Moth Mk II Pro Record Cleaning Machine

It's a no-brainer: if you buy second-hand vinyl and want to hear it at its best, you need to clean it thoroughly before attempting to play it. As well as getting rid of a load of extraneous noise, this has the added bonus of prolonging the life of your stylus. For years I've been cleaning all my records with the aid of an ancient, non-functioning Garrard turntable, turning the platter by hand whilst working cleaning fluid into the record's grooves with a brush, followed by a rinse with de-ionised water. This has been effective, albeit labour-intensive. The hardest, and least satisfactory part of the process has been drying the records after cleaning them: a thorough going over with cotton make-up removal pads does the job but, apart from being incredibly tedious, I was always concerned that this might be pushing debris back into the grooves that I was attempting to clean.

The defunct Garrard

In January of this year I decided to bite the bullet and invest in a record cleaning machine which sucks out the gunk at the end of the cleaning process and vacuums the grooves dry. The cost of these contraptions has always been a hurdle that mentally I had to overcome, but with 4,000-plus LPs in my ever-growing collection, I finally came to realise that I needed a speedier, more effective cleaning method, particularly as I help to finance my vinyl habit by scouring charity shops and boot fairs for records to sell online, all of which need cleaning.

The Moth Mk II Pro Record Cleaning Machine is one of the more affordable machines on the market that features vacuum suction. There is a cheaper DIY kit available for those who are confident that they can build the housing from scratch, but, apart from the fact that my carpentry skills are somewhat limited, all the pictures of successfully assembled kits that I've seen look like something hastily knocked up for the purpose of burying a dearly-departed family pet. Ready assembled, the Moth comes in a black steel enclosure: not a thing of beauty, but neat, robust and reasonably discreet. More attractive than a beaten-up, plastic, wood-effect Garrard turntable and most definitely easier on the eye than some of the function-over-form DIY kits I've seen! If you have four figures or more to spend on a record cleaning machine, Keith Monks, Clearaudio and Loricraft manufacture devices that will perform the same task as the Moth, but with a degree more sophistication and automation. For £550 I got a Moth delivered to my door with fluid, a brush, Nagaoka inner sleeves and replacement vacuum tube pads. The brush provided is very poorly made. Mine fell apart after 5 minutes, leaving sharp metal edges exposed worryingly close to the surface of the record I was cleaning. I've been using the brush that came with an ancient Parastat Record Cleaning Machine (a bit of a misnomer unless you consider a wet brush to be a machine) and have found it to be highly effective. I find carbon fibre record cleaning brushes superb for a quick dry clean of records immediately prior to playing them, but a bit soft of bristle for a deep, wet clean.

Parastat Record Cleaning Machine

The Moth is a doddle to use. There is no platter, just a record label-sized platform to which the record is clamped. This prevents debris from the uncleaned side of the record contaminating the cleaned side when it is flipped over - certainly a problem that I encountered when using the Garrard.

A small amount of the provided Moth record cleaning fluid is brushed into the record grooves whilst the motor turns the record first one way, then the other - 2 to 3 rotations in each direction is sufficient to loosen most muck - then the record is flipped over and vacuumed dry from below while you clean the other side. You will find that if you use too much fluid, it may take an extra rotation or two to completely dry the record. I prefer L'Art du Son record cleaning fluid because it is enzyme-based, the Moth fluid being alcohol-based. I've no evidence for it, but my gut feeling is that alcohol might, over time, have an adverse effect on the vinyl. I have noticed though that records cleaned with the Moth fluid dry with fewer rotations as the alcohol starts to evaporate as soon as it is spread on the vinyl.

The Moth in action

One point to note with the Moth is that the record clamp needs to be secured really tightly - and I mean REALLY TIGHTLY!!! - to prevent the clamp from coming loose as a result of a combination of vibrations from the motor and the force of the brush working in the opposite direction to the rotation of the platter. A better designed clamp, one with finger grips, or a rubberised surface would make the tightening and subsequent unscrewing of the clamp so much easier. Another point to note is that the Moth is loud - head in a jet engine loud! It makes sense I suppose that what is essentially a domestic vacuum cleaner in a metal box is going to be noisy, but don't expect to be able to listen to music or watch TV while cleaning your records, or for that matter hear the doorbell when your neighbours complain. Wanting to preserve what scrap of my hearing I have retained, I have taken to wearing industrial ear defenders when I am hunched over the Moth. The first time I used it I didn't take this precaution and I lay in bed that night with my ears ringing like I'd spent the evening at a Motörhead gig. No joke!

Essential ear gear

The Moth is designed for cleaning LPs, but a kit is available on ebay that adapts it for 7" and 10" discs. The problem that the kit addresses is the lack of sufficient suction from the vacuum tube. When a 7" single is placed on the clamp spindle, there is a portion of vacuum tube left exposed which would normally be covered by an LP. This causes a drop in suction and, subsequently, less efficient drying of the vinyl. The kit also contains a selection of adaptors to protect different types of record labels from damage that could, potentially, be caused by over-tightening the record clamp. I'm sure the kit provides excellent solutions to the problems it claims to address, but being the tight arse that I am, I decided to attempt a DIY solution. I found that the handle of a 2 litre plastic milk bottle, when cut to size wraps around the vacuum tube perfectly and is made of sufficiently thin, flexible plastic to create a tight seal when the vacuum is switched on. I attempted to address the issue of potential label damage by cutting out a small, circular piece of 3mm-thick, rubberised, gasket cork to slot over the spindle between the record label and record clamp, but found that it was too thick to allow the clamp to be tightened sufficiently to secure the LP. A second attempt utilising a disc of thin plastic cut from an Indian takeaway box has been far more successful: it effectively acts as a washer between the clamp and record label, allowing both easier tightening and loosening of the clamp. It has the added bonus of being transparent, so the label can be seen during the cleaning process.

DIY Moth accessory kit

I use a syringe to accurately apply the cleaning fluid to the record, so I'm not overly concerned with covering up the whole of the label to protect it from splashes, but it would be easy enough to cut a larger protective disc if needed. I have bent up one edge of the disc to make it easier to lift off after removing the clamp: not elegant, but preferable to scratching away with a fingernail to remove the protective disc from the label. The ebay kit, incidentally, retails at £29. My kit is cheaper and comes with free cow juice and curry. One addition I have made to the Moth is to cut a piece of velvet to size and glue it to the end of the vacuum tube closest to the clamp spindle to extend the vacuum tube pads. On records that aren't completely flat (even the ones that look perfectly flat rarely are) the end of the vacuum tube can sometimes rub against the dead wax in the run-out grooves during the vacuuming process and leave light scratches which don't look great and can even create an audible tone at the end of the record. The additional piece of velvet prevents this from happening.

The label-protecting disc doing its job

Whenever I read other collectors' advice on cleaning records, they are forever talking about protecting the labels from the cleaning fluid, but nobody ever makes any mention of cleaning the labels. It stands to reason that if the vinyl is dusty, mildewed and covered in crud, then the labels will be too. What's the point in sticking a cleaned record into a pristine Nagaoka inner sleeve if the label is still grubby? I always wipe a dry cotton make-up removal pad over both labels prior to cleaning the record in order to remove any dust and debris that may be present. And I'll happily use a barely-damp cotton pad on the labels if there are any stubborn marks or signs of mildew that need to be shifted.

I can wholeheartedly recommend the Moth to anyone who buys used vinyl, but it's useful too for new records as it will remove the mold release agent often left in the grooves of newly manufactured LPs - I've noticed a significant improvement in the detail and clarity of sound from new wax that I've cleaned on the Moth. A case in point is the recent Omnivore label reissue of Jellyfish's Spilt Milk. I've been somewhat critical of the quality of this pressing in the past, but the Moth has helped to retrieve some of the detail that had been lost in whatever gunk lurks in the grooves of newly pressed vinyl. If nothing else, you want to ensure that your expensive stylus has to plough through as little crap as possible to get at the music buried in the grooves. The machine does get hot with use, but the makers claim that the benefit of the MKII Pro version of the Moth is that the cooling fan housed within it allows extended cleaning sessions without the risk of over-heating.

The finished article: not bad for a 30 year-old record!

I won't claim that cleaning my collection has become fun, but the partial automation of the process has certainly made it quicker and less tedious than before, and the results, in terms of increased clarity and depth of sound, are often spectacular. The majority of people seem happy to accept that some of their CDs stutter and skip, but those same people continue to trot out the usual hackneyed criticisms of vinyl: that it scratches easily and suffers from pops and crackle. That's like never changing the oil in your car and then criticising its reliability. If you care about it, look after it! I have albums that I bought over thirty years ago that have been played hundreds of times on equipment that doesn't come close to the quality of what I currently own, and they play now with the same warmth and clarity that they did the first time I listened to them. The Moth is giving me the chance to get that same level of playback quality from records that have been neglected by their previous owners. I wouldn't be without it!

33-and-a-blurred

 Hey, it's Record Store Day! Yeah, whoop! To me, every day is record store day. I appreciate the organisers' efforts to boost the profiles of both vinyl and the ever-dwindling tally of record stores, but I've never fancied camping out with all the opportunistic chancers and having to fight them for the limited vinyl releases that always seem to be on eBay within five minutes of leaving the store. These people are no better than ticket touts. How about leaving the Record Store Day releases for real fans! There's nothing wrong with selling on your surplus vinyl, but denying a true music lover the chance to own a special slab of wax from their favourite artist just so you can make a quick buck strikes me as pretty scummy behaviour. At the other end of the marketing scale there are plenty of legit sellers on eBay who could use a few lessons in maximising the sales potential of their wares.

When I'm browsing the vinyl listings on the 'Bay, I'm often left dumbstruck by the way some of the vendors present the items they have for sale. I've collected a random sample of godawful, genuine photographs from ebay listings over the last week or so to illustrate my point.

This vendor deserves credit for managing to photograph his Neil Diamond LP from the window of a speeding train...

 

What are you selling, records or home furnishings?..

 

 

Turn off your flash, for crying out loud!..

A selection of LPs possibly photographed under the influence of alcohol. I searched in vain for a similarly blurry copy of Foreigner's Double Vision. That would have been too perfect! 

The lack of focus in this shot can't disguise the huge tear in the sleeve...

Bob Dylan, blurred and jaundiced...

You'll be surprised to learn that none of these albums achieved a sale.

Amish Mush-Muff Miff

Although a feature of many a Dickensian gent's fizzog and a perennial favourite of Amish men, the beard-no-'tache ensemble makes no sense in the 21st century. Nor did it make any sense back in 1973 from whence comes Painter's eponymous LP.

Surely the fiddliest part of shaving is negotiating that tricky undulating bit between nose and lip. If I was ever to grow a beard you could be damn sure that my top lip would feature a luxuriant welcome mat. To wilfully go to the effort of keeping just this part of your mug shorn must surely point to a thoroughly misguided stab at making a fashion statement (by the looks of that shirt I'd say this guy's a serial offender). Why not shave off your eyebrows or wax just one bollock? - it's just as non-sensical. You might have guessed that I'm not a fan of this man's ginger chin strap. Perhaps it's there to hold his urine-hued Aviators in place. Clearly, rose-tinted spectacles are not the only ones that dupe people into believing that things look better than they really are.

For once, my purchase of an obscure 1970s album occured in spite of, not because of, the facial hair being flaunted by the band. The presence of a drummer revelling in the name Bob Ego (Bob Ego!) was reason enough for me to ignore the coppery jaw muff and check out this slab of wax. The usual, ever-present, blue collar, hard rocking influences are all over this Canuck twelve incher: BTO, April Wine, Prism and Chilliwack. I'm delighted to report that Painter more than hold their own in this illustrious company. Back in the day, they even succeeded in squeezing a Canadian top twenty single out of the LP in the form of West Coast Woman. See what you make of the couple of tracks here. They're getting plenty of turntable time chez Shelf-Stacker.

Apparently, guitarist Danny Lowe (I can't shed any light on whether he's the one with the orange chin minge, I'm afraid) stumbled upon and helped develop an early form of surround sound called QSound, described in the sleeve notes of Roger Waters' Amused To Death LP as "a new audio technology producing a wider, more natural sound field". Okay weird beard, you're forgiven: I love that album!

A very grudging 5 out of 10

Leaf Hound's Mushroom & Eel Pie

I dragged myself to the Eel Pie Club in Twickenham on Thursday night to catch a set by Leaf Hound, a band perhaps better known for the ludicrous price that their debut album sells for on eBay than for the music contained in the grooves. On the rare occasions when the original Decca LP turns up on the auction site, it can fetch in excess of £4,000. Even the Akarma reissue from 2003 can command a sum of £50 with the wind behind it. Having, some time back, conceded that I was never likely to stumble on an original in a charity shop amongst the James Last and Paul Young LPs, I had, myself, plumped for the Akarma reissue.

Leaf Hound: fun guys.

Once the dust has settled after the stampede to proclaim Leaf Hound the greatest band that never made it, it will become clear that Growers of Mushroom, although a superb album with intimations of brilliance, falls somewhat short of the greatness that has been bestowed upon it by those looking for a lost masterpiece to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of Zeppelin or Sabbath. You need to look to Captain Beyond's debut for an album that scales those dizzy heights. By all accounts, vocalist Pete French had already jumped ship to front Atomic Rooster by the time Growers of Mushroom saw a UK release, so perhaps the band members themselves weren't entirely convinced of the LP's ability to launch their careers into the stratosphere. Having said all that, it would be hard for any album to live up to the hype that has surrounded this LP. I'm sure that if I had stumbled on Growers of Mushroom without any prior knowledge of its existence or reputation, I would be considerably more evangelical about its potent, Psych-tinged, Proto-Metal stew of Led Zeppelin and Free.

 

In a live setting, despite looking like a bunch of random blokes who met at a bus stop, the current incarnation of the band does a great deal to convince that maybe, just maybe, the spores of greatness were sown with that debut LP. I've yet to hear the band's 2007 follow-up album, Unleashed, but on the evidence of the band's live symbiosis, it's entirely possible that it builds upon and seamlessly picks up from where the debut LP left off, despite the intervening years. The Eel Pie Club's ambience leaves a lot to be desired, with the stage as bright and unimaginatively illuminated as a branch of Homebase, but good musicians can transcend the limitations of their environment, and so it was with Leaf Hound. Bass player Pete Herbert had me shrugging off my initial reservations (founded purely on his lumbering, grease monkey appearance) and had me singing his praises for the duration of the gig. With a man as dexterous and musically attuned as Herbert on the bass, there is never a moment when the sound needs fleshing out with a second guitarist or a keyboard player. His playing gives Luke Rayner the freedom to weave his Hendrix-inspired magic. Pete French's seasoned-old-pro demeanour suggests a man who doesn't feel the need to showboat, who's happy to share the spotlight with his bandmates. For me, the only weak link musically is drummer Jimmy Rowland whose lack of subtlety grates at times, particularly during the sustained and unimaginative bludgeoning of his crash cymbals. Perhaps he had an off-night as I can't recall singling him out for criticism on the previous occasions that I've seen the band.

I guess Pete French's pre-song chat puts to rest any thoughts that he might have a loft-full of copies of the original LP squirreled away to boost his pension. Careful kicking yourself with those cowboy boots, Pete!

Flat-Pack Record Collection

I seem to remember that when I bought my Expedit shelving at IKEA, the assembly instructions warned against overloading the shelves. IKEA's own website states that the maximum load per shelf should not exceed 13kg. I reckon that a foot-and-a-bit of vinyl weighs significantly more than that: somewhere in the region of 20 kilos in my estimation. Funny then that IKEA are pursuing those vinyl heads who haven't yet discovered Expedit shelving for themselves with some keenly targeted advertising which seems to ignore their own warnings.

Shelves by IKEA, cardigan by his Gran

Does this mean that when my shelves collapse, destroying my priceless record collection, that it will be IKEA's fault, not mine for ignoring the maximum load warning? Perhaps Record Collector magazine will soon feature adverts for lawyers offering DJs and crate diggers a no-win-no-fee suit against IKEA for mis-selling of their flat pack furniture. After all, the PPI lawyers are going to need to find another ambulance to chase before too long.

The internet is full of photos of record collections housed in Expedit shelving. Amongst them are a few which look like they've been on the business end of a wrecking ball. I take some comfort from the fact that all of these collapsed shelves appear to have been owned by unfortunates who failed to decipher IKEA's assembly hieroglyphics and stood their shelves up the wrong way, allowing the full weight of their precious vinyl to bear down, not on the shelves themselves, but on the tiny bits of dowling holding the shelves' dividers in place - the record collecting equivalent of sawing through a tree branch while you're sitting on it.

The one occasion when having a shit turntable paid off.

BRAD - Islington Academy 10/02/13

Perhaps, being February, it's a bit early to be making nominations for gig of the year, but I can't believe that anyone will better the peformance I saw last night at the Islington Academy. I've been a fan of Brad since their first album, Shame, came out in 1993 (can it really be twenty years ago?!) and never dared to hope that they would play the UK. Finally getting to see them was most definitely an emotional experience. Pearl Jam are a good band, but they're simply not in the same league as Stone Gossard's funky, soulful, rocking side project. Apologies for the grainy iPhone photos, but perhaps they capture some of the atmosphere of last night's gig.

I didn't shoot this YouTube footage myself, but I was standing about three feet from the guy who did, so this is pretty much how I witnessed the gig. It should give you a feel for the band's performance and the audience's enthusiasm. I just love the soulful fragility of Shawn Smith's voice and the way Stone Gossard's guitar solo escalates. Immense!

I'll hold my hand up and admit that this post has nothing to do with vinyl (I don't even own any Brad on wax), but hey, it's all music, right?!

http://www.bradcorporation.com/

Audio Technica AT95E Cartridge

I recently installed an Audio Technica AT95E cartridge in the tonearm of the Technics SL1210 in my second system: the latest move in an ongoing struggle to find a cartridge that doesn't make me want to scuttle out of the room into the welcoming arm of my Linn Sondek. I had always believed everything I read about how the Audio Technica carts are glassy and shrill in the top end - not a sound that I wanted to inflict on my ears - but the sub-thirty quid price tag on the AT95E and the following it seems to enjoy amongst budget-conscious audiophiles persuaded me to give the cart a chance. What an inspired decision that has turned out to be!

Mrs Shelf-Stacker has now completely abandoned any pretence of appearing even vaguely interested in my hi-fi. She likes much of the music that comes out of the speakers, but the tune is all that matters to her, not the quality of reproduction. A micro-speakered iPod dock, her iPhone, a musical greetings card or, God help me, the piece of crap, black plastic, stacking 'hi-fi' system that she provided as her dowry, it makes no difference: she is incapable of distinguishing between the sonic qualities of a decent hi-fi set-up and these instruments of torture. She's happy just so long as they're rattling with the effort of farting out The Number Of The Beast or For Those About To Rock. You know that look you see on someone's face when they are singled out for attention by a slurring drunk on the Tube? That's the look that crept over my wife's facial features when I began to explain my enthusiasm for the Audio Technica cartridge. So, I'm sorry, I'll just have to tell you about it instead.

My second system, for many years, consisted of a 1990s-era Marantz PM-44SE amplifier (now the heart of the kitchen system, banging out Peppa Pig CDs and the like), a Marantz CD player, a Technics SL-1210 MkII turntable with stock arm sporting a procession of cartridges (Shure, Stanton, Ortofon) and a pair of Wharfedale Modus Eight floorstanding speakers. The Marantz amp combines clinical iciness with a complete absence of tone controls, ensuring that some CDs can scalp the unwary at fifty metres. The Wharfedale speakers were surprisingly punchy all-rounders but with the build quality of an Ikea wardrobe. They served me well, but I shed no tears when they left to be replaced by a truly wonderful pair of Ruark Prelude speakers which have clearly been created by otherworldly craftsmen.

Hankering for a more analogue-friendly system, I experimented with an older, aluminium-fronted Marantz Model 1050 amp before falling for a Quad 44 pre-amp / 303 power amp combination. The fact that Pink Floyd supposedly used Quad 303s in the studio during the recording of Dark Side Of The Moon was enough to pique my interest. Their robust, Cold War, Eastern Bloc, utilitarian, nuclear submarine instrumentation-evoking appearance just adds to the appeal.

The stock arm on the Technics was long ago discarded in favour of an Origin Live-modified Rega RB250 tonearm, but still I couldn't get the sound I wanted from my vinyl. I was left completely unmoved by the highly-regarded Ortofon 2M Red cartridge which seems designed to mimic the cold, soulless, perfunctory aloofness of CD. Even a vintage Ortofon Turbo MC1 moving coil cartridge left me scratching my head and wondering if perhaps I was simply expecting too much of my Technics turntable. Years of tinkering have taught me that a component that sounds pedestrian and lacklustre in combination with one set-up can come alive elsewhere. My beloved B&W DM14 speakers sounded dire hooked up to Marantz amplification, but sang when teamed up with my Audio Institute valve amp, so perhaps the 2M Red will, in turn, find its perfect partner somewhere down the line. What I do know is that the Technics is a joy to listen to now that it has been mated with the AT95E.

Where is the harsh, glacial reproduction that I was expecting? The sound is beautifully balanced: a clear, revealing top end recreates subtle variations in cymbal tones that were completely ignored by other cartridges, whilst the bottom end has bass extension and an analogue warmth and richness that has been hitherto lacking. The mid-range lacks some of the detail of the Ortofon MC15 Super MkII cartridge installed on my Linn Sondek, but I wouldn't expect it to match the performance of a significantly more expensive cartridge. Shure's Trackability Test Record will put any cartridge through its paces: the Audio Technica can't cope with the bass drum low-frequency trackability test, but the sleeve notes on the Shure LP state that it would be "a near miracle that any cartridge could successfully track" that test. The Ortofon MC15 aces it, but it is an exceptional cartridge.

In the real world though, away from the unrealistic demands of Audio Obstacle Course test records, the Audio Technica tracks well and, with the limited hours I have put on it, doesn't seem to provoke sibilance or inner groove distortion. Straight out of the box the cartridge is a doddle to set up and performs superbly even before it has had a chance to run-in. The bottom line is that I am finally able to sit back and enjoy listening to records on the Technics deck without comparing it unfavourably to the Linn Sondek. Thirty pounds well spent!