Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Plenty of info on here:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/best-practices-record-cleaning.333442/

Brasso and a brillo. Finish with 16 grit, swarfega, spit, polish and a jay cloth.

My Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones arrived (fuuuuucking finally!) this morning. Only had a 10 minute listen befor erunning out but long enough to assertain that that they beat seven kinds of shit out of my old Sony's and Wharfedales for detail and separation. In fact given that the quality of my Adam monitors is almost entirely lost in the woofy bass-trap flutter echo horror of my spare room, they also beat the shit out of them. Was instantly able to pick out timing discrepancies and EQ issues that were previously totally lost to the boxy smear of frequencies generated by my room's shitty acoustics.

Record cleaning is easiest in an ultrasonic bath.

Bit of a dredge as I put this on hold investing the money in startups rather than music players. Anyway my missus gave me the Cambridge Audio 200 for Xmas - and it pretty much ticks the boxes of what I wanted. I'm really impressed with the sound and ease of setup. I'd recommend it to the simpler folk who want an out the box solution

I use a carbon brush and the products from here:

http://vinylclear.com/

To play my TV through the Cambridge Audio wave will one of these do?

Or should I spend more/something different?

Wood glue. Seriously...

If it works I'd imagine it being a one-off kind of thing for old records with caked on gunk.

It does work and can be used to resurrect particularly grimy records but it's very expensive and time consuming for general use.

Yeah, these new glues don't come cheap.

Seriously, ultrasonic bath, job jobed and no hassle.

Ha ha ha ha those products really are for the hipsters.

Carbon brush from richer sounds are good.

Assuming you have a foot square ultrasonic bath of course? A bit expensive, no?

Its lynx. He owns all the things.

Maybe.

I'm not quite sure what's hipster about that.

And, whilst an ultrasonic bath is probably the best, it's quite an outlay - many dorra.

Doesn't need to be that big, you don't want to put the whole record in as the label would come off. Just need to have the record upright and the record groves in the water to be cleaned.

Sort of like this!
[](http://www.tnt-audio.com/jpg/us_operating.jpg)

I do own an ultrasonic bath, very handy for cleaning stuff. I recommend every have one they are very handy.

How does the fluid lift and remove the dirt? If it is the microfibre cloth you might as well spray deionised water and wash the record then wipe with a microfibre cloth.

Also if you look at second hand there can be bargains.

It basically dissolves it.

You can if you wish, make up your own cleaner which will be the same and cost a fraction of the price but I can't really be arsed and don't have enough records to warrant making up enormous batches of solution.

Now that is more worrying, what does it dissolve? Dirt? bits or record?

The idea of cleaning records in take away the dirt, grease and grit that builds up on a record.

Some people recommend vacuum the records

Rega and Linn recommend no cleaning and letting the needle do the cleaning work.

Do you also clean your needle?

Just dirt.

I've read what Rega & Linn say but unless you're starting with perfectly clean records, the stylus won't clean them but might prevent build up if they're stored and cared for properly.

I replace the stylus every 500-600 hours and make sure it's clean also.

The solution (and any good quality solution) is designed not to damage the records.

From personal experience, I've found it the most cost effective way to clean records that makes an audible difference and doesn't do any harm.

Perhaps using the wood glue technique followed by the Linn/Rega method would be fine too.

I never thought I'd ever touch anything Bose with a barge pole but I picked one of these up yesterday because I needed something I could pick up quick and cheaply (thanks Argos 12 month credit) for New Year's Eve and bloody hell I'm impressed.

Listened to one of those the other day, agree they're impressive

I've been debating whether to take it back and upgrade it to a Soundlink III, just in case it isn't loud enough to fill my living room full of people. I've been playing all sorts through it since it's been here and I'm umm'ing and arrr'ing. Has anyone here listened to both?

Picked up some Q Acoustics Concept 20's yesterday to replace my ageing floorstanders. They didn't have any of the Concept 20 specific stands in stock, so am waiting for them to be delivered...... Pretty damn impressed so far to be honest, and I've just got them sat on top of my floorstanders at the mo!