Vinyl Junkies …

Thanks for the book link, that looks really interesting (as an engineer myself)

Douglas Self does appeal to the engineering brain. He also wrote a big book on power amp design which I find helpful if I'm suffering from insomnia 🙂

Can’t believe I’ve never stumbled across this guy. Extremely helpful - cheers for that!

I’ve opened up the casing and it’s a cracked capacitor = £4 replacement and a dodgy home solder! Ya beauty!

I read camera reviews when I can't sleep.

I'd say that a decent phono stage can make a difference.

In my experience they're always better than the integrated option.

I carefully wipe mine with microfiber cloth with a washing up liquid solution on it, then dry it off, then wipe with IPA. In theory a microfiber cloth should get further into the grooves, certainly sound and look better after a wash anyway.

I'd rather avoid the risk of running them under the tap.

I do wonder, if without a rinse (or a vacuum) you're just pushing the crud around the record with a cloth, rather than removing it. Anyhoo, there's no right or wrong, as the long as the record sounds fine, it's all good.

You are leaving a bit more on the surface. The vacuum method gets them very clean. It's useful with a lot of 7" records, the dust from the edges of the cheap paper sleeves and the way they're handled in the factory means they can be quite dusty/dirty.

It does just leave you with pressing flaws to be disappointed with. Sometimes it's better to just enjoy the records. They don't stay clean for long.

That must be why the recommended technique on rotating cleaners like the disco antistat is to rotate only in one direction many times, a couple of dozen or something.

Moodymann 2023 represses look to be coming out soon, £59 each! That's nuts for what i assume will be a double vinyl issue. I'm getting close to giving up on buying new vinyl anyway.

I'm seeing £75 each on Phonica so you should probably snap them up at £59.

I make my own solution (based on previous recommendation by @Airhead )

Would you mind sharing the 'recipe' please?

It's based on 2 types of tergitol and some surface tension reducer.

Here's a massive thread about it but you should be able to find out about it with 'tergitol record cleaner' as a search term.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/cleaning-records-with-tergitol.307642/

Thanks, you have almost definitely read this document that I stumbled upon:

https://thevinylpress.com/app/uploads/2022/01/PACVR_3rd-Ed_2022-01-17_Master.pdf

I definitely borrowed it from @Airhead but here goes...

I make 500ml at a time...
400ml distilled water
100ml rubbing alcohol
1-2 drops of Tergitol 15-S-3
1-2 drops of Tergitol 15-S-9
6-10 drops of Triton X-100 surfactant

All those chemical agents I found on ebay quite cheap. I went for a "large" bottle of the X-100 as it was more cost-effective.

That's interesting pricing. £52 on Amazon, where it's listing Taken Away as a box set with a bonus album. Still too rich for my blood.

Checked out Peckham Soul for the first time, and picked up these two... really lovely spot!

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Any suggestions for artist to support via buying vinyl / merch from them via bandcamp-Friday?
Should be from the EU though; shipping from other parts of the worls is just nuts I realize..

All depends who is releasing on a particular BC Friday.

I have built up a nice list of artists I follow and will buy anything I fancy from them on BC Fridays (some Fridays get quite expensive!).

All depends who is releasing on a particular BC Friday

I'm not sure I'm following - isn't bandcamp just not taking their usual sales percentage on that day, regardless of when an album was released?

Am I missing something here? What you describe sounds like Record Store Day specials 🤷

Sorry, I thought you were talking about new releases.
I usually only buy new releases on bandcamp Fridays and not older stuff because I normally get bombarded with new vinyl that they have held off releasing until a BC Friday.
Most of them are limited pressing runs so if I don't grab them then I miss out
Hope that makes sense!!

What styles are you into?

..ah ok, it makes sense now 🙂

I'm not really committed to one style or another, listening to a lot of rock /metal / stoner stuff at the moment though, plus various groove / funk things..

Actually spent a good while today browsing bandcamp - and noticed that a lot of vinyl is sold out, and a lot of bands seem to only use bandcamp for the digital stuff now (and sell their physical records through either their own site or their label, which isn't a bad way to support them either, I guess)..

A lot of the stuff I listen to sells out quick and often doesn't get repressed.

It may be worth following a load of bands/labels of interest and then see what pops up on BC Friday.

Here is my profile, probably nothing of interest for you but you never know!

https://bandcamp.com/esskay

Had a bit of a win this week. Found that some little label is gathering up old punk demos and doing limited runs of 30-100 vinyl pressings. In 2017, they did a band I saw all the time back in Belfast as a kid - played the cassette to death and lost it decades ago.

Someone put a mint copy on Discogs for £35, chanced my arm and offered £25 and got it. Looking forward to listening to it tonight.

Here is my profile, probably nothing of interest for you but you never know!

Cheers!
Yea I actually kept scrolling a while until I found something I recognised (All my Heroes are Dead)
will check some of these out when I'm in the mood, thanks 👍