And me too please.
1 Like
Sure thing lads; thatāll be Ā£500 each please 
5 Likes
Think I can do a bit better than that Mike. 
Me too please
1 Like
and another spacer too please. Doh!
1 Like
I think I will soon need to make some cleaning fluid for my VV. I have never done this before. It seems to be distilled water + IPA + wetting agentā¦
What is a suitable, cost effective wetting agent to use?
You can use dishwasher rinse aid, thatās probably the cheapest stuff to find and what I used when I ran out of the supply of Ilfotol that @mickbald gave me when he lent me his VV, it works well.
Although a litre of Ilfotol is only about Ā£15 and would probably last a very long time, at 15ml per 5lt of cleaning fluid, so itās still pretty cost effective at that price.
Edit: and Iāll post your stylus scale tomorrow or Monday Gareth.
3 Likes
Rob is spot on, a litre of ilfotol will basically last you for years it only needs 15ml for every gallon of mix and is the best wetting agent to use in my experience.
Just be careful to keep it in the house. If itās kept in the shed or garage the cold weather can make it go cloudy and spoils it.
4 Likes
Tim, the lid arrived today - thanks. Beautifully made and a perfect tight fit.
3 Likes
Need to get this off my chest;
Iāve made the mistake of listening to my records through headphones. Sounds ābetterā than my digital source, but the surface noise on new vinyl is pissing me right off.
Cleaning with the VV gets some improvement, but still not as quiet as Iād like. Older vinyl seems to fair better once cleaned.
Any cleaning tips?
I use 80/20 dionised water/alcohol with wetting agent added too. The VV has done wonders for my old collection, pretty sure this is down to the quality of new pressings.
Have you tried adding a small amount of medical grade detergent eg. Triton x100 as well as the wetting agent. No more than 2.5ml in a 5l tank to release the MRA on the disk?
1 Like
A lot of new pressings do seem to have a lot more noise now days If they are bad i just send them back you never really get rid of surface noise in my experience.
2 Likes
Unfortunately if the surface noise is due to a poor pressing then no amount of cleaning is going to improve that. Iāve a few myself that are noisy in the way you describe.
Itās the same with bad scratches itās possible to get the vinyl scrupulously clean but youāll always hear that scratch because itās permanent damage. Iām afraid the surface noise is pressed into the vinyl. What is also unfortunate is that most of the vinyl pressing wizards who made the great sounding vinyl of decades past are now dead or retired so we are relying on a work force with little or no experience of making records so some of that product leaves a bit to be desired.
3 Likes
Agree with that. Those folks at QRP and Pallas seem to know their onions though 
1 Like
Static seems to make a huge difference. I sent 3 new records to the USA and the buyer was raging at the excess noise.
I asked him to clean them to remove any charge, and he mailed back to say it transformed them.
The static gun things are a bit crap (very hard to pull the trigger without the cracking noise). Iāve seen a dedicated anti static machine but it was Ā£Ā£Ā£.
Shame there isnāt an instant way to discharge a record as you are about to stick it on.
1 Like
Does anyone make a conductive mat that would do the job ? Obviously youād need to rest the upper surface - the one youāre going to play - on it, hopefully briefly, before transferring the disc to the TT. Otherwise there were old-fashioned dust-wipe brushes - cylindrical things covered in a sort of velvet - which had to be dampened with a little clean water from a tube down their centre. Youād have thought that would give the fabric enough electrical conductivity to bleed the static away if the whole assembly had an earth wire connected to it.
VB
1 Like
I have found putting a finger on the LP and then touching the grounding post on the back of the phonostage works fineš.
Antistatic strap and a carbon brush thing.
Or just fuck it off and go digital.
1 Like
Yep, tried double cleaning and it makes minimal difference if at all. So frustrating when a piece of thin vinyl from the eighties can sound better than a new pressing. Stuff like Phoebe Bridgers and The National, that have quiet passages drive me up the wall.
These:
Canāt be worth the money but why isnāt there something much cheaper (demand?).
My milty gun just clicks all the time, now.