For several weeks now there has been a on going discussion, at Audiogon, on using steam for cleaning records. It perked my interest and I read each new entry waiting to see if anybody had any negatives about it. Seemed like a pretty solid idea but, you never know. Then yesterday the Mapleshade catalog showed up and I saw that even they were selling the idea (of course at a very inflated price).
So, today I rode my bike down to Target Manhattan Beach and picked up a hand held steamer that looked just like the one in the catalog. Only, at less then 1/3 of the price.
Boy, what a terrific little gizmo. I love the simple things. Even records I thought were pristine took on a nice shiny surface after being steamed. My most prized record is a obscure blues album called, "Southern Meetin". With Brownie Mcghee, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Terry, and Joe Williams playing together in a small studio in Los Angeles. When I stumbled across it I couldn't believe that it appeared to be in mint condition, inside and out.
I took it home and carefully cleaned it on my VPI, as I do any record I buy. Much to my amazement, the sound mirrored the appearance, very, very, little surface noise with no scratches, pops, or clicks (we are talking about a used record over 40 years old!). The next surprise was the quality of the recording and, even more important, the extraordinary music.
I have searched the internet to get some background on this album. With no luck. I even took it over to Pinkus at Cisco Records and to Doug Macleod and neither of them knew anything about it, or the recording session that produced it. I thought Doug knew everything about such matters.
So, what does this have to do with steam? Well, after seeing the results on other records I decided to see if I could improve an already fantastic record.
I blasted away at it with my steamer and then gave it a vacuming. Much improved, all the surface noise disappeared! Plus, its fun to squirt the records with steam, o'k, I'm easily entertained.
So, today I rode my bike down to Target Manhattan Beach and picked up a hand held steamer that looked just like the one in the catalog. Only, at less then 1/3 of the price.
Boy, what a terrific little gizmo. I love the simple things. Even records I thought were pristine took on a nice shiny surface after being steamed. My most prized record is a obscure blues album called, "Southern Meetin". With Brownie Mcghee, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Terry, and Joe Williams playing together in a small studio in Los Angeles. When I stumbled across it I couldn't believe that it appeared to be in mint condition, inside and out.
I took it home and carefully cleaned it on my VPI, as I do any record I buy. Much to my amazement, the sound mirrored the appearance, very, very, little surface noise with no scratches, pops, or clicks (we are talking about a used record over 40 years old!). The next surprise was the quality of the recording and, even more important, the extraordinary music.
I have searched the internet to get some background on this album. With no luck. I even took it over to Pinkus at Cisco Records and to Doug Macleod and neither of them knew anything about it, or the recording session that produced it. I thought Doug knew everything about such matters.
So, what does this have to do with steam? Well, after seeing the results on other records I decided to see if I could improve an already fantastic record.
I blasted away at it with my steamer and then gave it a vacuming. Much improved, all the surface noise disappeared! Plus, its fun to squirt the records with steam, o'k, I'm easily entertained.
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