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I remember working in a classical music radio station in Toronto 40 years ago and the policy was to "wet play" noisy records, in other words, soak the grooves with distilled water as the cartridge tracked along. We also had to make sure to dry the record afterwards. It worked pretty well. Louis 2012/4/11 Doug Pomeroy <[log in to unmask]> > 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 > [log in to unmask] >