I'm starting this thread in the hope that it might grow into a useful collection of information. So far as I can see, the last discussion about RCMs was specifically around the Kirmuss device and methodology, and the most recent post in that thread was the link by @akamatsu to a rather useful summary of the record pressing process. That link is in many ways a sensible starting point for this thread.
If there was one thing that, in the 1980s, moved me over from listening to LPs to mainly listening to CDs, it was the unwelcome noises produced by temporary or permanent imperfections in the record surface. This problem is IMO as acute as ever, and is the main thing that held me back from buying an LP12 for a number of years. Now I have the LP12, I have been trying to make do with the record cleaning service usefully offered by my local hi-fi store (not a Linn dealer). But the Pro-ject VC-S cleaner they are using appears to be effective only to a limited degree, and it became clear to me that investment in a more capable (and therefore expensive) RCM was a necessary precursor to any further upgrade of my LP12. Recently, the opportunity arose for me to participate in a shared purchase of just such a more capable RCM. That is a long and interesting story in itself, and will be the subject of a separate post. The purpose of this opener is to discover whether there is any continuing interest in the subject on the forum, as I believe there ought to be.
One thing that is clear to me is that there is little point in pontificating in absolute terms about the superiority or otherwise of this or that RCM product or technology. A/B comparisons of playing equipment are difficult enough to make with any certainty when the recorded material and the equipment are constants. A/B comparisons of RCMs are all but impossible; once you've cleaned a record, you've moved the baseline. I know that some people say that, if you clean a record with machine A, play it, then clean it with machine B and play it again, machine B is superior to machine A if the results on the second playing are better than those on the first. But that is false logic, because (1) you are comparing the cleaning of a dirty record with the second cleaning of a clean record and (2) the comparison takes no account of what would have happened if you had given the record a second cleaning with cleaner A. The only comparison that provides useful information is between playings before and after a given cleaning process, ideally repeated a number of times with different records. Even that approach is problematic, because, as can be seen from the description of the pressing process cited above, there is actually a good case for cleaning records before the stylus even touches them.
So there's the quandary. We need to have effective means of cleaning our records, even when new, as surface noise is all too often a limiting factor in our enjoyment of music on the LP medium. But objective, 'scientific' comparisons of different cleaning methods and devices are well nigh impossible to make. We are left with sharing informed guesswork and anecdotal experience - the very stuff of which forum discussions are made , which is the point of the thread title. If people share my view that this is a fun and potentially useful topic, I'd be happy to tell the story of my shared RCM purchase, which included a lengthy training session with the actual developer of the machine in question.
David
If there was one thing that, in the 1980s, moved me over from listening to LPs to mainly listening to CDs, it was the unwelcome noises produced by temporary or permanent imperfections in the record surface. This problem is IMO as acute as ever, and is the main thing that held me back from buying an LP12 for a number of years. Now I have the LP12, I have been trying to make do with the record cleaning service usefully offered by my local hi-fi store (not a Linn dealer). But the Pro-ject VC-S cleaner they are using appears to be effective only to a limited degree, and it became clear to me that investment in a more capable (and therefore expensive) RCM was a necessary precursor to any further upgrade of my LP12. Recently, the opportunity arose for me to participate in a shared purchase of just such a more capable RCM. That is a long and interesting story in itself, and will be the subject of a separate post. The purpose of this opener is to discover whether there is any continuing interest in the subject on the forum, as I believe there ought to be.
One thing that is clear to me is that there is little point in pontificating in absolute terms about the superiority or otherwise of this or that RCM product or technology. A/B comparisons of playing equipment are difficult enough to make with any certainty when the recorded material and the equipment are constants. A/B comparisons of RCMs are all but impossible; once you've cleaned a record, you've moved the baseline. I know that some people say that, if you clean a record with machine A, play it, then clean it with machine B and play it again, machine B is superior to machine A if the results on the second playing are better than those on the first. But that is false logic, because (1) you are comparing the cleaning of a dirty record with the second cleaning of a clean record and (2) the comparison takes no account of what would have happened if you had given the record a second cleaning with cleaner A. The only comparison that provides useful information is between playings before and after a given cleaning process, ideally repeated a number of times with different records. Even that approach is problematic, because, as can be seen from the description of the pressing process cited above, there is actually a good case for cleaning records before the stylus even touches them.
So there's the quandary. We need to have effective means of cleaning our records, even when new, as surface noise is all too often a limiting factor in our enjoyment of music on the LP medium. But objective, 'scientific' comparisons of different cleaning methods and devices are well nigh impossible to make. We are left with sharing informed guesswork and anecdotal experience - the very stuff of which forum discussions are made , which is the point of the thread title. If people share my view that this is a fun and potentially useful topic, I'd be happy to tell the story of my shared RCM purchase, which included a lengthy training session with the actual developer of the machine in question.
David
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