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In Reply to: lab grade water needed posted by chosenhandle on September 12, 2006 at 06:34:07:
For all intents and purposes lab grade water is utterly pointless
for a hobbyist's purposes, I have some clean room experience with a former clients ISO 9000 super duper ultra clean room.They required Ultra pure water which made themselves starting with RO (Reverse Osmosis) filtration then it went through a series of Ion Exchangers, so for my Don Quixotic DIY exercise in futility type Record Cleaning solvent development.
The client had no problem giving me a gallon or 3 whenever I required some as they had at least 200 gallons on hand at any given time, I never noticed the least improvement between that H20 and the output from my own Culligan Home R/O system as the basis of Solvent or as a rinse medium I asked a colleague at the UW who was a Molecular Biology Researcher heavy wt. he told me that once I'd opened the Lab Grade Ultra pure water to the atmosphere it's aggressive nature pulled enough from the Atmosphere that in short order it was very little different from my R/O.
Don't waste your time or money, good quality Distilled is more than good enough.
Follow Ups:
I don't want a lot of the water. I use it as a final rinse when I use the Audio Intelligent cleaning stuff. I only use that on certain LP's.I use distilled for the first pass (enzyme stuff) and use the "good" water for the last.
I really would love to be convinced that distilled will work just as well for the final. I do not like being held hostage to voodoo water.
Turn the question around? Why do you need such pure water? Are you using a RCM to clean your records? It will pull off much more than 95%, probably 99% of the water on your record. Thus at most only a few percent will dry on the record and probably less than that. Now suppose you use grocery store steam-distilled water. The amount of dissolved solids in that water is incredibly small, and at most you may evaporate a tiny fraction of an ml of the water on your record. The amount of stuff you deposit on your record from this would be so small it would probably take sensitive lab equipment to detect it. Your stylus isn't going to notice it.I did experiments with my Nitty-Gritty RCM, where I used just tap water for my last rinse. I dried the record immediately after the rinse, and careful inspection with a bright lamp (I was an optician in earlier days and very experienced in looking for extremely small scratches, defects, stains, and surface markings of any kind) showed know evidence for anything on the records. The dead wax was always a clean, uniformly shiny black. However, I do use a final (ordinary) distilled water rinse because it makes me feel better and, more importantly, it keeps my RCM from gettng all gunked up with tap water residue. Careful listening showed absolutely no difference in the sound between those records with a final tap water rinse and those with a distilled water rinse. Both methods gave equal, fine results.
Finally, you have to consider the following: what is the level of dissolved solids in the grocery store distilled water compared to pure H20? Do you really think that is going to make a difference after all of the above?
Joe
And your ass will follow ;-) Seriously outfits like RRL use the triple Filtered to formulate their High surface Tension Surfactant base RC Solvents, but that's done commercially under controlled conditions once it's Solvent atmospheric exposure isn't a problem.But for rinsing Distilled or RO Water if anything is over kill
in parts of the World the water table isn't a Karst Aquifer
(Limestone) You could use the Tap or well water with impunity and you (nor your records or Styli) would never ever know the difference, even with Dolomitic limestone associations
(Calcium carbonate and Magnesium) it's solubility is often low enough that you could usually get away with it.Have you ever considered that you just may be (Dare I say it ?) Anally Retentive ? ;-)
Running For Cover :-0
If you need special double secret probationary type enhanced validation to maintain your sense of emotional equilibrium, why not just call a hydrologist and or your Cities Water department ask to speak with one of their Scientists / engineers.You can always switch over to worrying about the Asteroid the size of New Jersey hurtling through space destined to hit Iowa. ;-)
You might also consider a small Home RO System, I have one because I'm an aquarist and maintain a S.E. Asian Regional Tank
Primarily Loaches, and they require very soft Jungle / Rain forest
stream conditions.
I really appreciate all the advice from those far more experienced than myself. I am experimenting and trying to find a reasonable solution to record cleaning. That is one of the reasons I am using Audio Intelligent stuff, I am trying to see if is any better than RRL or disk doctor. THEY recommend the high grade water. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.From the opinions here, it seems sensible that high grade water simply isn't worth chasing after. I will use the distilled water I have used prior.
Thank you for your help Fred. You are far wiser than me and I value your opinion. I could have done without the personal swipes, however.
no doubt when Fred is taking a 'personal swipe' at you!Until that time, take it for what it is-good-natured ribbing.
Overcome your apparent serious concerns about damaging your records
and needlessly spending a lot of money for the lab grade water and the shipping, BTW the reason I'm aware of this stuff, is because I went through exactly what you've are.As far as being Anal Retentive/perfectionists etc. it takes one to know one, if the truth be known there are a precious few of us here that aren't in that category to one degree or another.
It was meant to interject a little levity, as well as drive the points home, if I did ruffle your feathers I apologize, I am a goofy F*#Ker.
I agree with you and think I overreacted a bit.I genuinely appreciate your comments, and look forward to contributing more in the future!
Very much looking forward to seeing you around in the future,
and BTW, I don't think you over-reacted, I shouldn't be kidding with or busting anyone's chops that doesnt know me, so casually, no one, (including me) appreciates that sort of thing unless they're familiar with the source and understands the intent.Kooking back I very much wish I'd found the Asylum much sooner
as in the case of the water issue, I wrestled with that for quite a while before I'd achieved a comfortable understanding, with the Asylum in general just about any issue/subject serious listeners, Audio enthusiasts etc. encounter is dealt with in great detail in the form of numerous excellent past threads in the Archive (text to find)
I get great results with 56 cent per gallon store bought distilled water. A Gallon lasts me at least a couple of weeks. Once I get an album clean I will spray it off with distilled water and vacume the LP if it picks up dust.Someone here mentioned that rinsing with filtered water sounded like walking on rocks and sure enough he was right. The distilled water leaves the LP with a silent background I need for recording to DVD-A.
see link below. Might be a nice niche market for Millipore if biotech's finished buying MilliQ's :-)
all the best,
mrh
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