Re: [ARSCLIST] Record cleaning fluid recommendations?

["joe@xxxxxxxxxxx" <sergei01@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps, but if a record is plastic, in the true sense of the word, such
deformities to the shape of the groove may tend to be self correcting, if
the material has any memory.

Joe Salerno
Video Works! Is it working for you?
PO Box 273405 - Houston TX 77277-3405
http://joe.salerno.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record cleaning fluid recommendations?


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > On 16/12/03, H. Duane Goldman wrote:
> >
> > > Thorough cleaning permits a clean stylus to establish a path of least
> > > resistance along the groove & with repeated playback to maximize the
> > > fit between the stylus & the groove for improved tracing.
> >
> > Are you suggesting that the vinyl actually changes shape?
> >
> > Are you suggesting that this is desirable?
> As long as mechanical methods of playing records are used, each playing of
> a record causes a change in its "shape"...due to friction and the
subsequent
> dislodgement of molecules. I don't think it was ever settled on the 78-L
> list whether this process, as it applied to steel needles and abrasive
> (perhaps intentionally so) shellac-compound discs, was intentional and
> the end effect of fitting the needle to the groove for at least much of
> one play was intended!
>
> Also, since vinyl is a "plastic" (think of the actual definition of that
> term)
> substance, there would by definition be a short-term deformation (albeit
> very
> minor) of the record as the stylus rested upon it during playing. In the
> same
> way that your head shapes your pillow to itself when rested upon it, the
tip
> of the stylus (with an exceedingly tiny area involved) would remove or
> temporarily relocate some vinyl molecules as it pressed on them...
>
> As far as whether this is desirable...in the short term it would take more
> mathematics (and more data) than I have to prove or disprove this...the
> function of the groove is to move the stylus along horizontal and vertical
> axes in such a way that an electrical signal duplicating the original
> waveform results, and insofar as this motion does NOT create an identical
> signal that is undesirable. In the long term, the changes in "shape" are
> what create what we know as record wear, and thus NOT desirable (but to
> a degree inevitable).
>
> The question is, when/if a laser turntable is perfected, will not the
laser
> beam dislocate a small but finite number of molecules from the disc...and
> will not that effect be cumulative, so that a few billion laser plays
might
> have an audible effect?
> Steven C. Barr
> Steven C. Barr