Vinyl pops and crackles

I use the Disc Doctor products on a VPI 17.   This works very well.   I also use a Superline Supercap phono stage.   Noise is greatly reduced with the Superline.  Don't ask me why.

I just bought a Miles Davis original six eye mono that looked like it had been driven over by a car.  A Very Good plus copy would set you back £150 or more mine was less than £10 but after a thorough hand wash working the cleaning fluid into a lather and then a very good clean on the vacuum record cleaning machine it now sounds beautiful it still looks a bit rough but plays fine apart from a few pops and crackles which are ok.

Back in the '70s there was a fad for playing records wet, which resulted in much reduced noise.  Unfortunately once you played a record wet, it always had to be played wet - if then subsequently played dry it sounded terrible.  Heaven knows what long term damage was being done though - not just to the LPs but to the stylus and cartridge as well...

Back in the late-70s I was Xmas gifted a can of silicone spray and cloth applicator intended to "clean" LPs. Definitely reduced pops and crackles, but once over that I realized it also dulled the dynamics. Fortunately I only used it on a dozen or so LPs. Even more fortunate, when I bought a RCM some three decades later, I found it was able to clean the crud from these siliconized LPs and restore them to decent SQ. 

I never did LAST (nor would I), but the few treated LPs I've bought from the used bin (LAST sticker intact) sound excellent. For me the lone exception to the "never treat your records" rule. Might have [@mention:1566878603910888] 's ears ringing.

Since I bought my first LP12 in 1983,I have never thought about whether I have pops and crackles.
Have actually honestly never heard it,the musical message dominates so large.

On the advice of the Swedish Linn-distributor,I also ended in 1983 to use a disc brush.
He said that you just brushed down the dust in the disc tracks,..instead let the needle catch the dust.

The only thing I've used is Linn's "Green Paper" to clean the needle,as well as the well-known thing that vibrates (forgot the name),to also clean the needle.

/Peder ????

dolorem posted:

 I won’t tell you about the raised eye brow I got when I spoke to the very helpful women at Max Black in Sydney. Luckily she has lots of old records and got right into it we both laughed and exchanged numbers. 

Thoughts 

Well, I think it sounds like you're in with a chance there.

Such was the increase in frying eggs and bacon sound on my most played LPs (many 100s of plays), despite scrupulous care with arm/cartridge setup, cleaning and avoiding touching etc, that I attributed it to wear, and the increasing noise was a factor in my eventual move completely away from vinyl. It seems from what I have learnt since that increaing ingrained dust may have been a significant factor, as I did not have a liquid record cleaner, and others claim wear is inaudible (though I have no idea how many plays their records get, nor what level of noise to them is simply ignored).

A good cleaner certainly makes sense - however I have never heard a completely silent LP, always having at least some feint sound in quiet passages, and often having the odd more significant ‘click’ or whatever.

This seems to be the the current fad, although does remind me somewhat of the weird and wonderful days of 1980's DIY Hi-Fi.

Lots of youtube videos on this 'method' of cleaning vinyl which appear to work if done correctly.

http://digg.com/video/clean-dirty-vinyl-wood-glue

I only have a modest Disco Antistat cleaner but I was amazed at how much it reduced the noise on the oldest of my records. I have a few from over 50 years ago which had really suffered during my teenage years but they are now very listenable if not perfect, in spite of horrendous looking visible scratches.

My theory is that the old sapphire styli in the Dansette BSR and Garrard autochangers I used in those days never got near the part of the groove that my VdH tipped Troika nestles in these days.

???? PEV,....Whaoo Troika,...the sexiest pick-up that has been produced.
Especially if you have a black tonarm,black against red ????.

Here we are several who use retipped Troika's.

/Peder ????

Pops and Crackles, I just wondered if any forum members have come across this piece of kit....

Sweet Vinyl SC1 it's not a cleaning machine.

I believe you plumb it in between your phono stage and preamp.

Audio T have a 2 part blog on it. 

The SC1 was reviewed in this months HFN. Certainly a much better modern equivalent of the Garrard Music Recovery (!) module 

IME the prominence of pops and crackles also has to do with the cart. The Rega Exact for example, can tend to reduce these vinyl noises, albeit at some expense to speed and dynamics. My own preferred cart, a Grace F9E with Soundsmith stylus is a bit noisier by comparison, but the advantages of superior bass speed, transient punch, and top-end shimmer far outweigh softening of an occasional pop.

joerand posted:

Back in the late-70s I was Xmas gifted a can of silicone spray and cloth applicator intended to "clean" LPs. Definitely reduced pops and crackles, but once over that I realized it also dulled the dynamics. Fortunately I only used it on a dozen or so LPs. Even more fortunate, when I bought a RCM some three decades later, I found it was able to clean the crud from these siliconized LPs and restore them to decent SQ. 

I never did LAST (nor would I), but the few treated LPs I've bought from the used bin (LAST sticker intact) sound excellent. For me the lone exception to the "never treat your records" rule. Might have [@mention:1566878603910888] 's ears ringing.

Eh?

I do think LAST is good, but try not to proselytise.  I know it can't make a bad record sound good, but it does seem to do a good job of keeping good records sounding, er...good. 

Here's a picture LAST has used for many years to make their case.

james n posted:

The SC1 was reviewed in this months HFN. Certainly a much better modern equivalent of the Garrard Music Recovery (!) module 

Fremer had a surprisingly positive review of the SC1 on AnalogPlanet back in April. 

Slightly off topic, but unavoidable.

“Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs
are better than vinyl because they don't have any surface noise.
I said, 'Listen, mate, life has surface noise."

John Peel, of course. RIP.

TK421 posted:

Pops and Crackles, I just wondered if any forum members have come across this piece of kit....

Sweet Vinyl SC1 it's not a cleaning machine.

I believe you plumb it in between your phono stage and preamp.

Audio T have a 2 part blog on it. 

Interesting hardware option, then of course there are software options, I wonder if anyone has used this that I purchased some years ago before I got fed up trying to digitise LPs via an Apogee ADC - just need something like this software to run in real time when playing LPs to a digitiser and send back to analogue again!

Dolorem,

Re vinyl cleaning - It would be worth checking out two products - “Record Revirginizer” and “Winyl Record Cleaner”. Based on the PVA / Wood Glue method of adhesive deep clean peel - but purposely designed for the task of cleaning records, so no (allegedly) long term hidden effects. 

I’m in the middle of experimenting with both products (currently have vinyl drying) on non precious records with varying degrees of contamination, a couple almost unlistenable due to surface noise. Without getting too carried away, lets just say the results I’ve experienced so far are deeply impressive. 

I intend to do full write up with pix in the next few days (if ok with mods).