Dougdeacon: Thank you for the many interesting points you made.
YOU WROTE: “… I've tried playing new records with only dry brushing. Those records are now ruined. Whatever particulates or contaminates the mold release grabbed onto got ground into/against the vinyl by the stylus. This damage has proved irreversible by cleaning with any means at my disposal - which include a Loricraft, highly purified, deionized water and solutions with surfactants, with alchohol and with enzymes.”
I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with dry brushing. I have not had a comparable experience: I brush a new record carefully before and after each play and store it in a new sleeve free of dust. I know of a well known person in record mastering who flatly refuses to use RCF on ANY record period, so annoyed is he by the background noise created by these cleaners. I am not nearly that extreme because the problem isn’t permanent and can be easily rectified.
Being a surfactant specialist, I used to clean every single new record I bought with surfactant RCF until one day, quite by accident I am ashamed to admit, I played a record that I cleaned about a month earlier and played once without any problems. I was shocked to hear a faint background noise that wasn’t there before. And to my complete horror, I found that ALL my new records cleaned by surfactant RCF had the same faint noise unless they have been played a lot. I figured out what the problem was (dry surfactant film) and promptly proceeded to rinse every previously cleaned record with HPLC water: they are all dead quiet now. I can’t emphasize this point enough: you don’t hear any noise if you play the record immediately after cleaning or with if any lubricant/preserver is present in the RCF.
YOU WROTE: “…My preferred RCFs (based on achieving the best results) are the ones made by Record Research Labs. Brian Weitzel is also a chemist BTW, so I'm sure he considered many of the issues Justin_Time has raised. Presumably this explains why RRL contains far lower surfactant levels than other RCFs and no alchohol at all. If RRL leaves any residue or sonic signature I've never heard it. That is not true of the other products I've tried.”
I agree with you. RRL makes some of the best if not the best RCFs out there. And yes, RRL is probably aware of the problems with surfactant noise. Using less surfactant certainly helps reduce the surfactant residue but unfortunately also reduces the cleaning power as well, thus the need for two cleaners (the Super Deep Cleaner and the Super Vinyl Wash). The lighter-duty SVW also uses a lubricant (carboglycinate) which dampens any noise that the surfactant film might create; this lubricant seems to have little or no signature of its own. Overall, an effective solution if not a simple one.
If you worry about the mold release (Teflon/silicone lubricant) attracting dust and gumming up your expensive stylus—aren’t they all ridiculously expensive these days?—I think the same concern should apply to any lubricant used in the RCF until the manufacturers explain to us how theirs are different and why we shouldn’t worry.
I have played around some with formulating new surfactants for RCF. It is possible to design a surfactant that works very well—actually better than most—at very low concentration, doesn’t adsorb much, and does not create any audible noise after drying. As the market for such experimental surfactants expands to a commercial level, we will be able to use them to make simple and safely effective RCF. I am sure smart RCF manufacturers will figure out what these surfactants are soon enough, if they haven’t already.
YOU WROTE: “… I've tried playing new records with only dry brushing. Those records are now ruined. Whatever particulates or contaminates the mold release grabbed onto got ground into/against the vinyl by the stylus. This damage has proved irreversible by cleaning with any means at my disposal - which include a Loricraft, highly purified, deionized water and solutions with surfactants, with alchohol and with enzymes.”
I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with dry brushing. I have not had a comparable experience: I brush a new record carefully before and after each play and store it in a new sleeve free of dust. I know of a well known person in record mastering who flatly refuses to use RCF on ANY record period, so annoyed is he by the background noise created by these cleaners. I am not nearly that extreme because the problem isn’t permanent and can be easily rectified.
Being a surfactant specialist, I used to clean every single new record I bought with surfactant RCF until one day, quite by accident I am ashamed to admit, I played a record that I cleaned about a month earlier and played once without any problems. I was shocked to hear a faint background noise that wasn’t there before. And to my complete horror, I found that ALL my new records cleaned by surfactant RCF had the same faint noise unless they have been played a lot. I figured out what the problem was (dry surfactant film) and promptly proceeded to rinse every previously cleaned record with HPLC water: they are all dead quiet now. I can’t emphasize this point enough: you don’t hear any noise if you play the record immediately after cleaning or with if any lubricant/preserver is present in the RCF.
YOU WROTE: “…My preferred RCFs (based on achieving the best results) are the ones made by Record Research Labs. Brian Weitzel is also a chemist BTW, so I'm sure he considered many of the issues Justin_Time has raised. Presumably this explains why RRL contains far lower surfactant levels than other RCFs and no alchohol at all. If RRL leaves any residue or sonic signature I've never heard it. That is not true of the other products I've tried.”
I agree with you. RRL makes some of the best if not the best RCFs out there. And yes, RRL is probably aware of the problems with surfactant noise. Using less surfactant certainly helps reduce the surfactant residue but unfortunately also reduces the cleaning power as well, thus the need for two cleaners (the Super Deep Cleaner and the Super Vinyl Wash). The lighter-duty SVW also uses a lubricant (carboglycinate) which dampens any noise that the surfactant film might create; this lubricant seems to have little or no signature of its own. Overall, an effective solution if not a simple one.
If you worry about the mold release (Teflon/silicone lubricant) attracting dust and gumming up your expensive stylus—aren’t they all ridiculously expensive these days?—I think the same concern should apply to any lubricant used in the RCF until the manufacturers explain to us how theirs are different and why we shouldn’t worry.
I have played around some with formulating new surfactants for RCF. It is possible to design a surfactant that works very well—actually better than most—at very low concentration, doesn’t adsorb much, and does not create any audible noise after drying. As the market for such experimental surfactants expands to a commercial level, we will be able to use them to make simple and safely effective RCF. I am sure smart RCF manufacturers will figure out what these surfactants are soon enough, if they haven’t already.