Playing records wet.

Is it a bad idea? We've all cleaned records and not wanted to wait till they dry. Do I have to?

I would wait to let them dry... just to help keep the stylus clean of any "mud" that might be picked up in the grooves. Just my way of thinking though... :scratch2:

I remember going to a small stereo shop in St. Louis about 30+ years ago and the guy who ran it like to demo equipment using recordings of the Russian Army band. He washed his records with water and I can remember a tremendous pop each time the stylus hit a tiny drop of water.

I've tried playing records wet, by spraying distilled water until the needle always rides along a puddle of water. I found that it can cut down the surface noise somewhat on certain records. I'm not sure I would recommend it, since I'm not sure if it is good for the stylus or not, and have stopped doing it myself.

You can find a good article about cleaning record on the needledoctor website written by Mr. Cecil Watts. Look here and click on the link for the PDF


http://www.needledoctor.com/Cleaning-Vinyl-Methods

I've heard that if you play a record wet once, you'll always have to play it wet. Supposedly it creates a "mud" in the grooves that re-sets once it dries. Why you couldn't play it wet, then give it a good wet vacuum cleaning I don't know.

Although this is speculative, I believe that a wet groove would add a mechanical impedance, which would work against the compliance of the stylus.

Wave your hand in the air. Then jump in the pool and wave that same hand under water. Obviously, the water resists the movement of the hand far more than the air. Ergo, when the groove wall is attempting to push around the stylus as a high velocity (slew rate) the additional mechanical impedance of the water slows the stylus.

This would reduce transient response, frequency response, slew rate -- whatever name you want to give it.

Fred Longworth

probably not a good idea to have your stylus wading through water...:scratch2:

I have used this technique quite often when old records are very noisy. I do this to get one good play, which I record.

The water needs to be "wet", and a few drops of detergent mixed in the water does that well. The record is rinsed and dried after with a lint free cloth, then allowed to dry.

Grumpy and I were just talking about this last week.

If the record's really dirty, after cleaning it I'll run it wet the first time through. It might not be something that's healthy to do, but as of yet I'm none the worse for wear because of it.

what about trying to clean records with silicone rags ? I use one of these when I lubricate 8mm movie film after processing. I also use a silicone rag to clean my R2R's and my 8mm cameras. Actually there are many uses for these rags, they make anything shine nice.

I've been playing my older records under a film of water for 20 years. It takes away lots of the surface noise in the quieter moments of a song or inbetween songs. Distilled water with a couple of drops dawn in a small plant misster . I've added a lil' alcohol to the mix occasionally. The dawn and alcohol break the surface tension of the water is what I was told. I used to do this a lot when I wanted to tape a record and just use the tape around the house and in the car instead of getting the record out again. My turntable and records are still doing fine.

LencoClean

Lenco, same company that made TTs back in the day, also sold a popular record cleaning system that played the record wet.

It was controversial, since it left a ton of residue when the fluuid dried, but I did find it handy for records that were not listenable using other more conventional products.

I found a couple of pictures that show it, basically, a hollow arm that you filled with the fluid that "played" the record at the same rate your cartridge did. Worked wonders on old records with ticks and pops, or just high amounts of surface noise...

In the image showing the arm mounted on a TT, it looks to me that the base of the arm is too low for proper flow of the fluid. This is simple to revise, just pull it's support up a little higher on the pin.

smooth "sailing"

Possum_Dog said:

I've been playing my older records under a film of water for 20 years. It takes away lots of the surface noise in the quieter moments of a song or inbetween songs. Distilled water with a couple of drops dawn in a small plant misster . I've added a lil' alcohol to the mix occasionally. The dawn and alcohol break the surface tension of the water is what I was told. I used to do this a lot when I wanted to tape a record and just use the tape around the house and in the car instead of getting the record out again. My turntable and records are still doing fine.

Click to expand...

I have done the same thing for many years, and have found no ill effects. If its a record I really want to clean up, after playing I will rewet and vacuum.

My personal experience with Lencoclean

Apropos Lencoclean (two posts above), I have a (hopefully interesting) personal story:
Circa autumn 1979, my old man bought a Lenco L133 turntable, and with it came a complimentary "Lencoclean Wet-Cleaning Set". My old man, not giving a rat's arse about sound enhancement gimmicks & gizmos, stuffed the Lencoclean in a drawer and forgot about it.
Come november 1986, (the early years of the "digital revolution"), I went to an acquaintance of mine to see and hear "the miracle of sound" e.g. the Compact Disc.
Myself owning the same Kate Bush album on vinyl, I wanted to hear "The Whole Story" compilation on CD he just bought.
Holy s**t! I was left bedazzled! I promptly recorded the CD on tape, so later at home I can compare its sound to the sound of the LP. There was no doubt, the CD-to-tape sound blew away the LP sound by miles.
Clicks, pops and crackles caused by dust and static, inner-groove distortion... none of 'em on CD, tons of 'em on LP, no matter how clean and new the stylus and records were.
How I wanted to get me a CD player and lots of CD's, but alas, at that moment I couldn't afford myself the sky-high-priced CD's, so I had to stick to vinyl.
But then I remembered: my old man's Lencoclean! I wanted to give it a try, out of pure curiosity. All those stories about 'playing records wet will damage them' I ignored, 'cause things couldn't be worse. The Lencoclean set was still unused, only the liquid was smelling suspiciously, so I used distilled water instead.
It removed, say, 30% of the surface noise on first wet-play, another 10% on second wet-play and with every new wet-playing the noise was getting more and more reduced!
Playing records became fun again, and it saved me a lot of money, not having to buy the same titles for the second time on CD.
After 2 years of constant wet-playing, when the brush got worn-out, I ordered from Conrad-Electronic another Lencoclean set and twenty appropriate replacement brushes (in case of later out-of-stock situations). Boy, was I happy when the package finally arrived...
During the 90's, when vinyl records were considered urban myths by every person born after 1980, I became one of the few people in my town that still played 'em. Thanks to that, many of the older folks left me their whole vinyl collections, knowing that the records will be in safe hands.
Even today I still play every record with Lencoclean (although it's not manufactured by Lenco anymore, but by another brand - "Wittner"), and fully enjoy that rare sound only a vinyl record has...
P.S.: By-the-way, the distilled water did no damage to either the cartridge and/or the stylus, but prologed the stylus' life for at least 50%.

Now where is that electron microscope when you need it?

Sure would be interesting to look at an LP.. then play it wet, then look at it.. then look at it after it has dried.. then play it dry, then look at it again.. then play it wet and vac it, then look at it again...

Would be able to see if dirt accumulates, or if it damages the groove at all, or if it actually gets cleaner?... :scratch2:

I remember back in the day, the British and other Europeans used the wet playback method. My old Sure and Stanton cartridge instructions gave seperate tracking force ranges for both wet and dry playback, and my Thorens TD-160 has two scales on the anti-skate mechanism. The siver outlined ellipse was the scale for wet, and the solid silver ellipse was the scale for dry, if memory serves. Have no idea what fluid was used for wet playback.

I'm with you that wet play reduces surface noise and eliminates many of the clicks and pops. If this happens because the performance of the stylus is altered (reduced) and that kills the highs, I'm not sure but it sure takes away the brightness in the high frequencies.

I have though, a question.

How can we keep the water where we want it to be? Rotation will gradually push water towards the outer track and off to the TT. Especially if the water is "cured" with alcohol or some sort of detergent to reduce the surface tension and increase the mobility.

I have used this trick once or twice, with very worn out LPs that I wanted to "salvage" on HQ High bias tape. But it was a painful process, as I had to drip dropplets of water in front of the stylus (a Stanton 681 with the longhair brush installed). The brush did a good job in keeping the "active" groove wet - perhaps like a lencoclean method of sorts - but needed a constant resupply of fluid.

After each track finished, I wiped the excess water with a soft cloth and started with the next track. Pretty tedious and stupid looking.

In retrospect, I think that a VPI machine or the wood glue cleaning method does the same - probably better - job in a better and safer way.

I sometimes drop some Last record cleaner in front of the stylus during needledrops of noisy records, and it helps a lot. I don't notice any loss of fidelity, and noise is significantly reduced.

Once the side is done, I properly clean & dry the record and stylus.

The very fine Lencoclean brush leaves a wet trail that is approx. 0.5 inches (1 cm) wide and very thin and the rotating of the record doesn't push the water outwards to the rim. Not even when I play 45-ers.
The distilled water I use evaporates pretty quick (usually in 5 minutes, depending on the temperature of the environment), so you don't have to dry the record, only to collect the excess water with a paper tissue at the inner end of the record.
I never used the original liquid myself, only distilled water, so I can't tell you what the differencies are.
But it doesn't reduce high frequencies, it even betters them by removing clicks, crackles and pops, induced by dust and static!
If anyone of you people resides in the European Union, I personally recommend you to try and order the ex-Lencoclean (now Wittner) set (Art.-Nr.: 312088-62) here, the replacement brushes (Art.-Nr.: 330322-62) here and the liquid (Art.-Nr.: 312053-62) here. You can even see the user's manual here
Unfortunately, everything is in German, so it might make things a bit difficult.
Try it this way: go to www.conrad.de, below the "Conrad" logo choose "Conrad International", then click on the flag on the right side of the page that says "ENGLISH" and try to order the products directly. Just type in the Art.-Nr. codes I mentioned above.
I hope you get lucky!
I know I got...