DCAudioDIY.com

Hey guys,
just surfed in here yesterday afternoon while searching for some info on Volumio, Chrome, mini computers, and DACs.

Looks like a nice little knowledgebase here of DIY enthusiasts.

So far I've only built a couple of HifiBerry equipped RPis to tie into a little LMS network I'm running. Been enjoying it so far, and looking to learn a bit more about other builds.

Hi welcome to the journey, it may be a bit bumpy but that's what you get with avid DIY'ers
I'm a two Pi user with Moode, but may switch back to Rune since there seems to be trouble in Moode land these days.
I have Hiberry DAC Pro on one Pi for small system and using USB to my Twisted Pear DAC for my main system. My priorities has been in Vinyl camp with the digital stuff used a background music when I am working, so I am on the fringe of the digital discussions here

Nice, Rune is another platform I was thinking about trying, after seeing another user's brief write-up over on the Polk Audio forum.

Vinyl. I tried getting into vinyl about four years ago when I first started at a more serious level of modern audio, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and was tentative with the investment at the time. It didn't stick. About two years later, the bug got me again, only this time I was better positioned to give it more proper attention. Ended up with a Technics SL-1210, and a Park's Audio Budgie in a primary system with a Grado Green. Still curious about some other carts, but for now, this satisfies the need. I've found that Vinyl offers quite a pleasing experience if one is willing to put in the work. I stream and run digital most of the time, since a lot of it's for background listening, yes. I have about 50 favorite albums so far on vinyl.

What do you use for cleaning your records?
I picked up the CanFab Squeaky Clean Vacuum RCM.
https://squeakycleanvinyl.com/products/ ... nyl-mk-iii
Works pretty well for an all manual option.
Looked at a few different VRCMs, but for my small collection, can't quite justify the cost just yet.

Two words: Yard Sales.

Don't pay more than $1/album. Try to get good deals on the whole box My VPI 16.5 is one of the best audio investments I ever made. Of course, when you amortize the cost over >2500 albums, it doesn't seem so bad (they were a bit cheaper when I bought mine too).

Roscoe

_________________
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Welcome to the board. Lots of strong opinions and really great guys here.

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I have too much stuff - https://www.pleasebuymystuff.com

MSG
Funny thing you would mentioned record cleaning. A year ago I built an Ultrasonic cleaner and was sold on the idea that I could clean 9 lp's at a time.
Well I have since gone back to the SpinCleaner. This is an $70 product that bested my Nitty Gritty and Ultrasonic cleaners easily
I use my own mix which is the standard 3 parts distilled, 1 part 90% isopropyl and a few drops of Kodak Photoflo
I have tried many commercial products and saw/heard any differences. What matters is if the record is very dirty do multiple cleanings.
I clean new records at least twice and used records a few to many times.

Neat. What are these photos, exactly? Presuming some sort of photo of a record?

Yes, I started with the manual vacuum RCM, and had a DIY ultrasonic going for a while in combination with the VRCM. With this unit we were supposed to be able to do 3 records at a time, but even two at a time, seemed like the records weren't getting "full attention", so in the end I was just doing one at a time. I don't know, at first I thought it was working great, but after a while it seemed like the process was counter-productive; adding noise. Must have been doing something wrong. Anyway, back to just the one vacuum process. I still have solution left from a VPI concentrate. Wash and a separate rinse.

Interesting you're finding better results with the SpinClean. I'm familiar with it, but never used one before.
Also agree on cleaning new records. My best, cleanest sounding records are not new ones. Don't get me started on the quality of vinyl...

How often do you change the water in your SpinClean?
Do you do something else for a rinse step, or just the wash?
Do you find that using the same solution for multiple records still offers similar cleaning performance, or does there come a point where you could be depositing contaminants instead of removing them?

This is my ultrasonic, a 10 liter tank, ebay cost with shipping was $150. Motor frame was built out of stock aluminum channel from HD
Filter was a whole house 5um filter and an aquarium pump, probably going on ebay soon
It worked ok but I got a better clean with the Spinclean.
The pics a 200 magnification of an dollar yard sale LP. Starting from the bottom each pic is an additional cleaning and you can see they are getting cleaner as you go up

I have been dreaming of that commercial $4K ultrasonic solution but just can't get myself to pull the trigger. Interesting to hear that you have had better results with the Spincleaner vs US.

ill, this one looks interesting since it is pretty cheap and would be a welcome change from my hand wash in the sink method!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vinyl-ultrason ... Sw95lXE6kW

I wonder about just running it at 120V which should slow it down, provide better cleaning (assuming the coils can handle the increased current)?

Its the same tank but in a nice case
I had a long talk with Greg Viggano whom I met at CAF. He is working with American U in their Vinyl archive developing a cleaning solution and methods for their library.
He told me the problem with all the LP ultrasonic cleaners out there, is that the LP's are moving through the solution and this disrupts the micro-bubbles. If you think about it, when hospitals, jewelry, watch makers clean their stuff it is not moving through the solution, so the cleaning action can work unimpeded.
That $4k machine works because it has rollers scrubbing the surface of the record. That's what cleans the records not the US.
Greg gave me a sample of their cleaning solution, and I found it not any better than my soup.