Hi Tom,

An extremely fine spray of distilled water completely eliminates
the disc static problem (no, I don't get the labels wet), and it is
possible to find perfume spray bottles which are perfect for this
purpose.

There are those of us who believe there are also other advantages
to playing discs wet as (but not shellac!).

Doug


On Apr 11, 2012, at 12:00 AM, ARSCLIST automatic digest system wrote:

> Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:03:57 -0400
> From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Recording_78rpm_records
>
> BTW, I should add a third key rule about ticks and pops -- do
> everything possible to eliminate the
> static charge on the record surface. I have always liked the
> ZeroStat ion gun, which has been back
> in production for several years now. My old Discwasher version still
> works well, but they do wear
> out eventually. In general, LP playback in a very dry environment is
> fraught with static issues. My
> best playbacks occur when it's not indoor-heating season.
>
> With my Denon high-output moving-coil cartridge, static discharge
> can completely short out the
> signal, the waveform looks like the needle is jumping the groove but
> I don't think that's what's
> happening. I think the coils are completely saturated by the static
> charge and take a few
> milliseconds to recover as the charge passes through the cable. Not
> positive that's exactly what's
> happening, but there can be complete loss of signal after the pop,
> with very fast rise time on the
> pop, almost instant fall-off, then a short "blank" period, the
> resumption of signal. In that case,
> the best one can do is remove the annoying pop, but there's no
> underlying audio content to recover
> so it can appear to the ear as a small dropout (small enough that it
> must be listened carefully to
> hear, but still undesireable). So I work hard to avoid static charge
> on the record.
>
> Sometimes you can discharge a lot of "popcorn" static by using the
> cue lever to hover the needle
> just a tiny bit over the record. Static then jumps to ground via the
> needle or cantelever and it
> should then not appear as a loud pop later. As I said, though, a
> warm heated room the winter is a
> pretty challenging environment for LP playback. My rule of thumb is,
> the appropriate environment for
> acetate and early mylar tapes is also appropriate for LP playback.
> The bone-dry environment
> recommend for sticky-era tapes is not.
>
> -- Tom Fine

Doug Pomeroy
Audio Restoration & Mastering Services
Transfers of metal parts, lacquers,
shellac and vinyl discs & tapes.
193 Baltic St
Brooklyn, NY 11201-6173
(718) 855-2650
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