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Hello, Tom: Actually, no, they don't. As we are experiencing in the development of our cylinder laser playback system, the laser beam picks up whatever the groove modulation has to offer, including particles of dust, wax, and malformations caused by mould activity. It seems, reasonably, that once the mould has arrived and done its _thing_, there is no fix. We have entertained other theories in retrieving the original signal from wax, all probably terribly expensive if they are even possible. Sometimes we have to face the reality that a thing is as good today as it will ever be again; our time is better spent on caring for more artifacts that will benefit from that care than on one thing for which there isn't much chance of improvement - not that we allow it to suffer further damage. It's like medical triage up to a point - stabilize the neediest and then go on to the rest. Resources in this business are quite strained most places, so we have to be as practical as we are idealistic. Susan Susan T Stinson, Curator Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive Syracuse University Library 222 Waverly Avenue Syracuse, NY 13244-2010 315-443-3477 / fax 443-4866 >>> [log in to unmask] 09/19/05 6:44 PM >>> Hi Ms. Stinson: Thanks for this very interesting post. Question -- do the new laser-scan methods have a way to focus through or compensate for mold? -- Tom Fine ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Stinson" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> > I would point out one thing here that we have learned over the years - > it isn't really helpful to remove the mould, even if you can. Yes, the > presence of the inactive mould makes the recording noisy to play back, > but removing the mould leaves pits and other holes that makes playback > less attractive. We concluded that it's better to leave it alone. > > Sue