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Vintage 700b

Vintage 700b

Chief Journeyman
#21,518
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Mar 13, 2019
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Wisconsin
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#21,518
I remember "wet-playing" an album was the new way to preserve your albums and really reduce friction on the stylus, when I was in college (early 70's). I have a large vinyl collection, that I have always kept clean, and I shied away from wet - playing, because even back then, the vinyl had to be super clean, before we could wet-play, and we were supposed to always use distilled water, to avoid the minerals present in hard tap water. Not easy for a college kid to always adhere to. You also could not just flip it over to hear the "B" side without first drying it. The rule of thumb was "once wet-played. always wet-played". An advantage was removing background static (which is dirt/wear in the grooves) when wet-played.
There were several companies that sold the special arms, and they always had their "special solution" that you were supposed to use (Lenco). The big thing was people would start with a somewhat dirty, or dusty record, and create a sludge which the diamond just packed into the groove. Over time this created a lot of buildup film, and if you ever tried to play it "dry", it sounded terrible. I did have one good friend who always wet-played, his albums, and when cassettes came out, he converted his vinyl collection to tape, with one last wet-play. It was one of many things that we tried to save and preserve our collections. I knew a lot of people who swore by using only 100% Isopropyl alcohol to clean their vinyl, about that time as well (mid-70's) and that ruined a lot of great vinyl. Clean vinyl, and a correctly set up tone arm, with a high quality, light tracking stylus, are the best ways to preserve vinyl.
 
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