Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: Companies Refusing to Release/Permit Linux Drivers

AFAIK, any old dish soap that comes out of a bottle today will be fine. Dishwasher soap OTOH, is pretty darned caustic, which probably won't do the label (or the velvet & your skin for that matter) any good at all. Use the velvet going with the grooves, and rinse with lots of warm water at kitchen faucet spray pressures before the final rinse with distilled. Its clean when you can see rainbows in the grooves as it dries. Note however that I'm referring to vinyl records, not old shellac 78's which will absorb an amazing amount of water. Those I've never used more than a velvet pad and just dampened it, rinseing it out when it shows dirt. Back velvet, not showing the dirt all that well shouldn't be used. If you can find it, a light colored mohair frizay(spelling checker please) would be even better as its fibers will stand higher and straighter, reaching into the grooves even better, but be gentle with it too.

Removing as much grit from the grooves as you can, before its pounded into the vinyl by the passing of the diamond needle, is a very desirable thing. Once embedded in the groove walls, its essentially there forever. A well produced LP of yesteryear, on a good turntable & good arm & needle, can easily do 55+ db of snr, with some approaching 70 db, but they were rare indeed. That takes either a weathers turntable, or an old fairchild battleship but I doubt any of them survive today. Today, Techniqs is the best but its 20 db noisier than those were and has arm resonances you can actually see. Its a lost art I'm afraid.