Truthfully, alcohol is not the best vinyl record cleaner. If I am not mistaken, the theory does not recommend using alcohol to clean the records.
It can interact with vinyl with devastating consequences for the latter. So, to me and some of my acquaintances, this repeatedly got away with it. More precisely, the results were quite satisfactory. The fat stain was completely removed. However, I do not advise repeating this – who knows what you can do.
The only case where you can use alcohol in terms of keeping your vinyl records for portable record player clean is making a solution.
About the washing solution – you can buy one of the finished compounds. A mixture of equal parts of isopropyl and ethyl alcohols and distilled water, made up at home, does a pretty good job of cleaning.
In the manuals on how to clean the plates, there are tips for using tap water and ordinary liquid detergent, but this is a very controversial method. Admixtures of excessively hard water can settle with additional dirt on the disc tracks, and the detergent must be washed off for a very long time and thoroughly. Therefore, it is better to use a special solution.
Typically, they use either purchased special solutions or a mixture of ethyl and isopropyl alcohols and distilled water in different proportions for washing.
It is possible to mix with the alcohol mixture, for example, the addition of TB-20 – a few drops per liter, but this is if it is possible to purchase this substance. The rest of the water-alcohol mixture is quite enough.
Alex Smith is the senior home entertainment editor at theGuruchoice and focused on reviews. His specialities are: technology, home theatre systems, music reviews.