Vinyl surface noise and cleaning records

[rcarlberg]

Not in my experience. Dawn dish soap -- a nice neutral detergent without any additives -- actually reduces or eliminates static cling.

[Buddhabreath]

A correctly aligned Shibata, line contact, VanDenHull, micro ridge, tracking at the correct force, will cause substantially less wear than an elliptical (or the horror that is a conical stylus). And by substantially less wear, I mean close to zero. A record played with a good cartridge, correctly aligned, with a good stylus shape, will have no audibly noticeable wear over many, many plays. Record wear is drastically exaggerated by the digital only crowd.

I can tell you that my Shibata was out of alignment for years. I did nothing about it and then one day I woke up in sheer agony with a crackling herniated disc that responds neither to vacuum or ultrasonic treatments. In fact the only thing that helps at this point is a good French pressing...

[rcarlberg]

I LOVE a good French dressing, although Catalina will do in a pinch.

[progmatist]

For record cleaning of the electronic/digital kind, I find Izotope RX7 Elements to be absolutely phenomenal in its effectiveness and sound preservation. Not only that, it does a spectacular job freeing cassette music from the tape hiss. If anyone is interested in my presets, on which spent considerable time fine tuning, PM me.