linuxaudio.org

On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 12:51:53AM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:

quoted text
> AFAIK, any old dish soap that comes out of a bottle today will be fine.

> Dishwasher soap OTOH, is pretty darned caustic, which probably won't do

> the label (or the velvet & your skin for that matter) any good at all.

> Use the velvet going with the grooves, and rinse with lots of warm

> water at kitchen faucet spray pressures before the final rinse with

> distilled.  Its clean when you can see rainbows in the grooves as it

> dries.  Note however that I'm referring to vinyl records, not old

> shellac 78's which will absorb an amazing amount of water.  Those I've

> never used more than a velvet pad and just dampened it, rinseing it out

> when it shows dirt.  Back velvet, not showing the dirt all that well

> shouldn't be used.  If you can find it, a light colored mohair

> frizay(spelling checker please) would be even better as its fibers will

> stand higher and straighter, reaching into the grooves even better, but

> be gentle with it too.

Thanks for the info. 
> Removing as much grit from the grooves as you can, before its pounded

quoted text
> into the vinyl by the passing of the diamond needle, is a very

> desirable thing.  Once embedded in the groove walls, its essentially

> there forever.  A well produced LP of yesteryear, on a good turntable &

> good arm & needle, can easily do 55+ db of snr, with some approaching

> 70 db, but they were rare indeed.  That takes either a weathers

> turntable, or an old fairchild battleship but I doubt any of them

> survive today.  Today, Techniqs is the best but its 20 db noisier than

> those were and has arm resonances you can actually see.  Its a lost art

> I'm afraid.

I like the Linn Sondek but as far as I know you can't play 78's, You

could only play 45's by adding an attachment to the motor spindle.
Thanks for the insight. When I worked for Telecom, I commisioned some

broadcast circuits from the local radio station and there were a few old

broadcast magazines from the 60's and they were interesting reading, esp

the techniques that were used with what little was available at the

time.
--

Chris.

======