What do you do when nothing seems to get LP clean?

I started using Vinyl-Zyme on my 30-year-old records that have not been played for ten years a couple months ago. Also used records I buy. This is followed by the regime used on new records: RRL SDC and SVW followed by Last. They sound great to me but I'd like to try Paul's stuff. Does anyone know if Vinyl-Zyme uses the correct enzymes MrKidKnow informed us of?

Jeff,

I don't know what exact enzyme class Vinyl-Zyme is using. It's pretty tough to determine the enzyme class without spending significant money on specialized lab equipment or paying an independent lab to do this. All I can say with regards to Vinyl-Zyme is that I haven't heard of anybody having a bad experience with this product. Thus, Vinyl-Zyme appears to be safe on vinyl at this time.

I personally will not try any enzyme cleaners on Nitrocellulose or Shellac-based records until I know more about these record compositions.

There is a simple test for detecting the presence of cellulase enzymes. I don't have the exact recipe anymore but what you do is you expose a piece of camera film (celluloid) to the solution for a fixed amount of time and if the celluloid material shows blatant signs of chemical attack (breaks-up/disintegrates), then the conclusion is that a cellulase enzyme is present. I do recall some other type of colorimetric test that produced a strong blue color but don't recall if this identified a specific enzyme class or if it was a generic positive test for enzyme presence (could be confusing this test with a method that detects amino acids and proteins). This test may only work on enzymes that contain specific metal ions in the porphyrin ring.

I've got a gut feeling that a protease confirmation test could be designed using eggwhites since they are concentrated proteins. Obviously, starch could be used to detect amylases and a phospholipid source could be used to detect Lipases. I'll have to look into this further down the road. Haven't done a search yet; these may be easily found on the internet.

Mr. Kidknow

I couldn't stand it. Had to try the enzymatic solution (not the alcohol-based cleaner, of course) on a shellac 78. "The Washington Post March" by the Victor Marching Band. I play this thing for guest on my circa 1928 Victrola, so it's suffered through God only knows how many steel needles. Put it on my Empire 298 with a Grado 78 rpm cart and ... voila ... hardly a sign of surface noise. Really amazing.

Now I guess I'll put it aside and wait for it to melt.

Seriously, this is about the most unscientific "test" imaginable, but I thought Mr. Kidknow might be interested. Dave

Dave,

I've got to agree. My usage of it was about as un-scientific as you can get. Put it on, scrub, vacuum. Leave it on a little longer, scrub, vacuum. Leave it on even longer, vacuum. Used the second stage each time. BTW, here's the Yes album with the mold on it before I cleaned it:



I didn't take an after, because it looks like new, now. Sounded better every time, period. My ears say it works. My albums haven't melted, yet.

I really don't care about the science. Of this or RRL, or VPI, or Nitty Griity, or whatever. I can understand the concerns, because let's face it, we've got tons of money tied up in vinyl. But, when someone offered a sample of RRL to try, I tried it. It worked. Nobody gave a damn about the "science", because it worked. When Paul offered, I tried it, it worked better.

Good enough for me, I bought it, a double order. I mean, hezu kristo, in the time it took to reread this thread, I cleaned & played 5 albums. Damn, they were all quiet, too. And they haven't melted yet either.

Joe

This is a copy of what I wrote to Paul after I tried his Enzymatic solution:

Rx'ed order yesterday, and late last night (this am) I
tried your solutions. Results??? (this is only after
trying it on a half dozen or so records) I'm very
pleasantly surprised. I have been skeptical about the
miracles posted about vinyl cleaners. I have used my
own solution of distilled water, alcohol, photo flow
w/a nitty gritty for decades and it has keep my
records clean. I tried one of the recent two-step,
ultra-pure solutions and was not impressed. My
records are already clean. I heard no improvement.
But since your stuff is very reasonably priced and I
was running low on my cleaner, I thought I'd try
yours.

Your stuff, on the other hand, is a different matter.
I heard , and these are my ears and on my system, a
better defined sound stage that seemed to be the
result of a low level glare or edginess that was
removed from all the records that I tried. (I listened
before and after cleaning.) While the music was
somewhat smoother, musical detail and texture was
enhanced. The results were consistent on very old
dime store vinyl as well as new, audiophile pressings.
I had not realized the glare was present.

Not bad.

So you have another happy customer.

***To summarize my results: I'm very happy w/the Enzymatic solution, it's far better than my DIY solution that I've used for years and years and another 2 step, ultra-pure cleaner that I tried.