LAST Record Preservative. Do you believe?

I found that Stylast formed a coating on my stylus. The more I used it(thinking the stylus was dirty) the worse the sound got! I finally caught on and stopped using it and the the sound got better with every record!

Cheers,
Rainer S.

The chemist who invented LAST insisted that his product was not a coating. He said that it bonded with or reacted chemically with the vinyl (I don't remember which, the conversation I had with him occured over a quarter century ago) to reduce the friction it imparted to the stylus. He also said that LAST could only be removed with a nasty industrial solvent unavailable to consumers. On the other hand, Disc Doctor auteur Duane Goldman claims that his cleaner can remove LAST. For what its worth, Michael Fremer has used LAST for decades and told me that he hears no ill effects from it.

Everyone here who simply posts a negative (or a positive) without indicating whether or not that have actual experience with the product is, at best, adding nothing to the conversation. Jaybo and Ebm, I'm talking to you. If you have an actual, honest to God reason for not liking LAST, please say so.

And Mmakshak, there are dozens of pressings for every Stones album, and most sound different. Sometimes significantly different. That's why there are websites dedicated to the differences between pressings. You bought a record, the title of which you can't even remember, that was already treated, so you have no way of knowing anything about the effects of LAST on this particular copy. Period.

I agree that a RCM should be the first thing a vinyl lover buys, but I find that the combo of my RCM and LAST gives me very quiet records that stay very quiet no matter how often I play them, with subsequent cleaning done only with an Audioquest brush. Cleaning records is boring and time consuming, so once is enough for me.

This is all strictly my experience and opinion, but I'm pretty that I'm right.

I have been using LAST products since I first learned of them in the mid-1980's. Yes, I believe that they offer a modest improvement in overall smoothness and sonics. I don't re-play the same records often enough to comment on the preservative value, however. I do know that I don't notice and degradation of sound in my favorites. First, I clean the LP with my Nitty Gritty, then apply the LAST Preservative, and finally use a dust-free rice-paper sleeve. This was the prescription 30 years ago, and I still use it today. I also use the StyLast on every side of LP, and I apply the LAST Stylus Cleaning Fluid every record or two, usually followed by the stiff stylus brush. I and my friends have used this product on all our LPs without ill effects. I could spend the rest of my life searching and never replace my LP collection---- that's how much I trust the product. My friends with irreplaceable collections feel similarly.