Well generally you start with a conjecture, test it a bit and hope you can gather enough proof for it to become a theory then test some more and there might be some hard facts. I'm at the conjecture stage with the pardee work. Not sure where you got this 'belief' from. Possibly the same place that your got your accusation of my suffering from expectation bias. But I'll assume your just funning me and play along.
My personal record cleaning regime of not doing anything unless the record is clearly (visibly and audibly) dirty stems from nearly 30 years before I found out about the pardee paper when I was young, daft and believed what audio writers said. One said that Armour all was good for dirty records, so I tried it on one that was so bad as to be almost unplayable. It did not end well. You can't get the bl**dy stuff off again. I then realised that the late John Crabbe had a point when he said that the only thing that should touch your record is the stylus. Since then I have invested in a vacuum setup for records that need it but pristine vinyl is kept dry.
Bear in mind also when I said washing a record is risky I was not just talking about the fluid. There are a number of steps during which the record could get damaged during the cleaning intervention. All of these add to the risk.
But none of this is a 'belief'. It's a choice based on analysis of the evidence I have.
Oh and I never said Pardee was 'significant evidence', just the only actual measurements out there and they do show for his cleaning with his records that friction can increase. Friction drives noise and making records noisier is generally not our aim.
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Me.
Because I use cleaner that comes in a plastic bottle. Oh, the shame, oh the humanity. 😱
But my thrift store and five for a dollar LPs actually play nice a fairly quiet.
Well my cleaner is also in a plastic bottle! I have plenty of second hand purchases that do need a clean. I'm really not anti cleaning dirty records. I just personally don't clean ones that are clean to start with.
I subscribe to a view that, in the dynamic situation of playback, both diamond and vinyl are 'hard'. At least for those few µS any particular point on the groove is in contact with the diamond as it passes. Dynamics apply, and momentarily the vinyl is effectively rigid.
LD
If that is your belief then I suggest you have disproved the belief you stated in your post #55! 😀
If both diamond and vinyl are rigid at the µS time the diamond is passing over a particular spot on the groove then because the stylus is being worn ... the vinyl must be too.
Andy
may be the point of contact on diamond remains the same but whereas it is changing on vinyl is the reason diamond wears out first.
Regards.
Regards.
Hiten has explained it above. The same surface of the diamond is in continuous contact, whereas any point on the vinyl surface is only momentarily in contact.
In practice, vinyl wear is negligible unless there is something wrong.
LD
Eeeerrrhhh, no! Not to my way of thinking, LD. 😛
You said there is no wear on the vinyl (unless there is something wrong - like, say (I'm putting words into your mouth), a chisel-edged (ie. very worn) stylus.
Sure any point on the vinyl surface is only momentarily in contact with the stylus:
* so that point - and each subsequent point of the groove - gets worn ever so slightly.
(whereas the stylus just keeps tracking on and so suffers wear at every subsequent point of contact).
* but play that point in the groove 100 times ... and you will have 100 times the wear from that first microsecond.
IE. LPs do wear ... otherwise the diamond wouldn't wear.
Andy
One side of an LP is around 500m of groove. 500 hours (an oft quoted lifetime for a stylus is roughly 650km travelled. To wear how much off the stylus?
Think about it for a minute.
Think about it for a minute.
Pragmatically that is true. So small as to be negligible, and, for most useful purposes, might as well say none.
100 times a very small number is still a very small number. A stylus traverses about 250000 times it's own contact surface of groove surface per second.
And, in any event, momentary contact need not erode vinyl even if the stylus does erode very slowly.
Practically, one can readily verify this this by playing a lock groove for an hour or so.
LD
Ha! Whatever can be presumed to happen to vinyl groove surface by wet playback seems to happen on the first wet playback then not progress..... but that's just an impression I formed rather than anything rigorous. Is that wear, or damage ? Misadventure, for sure.
I wondered if, whatever the cause is, wet playback somehow magnifies what can happen during cleaning as to increase in friction as per Pardee, and hence the noise ?
Tribologists, where are they when you need one ?
Meantime, a health warning: listening to lock grooves for an hour can warp one's fragile little mind. Sgt Pepper or no Sgt Pepper........😉
LD
No Sgt. Pepper here. I have a friend with a copy an interesting concept. I don't think a CD can index 500 cuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ70HBf_wdQ
After 30 to 40 times a vinyl record will have noticeable audio degradation. This info is from 1982, unless they improved the vinyl quality since then.
Best to record on to digital and listen to as many times as you wish.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Best to record on to digital and listen to as many times as you wish.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I'm not a fan of drugstore isopropyl alcohol for any use beyond cleaning cuts. Here in Canada (or at least here in cattle country) we can buy 95% ethanol ( 5% water) at any agricultural supply vendor inexpensively; cheaper than the drug store variety. You could then dilute it as required.
I'm not convinced alcohols are the best record cleaning solution, but they do have the property as a solvent to work or mix with both oils and water, making removal of oily residue like fingerprints possible. As I understand it, no alcohol is entirely residue free after evaporation, although the residue is said to be small.
Might be OK for very dirty records as a first and only step, followed by gentler cleaners, but I am wary of it's effect on the vinyl itself. Maybe I just worry too much, but that's how I see it. Flammable.
I'm not convinced alcohols are the best record cleaning solution, but they do have the property as a solvent to work or mix with both oils and water, making removal of oily residue like fingerprints possible. As I understand it, no alcohol is entirely residue free after evaporation, although the residue is said to be small.
Might be OK for very dirty records as a first and only step, followed by gentler cleaners, but I am wary of it's effect on the vinyl itself. Maybe I just worry too much, but that's how I see it. Flammable.
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