The Queen" for old time sake and it sounds great...just  good cleaning and it should be like new..........

I also have some pretty obscure stuff like Tucky Buzzard and several Moxy albums our Canadian friends would appreciate

I have a lot of cleaning with my Spin Clean and Record Doctor record cleaners to do before I even try to spin any of these so there is a lot of work to do.....................

 

Edit: the wife was not happy to see the 4 crates of albums behind the couch in the Family room so have to figure out a good place to keep them for easy access after cleaning................:lol:

 

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15 hours ago, classicrawker said:

Ten Years After- Recorded Live

Criminally underrated band! Love them! The only thing of theirs I have on vinyl now is what's on the Woodstock OST. Which only includes the epic live version of I'm Going Home. 

 

Lots of other great stuff in there too! :) 

 

And hey, when I was your age makes me sound 16! I'm twice that old, mind you. ;) 

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9 minutes ago, username said:

Criminally underrated band! Love them! The only thing of theirs I have on vinyl now is what's on the Woodstock OST. Which only includes the epic live version of I'm Going Home. 

 

Lots of other great stuff in there too! :) 

 

And hey, when I was your age makes me sound 16! I'm twice that old, mind you. ;) 

Yeah I love TYA...I was lucky enough to have seen them twice live in the 70's.....no disrespect meant about your age as I thought you might be in your early 20's......I did have the advantage of growing up during the golden age of vinyl so that was the only medium other than cassettes you could get back then.......the nice thing about collecting used vinyl now is I can buy a lot of used albums in decent shape for about what they cost back in the 70's at least here in the States if you shop around.......

So does your father have a large collection and is he allowing you to cherry pick what you want?

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20 minutes ago, classicrawker said:

Yeah I love TYA...I was lucky enough to have seen them twice live in the 70's.....no disrespect meant about your age as I thought you might be in your early 20's......I did have the advantage of growing up during the golden age of vinyl so that was the only medium other than cassettes you could get back then.......the nice thing about collecting used vinyl now is I can buy a lot of used albums in decent shape for about what they cost back in the 70's at least here in the States if you shop around.......

So does your father have a large collection and is he allowing you to cherry pick what you want?

Awesome! I only got to see them with Joe Gooch. Which was fine and all, but I'd love to have seen them wih Alvin. 

No offence taken, just messing around. And nah, 32. But I consider 10 years younger to be a compliment. 

If it was up to my dad, I'd just take everything he has. Which I will eventually, as long as I have a place to stock them. But hey, so far I took aout 50 records. Maybe 60. And the guy has great taste! He still has a lot of Cuby + The Blizzards records I want to take. Not to mention some more Ry Cooder as well. I think I have the cream of the crop now, but there's still a lot of good stuff in there I need to sort out. My girlfriend was kind enough to get me A Night At The Opera and Let It Bleed brand new recently. And I've been looking up a lot of good second hand stuff as well. Recently came across Rumors by Fleetwood Mac for 2 euro's. Now that's a bargain! The sleeve was worn, but the record was in great condition. Plus I got to plunder my girlfriends parents collection as well. Which included Atom Heart Mother, More, Let It Be, Cohen's greatest hits, some great Kinks singles, some CCR and a few classical records I'd like to give a spin as well. My dad also has a mint Out Of The Blue by ELO. Need to get my hands on that too. ;) And I want some more jazz records. A friend of mine gave me a great Glen Miller album, but I want some big jazz classics too. 

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Finally had some time to clean some of the choice albums from my closet diving collection..........Did about 20 vinyls total in just over 2 hours of cleaning............I started by running them through a Spin Clean, wiped them off with a microfiber cloth to remove most of the liquid and  then a vacuumed them with the Record Doctor..........After that  I gave them a real Record Doctor cleaning using a MoFi brush to spread the supplied liquid cleaner clock and counter clockwise before a final vacuum.....It was time consuming but worth the effort as it removed a skip in and otherwise very clean copy of a Pink Capricorn label Allman Brothers orginal Fillmore pressing so now it is not only prisitine looking but also very quiet to listen to. iI paid a bit of money for that pressing as the cover is NRMINT and so was the vinyl visually so I was really dissapointed when I discoverd it had a skip in the middle of "You Don't Love Me".....this is the second clean looking album I have where a good cleaning removed a skip so unless your album has a major scratch a good cleaning could remove the problem.

Also cleaned  several  of the old classics I bought during my High School days which I was afraid would not be in very good shape as I had a cheap turntable and only a crappy record cleaning cloth which only removed surface dust. Cleaned a copy of the Jimi Hendrix Concerts 2LP set which came out very quiet......A copy of Buffalo Springfield's self titiled 2LP retrospective which still had some surface noise at the neddle drop but after that it was actually a very nice listen...And the one I was most worried about The Who Quadrophenia original Track Records pressing, which I thought was a lost cause and damaged by my cheap TT so I thought it was ruined, but after cleaning while it still had some surface noise at needle drop it actually sounded fantastic with only an occasional pop and click.

I brought that album to a friends Dorm room back in college to play for group of people doing a little smoking and music listening. He had a nice 4 speaker stereo system and had wet brush cleaner which was about as good as it got back then. He tried to play that album after cleaning it but it sounded horrible so I had pretty much given it up for lost but it looks like it only needed a deep cleaning to bring it back to life.................

While it is labour intensive and slow I can highly recommend the two step cleaning process for used albums I did as the Spin Clean got out a lot of the heavy grime and the Record Doctor sucked up all the nasty fluid afterwards. After 20 records you could see the dirt at the bottom of the Spin Clean so it did a nice job loosening the majority of the dirt for the Record Doctor to vacuum away.......

After cleaning I zapped each record 4X with a Zerostat static gun and into a fresh MoFi archival inner sleeve..............

Going to take a long time to clean all my albums but for me at least it was actually fun to see how the cleaning process improved the sound markedly and I got to listen to my handy work as I  cleaned other albums so it was time well spent.............

Edited by classicrawker
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On 9/3/2016 at 10:21 AM, username said:

Awesome! I only got to see them with Joe Gooch. Which was fine and all, but I'd love to have seen them wih Alvin. 

No offence taken, just messing around. And nah, 32. But I consider 10 years younger to be a compliment. 

If it was up to my dad, I'd just take everything he has. Which I will eventually, as long as I have a place to stock them. But hey, so far I took aout 50 records. Maybe 60. And the guy has great taste! He still has a lot of Cuby + The Blizzards records I want to take. Not to mention some more Ry Cooder as well. I think I have the cream of the crop now, but there's still a lot of good stuff in there I need to sort out. My girlfriend was kind enough to get me A Night At The Opera and Let It Bleed brand new recently. And I've been looking up a lot of good second hand stuff as well. Recently came across Rumors by Fleetwood Mac for 2 euro's. Now that's a bargain! The sleeve was worn, but the record was in great condition. Plus I got to plunder my girlfriends parents collection as well. Which included Atom Heart Mother, More, Let It Be, Cohen's greatest hits, some great Kinks singles, some CCR and a few classical records I'd like to give a spin as well. My dad also has a mint Out Of The Blue by ELO. Need to get my hands on that too. ;) And I want some more jazz records. A friend of mine gave me a great Glen Miller album, but I want some big jazz classics too. 

Nice to have your dad and girlfriends dad turning you onto classic vinyl...........let us know what you pick up in the future

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11 hours ago, classicrawker said:

Finally had some time to clean some of the choice albums from my closet diving collection..........Did about 20 vinyls total in just over 2 hours of cleaning............I started by running them through a Spin Clean, wiped them off with a microfiber cloth to remove most of the liquid and  then a vacuumed them with the Record Doctor..........After that  I gave them a real Record Doctor cleaning using a MoFi brush to spread the supplied liquid cleaner clock and counter clockwise before a final vacuum.....It was time consuming but worth the effort as it removed a skip in and otherwise very clean copy of a Pink Capricorn label Allman Brothers orginal Fillmore pressing so now it is not only prisitine looking but also very quiet to listen to. iI paid a bit of money for that pressing as the cover is NRMINT and so was the vinyl visually so I was really dissapointed when I discoverd it had a skip in the middle of "You Don't Love Me".....this is the second clean looking album I have where a good cleaning removed a skip so unless your album has a major scratch a good cleaning could remove the problem.

Also cleaned  several  of the old classics I bought during my High School days which I was afraid would not be in very good shape as I had a cheap turntable and only a crappy record cleaning cloth which only removed surface dust. Cleaned a copy of the Jimi Hendrix Concerts 2LP set which came out very quiet......A copy of Buffalo Springfield's self titiled 2LP retrospective which still had some surface noise at the neddle drop but after that it was actually a very nice listen...And the one I was most worried about The Who Quadrophenia original Track Records pressing, which I thought was a lost cause and damaged by my cheap TT so I thought it was ruined, but after cleaning while it still had some surface noise at needle drop it actually sounded fantastic with only an occasional pop and click.

I brought that album to a friends Dorm room back in college to play for group of people doing a little smoking and music listening. He had a nice 4 speaker stereo system and had wet brush cleaner which was about as good as it got back then. He tried to play that album after cleaning it but it sounded horrible so I had pretty much given it up for lost but it looks like it only needed a deep cleaning to bring it back to life.................

While it is labour intensive and slow I can highly recommend the two step cleaning process for used albums I did as the Spin Clean got out a lot of the heavy grime and the Record Doctor sucked up all the nasty fluid afterwards. After 20 records you could see the dirt at the bottom of the Spin Clean so it did a nice job loosening the majority of the dirt for the Record Doctor to vacuum away.......

After cleaning I zapped each record 4X with a Zerostat static gun and into a fresh MoFi archival inner sleeve..............

Going to take a long time to clean all my albums but for me at least it was actually fun to see how the cleaning process improved the sound markedly and I got to listen to my handy work as I  cleaned other albums so it was time well spent.............

Every single LP that comes into my house, new or old,  a run through my VPI 16.5 and a Mo-Fi inner sleeve on it prior to hitting my turntable. Up til now, I've only been using a 1-clean system which involves spreading the VPI cleaning solution on the LP, letting it soak for a few rotations and them giving it 2 rotations with the vacuum on. They all get sleeved up too but a little different than most people do it. A lot of people I know place the jacket in the sleeve with the sleeve opening facing up. All of them spine their records though whereas I have mine in the bins that I've posted pics of, so I feel like leaving the sleeve open on the right is ok for my setup.

I'll be switching up my cleaning rouine this week by changing over to that Tergi-Kleen solution I posted about. Now I'll be rubbing that in with the Mo-Fi brush, letting it soak for a few mins, then having the vacuum take it up. Then I'll do a rinse with distilled water as recommend. Adding an extra step will obviously be time consuming and to be honest, I don't see myself going through all 1,100 albums again but I do plan on doing it to everything going forward. On top of that, I'll definitely do it to anything I know to have moderate to bad pops & clicks. I can think of a couple that could really use it, but other than those I'll just do it on a case by case basis I think.

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Just received the following ebay purchases today

I have my copy from my college days but I played that to death so wanted a cleaner copy...........Fantastic Band with a young unknown Sammy Hagar on vocals and an incredibly underrated guitar player Ronnie Montrose (RIP) who was in the Edgar Winter Group that put out the "They Only Came Out At Night" LP..............this album rocks and was a big influence on young guitarists that followed.........

Montrose.jpg

I am a huge Johnny Winter fan and didn't own this album but also got it as it is a 2LP 3 sided album so side 4 is a blank album with no grooves.....you can use a blank album to setup the anti-skating on your turntable as the dials are not always accurate.

JW_Second.jpg

Here is a great video explaining anti-skating and how to set it up using a blank record.

 

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Have the opportunity to grab a sealed Beatles Stereo 14 LP box set for about half price and wanted to see if anyone has this and what their opinions are?

Beatles_Box.jpg

I have read on forums that many prefer the mono box and also complaints about the U.S. pressings but I have never been a fan of mono so am thinking of pulling the trigger............

 

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1 minute ago, classicrawker said:

Have the opportunity to grab a sealed Beatles Stereo box set for about half price and wanted to see if anyone has this and what their opinions are?

Beatles_Box.jpg

I have read on forums that many prefer the mono box and also complaints about the U.S. pressings but I have never been a fan of mono so am thinking of pulling the trigger............

 

Ok.....so I had the stereo box but read WAY better things about the mono box so I ended up trading up. I'm not usually a mono guy either but I gotta tell ya, I like the mono box much MUCH better.

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