VPI 16.5 or Nitty Gritty or..?

[handle]

I am willing to spend about $400 dollars on a record cleaning machine and the Nitty Gritty's and the VPI 16.5 are both in about that range.

Which one should I get??

-Tom

[teaser5]

VPI

Cheers-
Norm

[Jeffrey]

Hi Tom,

My vote...... VPI.

-Jeffrey

[-Ben]

VPI

[poe_man]

VPI!

[Jamie Tate]

VPI

[teaser5]

The VPI guy just called me.
He wants to know who he should send the check to...
;)
Cheers-
Norm

[handle]

Around 420 for a new VPI 16.5? Or can I get it cheaper? Or used ones at Audiogon go for $325-$350.

Also, should I buy other fluid, etc?

-Tom

[teaser5]

Ah-
Talk to Tom Port about fluid for your VPI
I would cop a new one.
They are heavy buggers so shipping is an issue
Cheers-
Norm

[Jeffrey]

Hi Tom,

My vote.... new VPI.

Thanks for the check, Norm. :D

-Jeffrey

[Mike V]

Yep, VPI all the way.

[RetroSmith]

I'm going to disagree , men.

I say, make your own record cleaning solution with 2 parts Distilled water, I part 99% Isopropol Alcohol, and three sprays of Lysol Direct.
Buy a good record brush

Total cost, about 20$ Works AMAZINGLY well.

Take the remaining 380$ , take a Saturday from morning till late afternoon, go to a bunch of FLea Markets and Thrift stores and buy HUNDREDS of mint records. Then sit back and enjoy all that great music.

Isnt that what its all about?

PS....someone took a bottle of 40$ Disc Doctor Fluid and had it analized. The results were..................what you see above!!!

[Jeffrey]

Hey Mikey,

Who would that "someone" be? :)

-Jeffrey

[Mike V]

Disc Doctor does not contain alcohol. I don't use it myself, but it's safe on shellac, and alcohol eats shellac for lunch!

Mikey - I did something like what you describe for years and thought the same thing. I still actually clean my dirtiest used/abused LPs by hand first, then run them on the VPI (saves the brushes & pickup a lot of grief). Believe me, there is NOTHING that cleans records deeply and completely like this machine, and IMO the cleaner the record, the more I enjoy the music. My stylus loves it too. Once the record is clean, I never have to clean it again (assuming proper handling).

If it was only about the music, I'd be downloading MP3s all day :)

[Larpy]

Call me a cheap cretin if you want, but here's what I do:

I want clean records but I've always balked at spending the money on a cleaner, so I made my own with

2 LP-sized pieces of wood with cork glued to each,
a pair of Disc Doctor brushes,
bottle of Disc Doctor fluid,
a bottle of distilled water,
the smallest wet-vac I could find (with a strip of clean cotton rag wrapped around the tip of the nozzle to avoid scratching the grooves).

I clean one side of the record on one of the pieces of wood / cork, rinse it with distilled water, and suck up the water with the 1 horsepower wet-vac (I put the nozzle just above the LP surface and rotate it around the top of the LP 2 or 3 times until dry). Repeat with side 2 on the other piece of wood / cork. If I'm efficient, I can clean both sides of an LP in 2 minutes.

It seems to work just fine and cost well under $100. But I've never compared it to a honest-to-god machine. Am I really missing anything?

Larpy

[RetroSmith]

Hey, if you dont mind spending the cash, by all means, use the VPI.


My position is that the VPI and other cleaning machines are not magic!!

They arent doing anything that you cant do by hand, and better if you TAKE THE TIME.

If you apply the fluid by hand and scrub by hand, after that the critical thing is to FLOOD the gooves with plenty of distilled water from a spray bottle set to a forceful spray. This pushes all the wet gunk out of the grooves and lets it run off.

I then scrub with a different brush, using only distilled water.

I spray a final time and let the records dry.

This removes 99 % of the gunk in the grooves. Actually playing the record once or twice helps to loosen the rest, and one more cleaning pretty much does it, but this is only for really dirty records.

Just my opinion having used this method with great results for 20 years or more.

[handle]

After talking with John and Richard at RedTrumpet.com I went ahead and ordered one. I'll let everyone know how I think it works next week when I get it. Thanks for the advice.

-Tom

[RetroSmith]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jeffrey
[B]Hey Mikey,

Who would that "someone" be? :)

>>>i dunno Jeff, some guy who posted a whole thing about record cleaning on the net. You can find it on Audio Assylum , I think.

[Jeffrey]

Hi Tom,

Congrats! :cheers: Me thinks you'll be very happy w/ your purchase. :)

-Jeffrey

[michael w]

Originally posted by mikey5967
PS....someone took a bottle of 40$ Disc Doctor Fluid and had it analized. The results were..................what you see above!!!

Analized ???

LOL !!!

That stuff is not for internal consumption !

:laugh:


As to choice of RCM; a Nitty Gritty Fi for me.

It does just as good on job on averagely dirty records and is much easier to use ...important if you want to expend minimum effort.

:D

[Gary]

Is this machine really noisy? Anyone wear hearing protection - or is that ridiculous?

[michael w]

They are ALL noisy.

I wear earplugs if I have more than 2-3 LPs to clean.

Plus it's best to use these machines in well ventilated rooms unless you want to get high on the atomized RCFs.

:p

[Ronflugelguy]

My vote:VPI:cool:Which is a moot point, as you have already purchased one! Congrats are in order!

[Tony Plachy]

VPI and use it with the Disc Doctor system, it really works. See the articles by Mikey Fremer in Stereophile.

[Jamie Tate]

Originally posted by Gary
Is this machine really noisy? Anyone wear hearing protection - or is that ridiculous?

The VPI is as loud as a vacuum cleaner. Nothing that you can't take for the 15 seconds it's on.