To enable your audio or video system to perform at its best

Digital discs and LPs are mass-produced using hydraulic presses. A release agent is applied to the stamper to keep it from sticking. The release agent and other contaminants affect the way your CDs, DVDs and LPs will perform so even brand-new digital discs and LPs should be cleaned.

Also digital discs and records can get minor scratches and accumulate dust, oil from your fingers and other pollutants from the environment that build-up and hinder the turntable cartridge (needle) or CD/DVD player's laser from reading the album or digital disc accurately.

For CDs and DVDs, most cleaning products on the market fall into one of two categories: either they are essentially a repurposed lens cleaner that will help somewhat or they are an abrasive-type cleaner that is marketed to remove scratches. Both of these types are limited in what they can do and in the case of the abrasive-type cleaner, it will actually hurt the disc. No product can remove scratches. To make deep scratches less noticeable and enable your CD/DVD player to play them, an abrasive -type cleaner will put small scratches on the disc in an attempt to 'level' the playing surface. These small scratches scatter the laser light causing more harm to the music. The disc may play, but the sound, and picture quality in the case of a DVD, will be drastically reduced.

I am aware of only one product on the market that does not fall into these two categories. It is called Ultra Vivid and is made by Walker Audio. This product removes the release agent from the pressing process and accumulated dirt and also has an optical enhancer to render the plastic film and scratches transparent. This allows the laser to read the information correctly. The more accurately the laser can read the disc, the less error correction is needed. Error correction is basically your disc player filling in the gaps where it is unable to get the information from the disc. Error correction is simulated information, not what was originally there. So if you want to know what your music and movies are supposed to sound and look like, take some time and clean your CDs and DVDs before your play them. You will be rewarded with much better sound and picture quality and you will enjoy the music or video a whole lot more.

Now for cleaning LPs...As I said before, LPs also have a release film on them to keep them from sticking in the pressing process. Plus, an LP gets dust and other foreign materials on it, and anything that gets on the record is going to inhibit the needle from tracking in the groove correctly. This contamination has to be removed to get the best sound.

Some products on the market claim to do this with a single step. I do not recommend using a single-step process for the same reason I don't leave the shampoo in when I wash my hair. If you wash your hair and do not rinse it, your hair is still dirty. If your hair is very dirty, you may need to wash twice and rinse twice to get it squeaky clean. The same holds true for records.

I recommend that you use a multi-step cleaning process the first time you clean a record. After that, you will usually only need to rinse your record before playing it if it gets dusty. You will only need to repeat the multi-step cleaning process if it gets dirty for some reason like oily fingerprints or your cat walks across it or your kids paint it with ketchup!

I use a four-step process for the initial cleaning with active enzymes for the first cleaning step, followed by a second cleaner that leaves no residue, then a special rinse and I use ultra-pure, not tap, water. I recommend a vacuum-type recording cleaning machine to get the best results. The combination of the Prelude Quartet record cleaning system (which we make) and a VPI record cleaning machine (which we don't make) is the best I've found. And remember, you only need the full treatment the first time. After that, a simple rinse will be enough to remove any minor dust that your record has attracted.

I guarantee that you will be absolutely amazed at how much better your music will sound (and your DVDs will look) when you start with clean records and discs. Expect to experience improved transparency, dynamics, details and realism. You will be well rewarded for taking a little bit of time to do this and you will be glad you did.

Happy Listening,

Lloyd Walker