FWIW in response to some points made above:
1. We've owned and used a PRC3 for 5-6 years. In all that time I have only once had the thread bind up in the tube. That was less than a year after we bought the machine and I blame operator error. We've had no such problems for years.
2. We've tried steaming, using a device like the ones often recommended on this forum. Maybe it was operator error again, but the results were miles behind what we get from our 4-step AIVS regimen. Someone said Lloyd Walker is a perfectionist and so are we. Steaming didn't come anywhere close to producing acceptable results for us, though it certainly was faster.
3. The Clearaudio solution doesn't match the performance of the AIVS solutions we use, regardless of the RCM you vacuum them with. Koegz's experience that his Clearaudio D.M. worked better than his Loricraft PRC4 was therefore based on different performance criteria than ours.
4. The ultimate test of vinyl cleanliness is not how quiet your surfaces are. One can eliminate clicks and pops with many different methods using many different machines, but that's only the first step. Much harder than that is getting the grooves clean enough so that a very revealing system can reproduce all the low-level information in them. Anyone who touts a cleaning method or machine based on how quiet their surfaces are is not listening at the highest levels. Their statements must be considered in that context.
5. Never tried the Clearaudio RCM's, but as pointed out above the demonstrably inferior physics of slot vacuuming and the constant battle against contaminated felts make them a non-starter for us. No doubt they're faster and if it does a good enough job for some, that's great. To each his own.
1. We've owned and used a PRC3 for 5-6 years. In all that time I have only once had the thread bind up in the tube. That was less than a year after we bought the machine and I blame operator error. We've had no such problems for years.
2. We've tried steaming, using a device like the ones often recommended on this forum. Maybe it was operator error again, but the results were miles behind what we get from our 4-step AIVS regimen. Someone said Lloyd Walker is a perfectionist and so are we. Steaming didn't come anywhere close to producing acceptable results for us, though it certainly was faster.
3. The Clearaudio solution doesn't match the performance of the AIVS solutions we use, regardless of the RCM you vacuum them with. Koegz's experience that his Clearaudio D.M. worked better than his Loricraft PRC4 was therefore based on different performance criteria than ours.
4. The ultimate test of vinyl cleanliness is not how quiet your surfaces are. One can eliminate clicks and pops with many different methods using many different machines, but that's only the first step. Much harder than that is getting the grooves clean enough so that a very revealing system can reproduce all the low-level information in them. Anyone who touts a cleaning method or machine based on how quiet their surfaces are is not listening at the highest levels. Their statements must be considered in that context.
5. Never tried the Clearaudio RCM's, but as pointed out above the demonstrably inferior physics of slot vacuuming and the constant battle against contaminated felts make them a non-starter for us. No doubt they're faster and if it does a good enough job for some, that's great. To each his own.