WATTs DUST BUG

[anmpr1]

Confesson: I don't wash my LPs, nor do wet playing.

Dedicated record cleaning is too much for me. I have a Discwasher brush (says RCA on the package) that slides dust off, and sometimes use a cartridge with a brush.

I had a Glenn Miller 45rpm EP album set that sounded atrocious with cracks 'n pops. I hand washed the discs in warm water using dish washing liquid, and that cleaned things up remarkably. I have no doubt that something like a Kieth Monks or one of the other pro machines is the ultimate. But for me LP is not the ultimate thing, so I don't push that envelope. I just like watching things spin around. Laundry day sitting in front of the the font loader is my favorite time (just kidding!).

 

[Robin L]

Confesson:

I don't wash my LPs, nor do wet playing.

The only hygiene I do is a hand held brush and one of the gummy catridge cleaners.

Then again, I buy very few used records.

I bought tons of used records, thus my current distain for the format.
I suspect you would have few problems with your current regimen. However, I have bought new vinyl many times where wet washing noticeably reduced surface noise. If you're not experiencing any difficulties now, no reason to increase essentially neurotic habits.

 

[Robin L]

My father had one from the very first turntable I remember seeing. I think he bought it for prior turntables in the late 1960s. He still has the dust bug (and the TT), along with quite a few other cleaning arms he's bought and I've picked up over the years.

It used to sit on the motor cover of his 398A Empire as the platter is too tall for it to rest on the base. I remember the suction cap got all cracked and hard.

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Lived with one of these Empire turntables way back in the before before. Lovely beast.

 

[anmpr1]

Lived with one of these Empire turntables way back in the before before. Lovely beast.

I had a friend whose old man had one of those. Very impressive. I think he also had the Empire speakers with the marble tops.

Also, another friend whose old man owned a Dual 1219. He was military, and bought it at the Exchange. When you went to his house the rule was "If you touch the Dual I'll kill you." I guess we were about 16, then. I think sarge would have easier forgiven us if he'd discovered us in bed with his wife, drinking his liquor, before he'd have forgiven us for touching his Dual.

 

[watchnerd]

Lived with one of these Empire turntables way back in the before before. Lovely beast.View attachment 84902

Last time I was in Hawthorne Stereo in Seattle (last year), they had one of those for sale.

 

[gene_stl]

I had an Empire like that very briefly. As soon as I unboxed it I started hating it. It was made primarily for looks. I didn't like the platter bearing and the tonearm was way too massive for 1970. The outer turntable ring was poorly cast and machined. (The speakers were a gimmick too.) They were a little too early for the "high end" which had not quite been invented yet. I think it may actually have been the only piece of equipment I ever returned to a store. I hated it so much that I didn't think I would be able to sell it to some unsuspecting person. It was a 598 or 698. I bought it at "E.J. Korvettes" which had a very nice audio dept. They took returns so I just gave it back to them. Now 50 years later people are collecting them and bragging about it. Get a Thorens or an AR or Garrard.

Dust bugs did make noise. All my audio friends in the sixties had one sitting next to or under their turntables which they didn't use unless it was used record or something. Some were quite obsessive with the Parostatik Preener and then the Discwasher which came out distinctly later. They were also snake oil salespeople. Their products were overpriced for the time. (I think a Preener was like $3.95 but the DiscWasher (which I still have and yes they are excellent for cleaning records) was like $17.95. For a plush pad with a stupid Walnut handle. (there is a lot of cheap Walnut here in Missouri . The owner designer of DiscWasher probably went down to Lebanon MO to one of the "Walnut Bowl" factories to contract for the handles. The RCA ones are made of mousetrap wookd stained to look like walnut.)

I still have a bunch of records that I play but I haven't bought nor collected a new record in decades. I do still pick up used CDs , SACDs DVDs and BDs. But when I am at half price books looking for the above I walk right by the LPs. I regard records as a usable but obsolete medium for wonderful old recordings some of which were not reissued or if they were I didn't run across them.

Although some of the disc media are starting to have reports of end of life deterioration (so am I) , at least the most you would need to do to them is give them a spritz of windex or lens cleaner and a polish with a microfiber cloth. (One of the great inventions of [non western ie. Japanese] civilization)
Some one has placed with me a VPI record cleaning machine which I may use one day but so far have not even unboxed. Records are SUCH a pia.
I have at least three or four turntables floating around here ( Technics SL-10 with unobtainium boron MC cartridge that is truly great, Pioneer PLC-590 with uni pivot Stax Arm and Shure M91 E cartridge, Aiwa straightline TT and one or two others.)

 

[anmpr1]

The owner designer of DiscWasher probably went down to Lebanon MO to one of the "Walnut Bowl" factories to contract for the handles. The RCA ones are made of mousetrap wookd stained to look like walnut.)

My original DW fell apart. Not the handle, but the felt fabric, or whatever it was made of. The original DW felt was grooved, with little ridges. The RCA model was/is just a flat piece of cloth, or felt, or something. All it does is slide the dust into a line. Then you can push it to the edge. No telling how much crud is actually in the grooves! LOL

Also, the original DW had a hole in the handle where you could keep your bottle of D3 fluid. The new model doesn't have that. Really cheapened.

There were many different devices sold. AT called theirs an 'Autocleanica'--a play on the company name. Transcriptors/Michell sold a longhair brush that looked kind of cool on their futuristic turntables.

 

[watchnerd]

My original DW fell apart. Not the handle, but the felt fabric, or whatever it was made of. The original DW felt was grooved, with little ridges. The RCA model was/is just a flat piece of cloth, or felt, or something. All it does is slide the dust into a line. Then you can push it to the edge. No telling how much crud is actually in the grooves! LOL

Also, the original DW had a hole in the handle where you could keep your bottle of D3 fluid. The new model doesn't have that. Really cheapened.

There were many different devices sold. AT called theirs an 'Autocleanica'--a play on the company name. Transcriptors/Michell sold a longhair brush that looked kind of cool on their futuristic turntables.

View attachment 84909

View attachment 84910

Nice Michell.

Because my Gyro SE has no normal plinth, I can't use these brush-on-a-flagpole gizmos.

 

[gene_stl]

Ahh The Transcriptors!
There was a store in St. Louis that was run by a guy that looked like W.C. Fields. He was only interested in rich people coming into his store and when I came in with my young and beautiful girlfriend he made an exception and actually kissed her hand. He was a Bozak dealer and had the Transcriptors (which was breathtakingly overprice for 1971) and also was a dealer for Ampex. He had AG 440s and ATR series, sitting in his small shop which was in a small south st. louis bungalow.

The original DiscWasher somehow canted the velvet fibers forward. That is why they had an arrow on the opposite side from the cubbyhole for the fluid bottle. The canted fibers trapped rather than pushing the dust. Then you brushed them backwards away from the record to get the dust fibers out

I have an RCA new one and it's a piece of crap.

 

[anmpr1]

Ahh The Transcriptors!

I owned the Skeleton. Bought it from a place in Winter Park FL called Sound Gallery, on Park Ave. It was made of heavy leaded glass, with edges ground and polished a greenish color . Platter was aluminum with shiny chrome pods that supported the LP. At the time (I guess it was 1976 or so) the store was out of the accompanying Vestigal arm, so the dealer installed a Grace G-707 and an Ortofon MM cartridge. I still have the Grace. After about a year or two the motor stopped. The dealer had closed his doors, and with no Internet you couldn't get parts for something like that.

I traded the useless (but nice to look at) Transcriptors for a Denon DL-103D cartridge--another dealer in Winter Park who also sold McIntosh (he went out of business, too). The store owner just wanted to put it in his storefront window because it looked cool, like something no one had ever seen before.

 

[anmpr1]

Because my Gyro SE has no normal plinth, I can't use these brush-on-a-flagpole gizmos.

The old Hydraulic Reference was one of the coolest looking machines. With its Fluid Arm and shaving brush Dustbug device it pretty much beat anything out there in the looks department. I've seen the plinth in gloss black and a few other colors. But I'm sure the Gyro is an all around better quality machine.

 

[RPM]

Back in the dawn of prehistory, I used the original of this product. Wasn't as flash as what you referenced, and it had the advantage of no effect on the drive of the table (used successfully with a Dual 1218 for my university years). The ritual was to place a small line of D3 fluid (from Discwasher) on a Parostatik Preener and with the platter rotating use the Prenner to evenly spread the D4 fluid on the record and then wipe it up. The idea was to kill static and thus reduce the accumulation of dust on the record. The Dustbug then kept the grooves just befoe the tone arm clean. Successful? Not sure, but I do seem to remember that I went through at least 1 Dustbug per 6 months, and religiously replaced the Preener every quarter.

View attachment 84856

thank you for this. i just managed to discover this site while trying to find out what the Dustbug was called. i have these same 2 devices, both of which i think were recommended in some article somewhere when i bought my AR turntable around 1970 . the Bug doesn't appear to have any identifying information on it and i just couldn't remember the name. the suction cup didn't work so well on the surface of my record player so i ended up using some reusable putty-type stuff i got at the hardware store. the brush broke off somehow and i'm thinking of starting to play some of my lps again, possibly mounting a tiny replacement made from a tiny paintbrush.

 

[RPM]

Back in the dawn of prehistory, I used the original of this product. Wasn't as flash as what you referenced, and it had the advantage of no effect on the drive of the table (used successfully with a Dual 1218 for my university years). The ritual was to place a small line of D3 fluid (from Discwasher) on a Parostatik Preener and with the platter rotating use the Prenner to evenly spread the D4 fluid on the record and then wipe it up. The idea was to kill static and thus reduce the accumulation of dust on the record. The Dustbug then kept the grooves just befoe the tone arm clean. Successful? Not sure, but I do seem to remember that I went through at least 1 Dustbug per 6 months, and religiously replaced the Preener every quarter.

View attachment 84856

i don't know if my other words got posted but i forgot to say that i don't remember any D3 fluid and always figured any substance other than distilled water might create problems.

 

[anmpr1]

i don't know if my other words got posted but i forgot to say that i don't remember any D3 fluid and always figured any substance other than distilled water might create problems.

No No No. D3 has long been superseded by the 'new and improved' miracle D4 series. In fact, we're up to D4+. Hell, for all I know, we could even be at D5!

I mean, if you are going to get into the down and dirty of analog, you have to stay on top of the latest tech.

 

[egellings]

How is that any better than just a typical hand held brush?

I get the impression that the bug just moves the dust around on a record, but does not remove it the way a handheld brush would.

 

[Timcognito]

db audio in Berkeley used to have a Keith Monks record cleaning machine

A second home for me in the mid-late '70s thanks for reminding me, @Robin L . Bought KEF drivers there and made speakers that still sound pretty good at my brother's house.

 

[Robin L]

I get the impression that the bug just moves the dust around on a record, but does not remove it the way a handheld brush would.

Works best with LPs that already had a wet wash. Dust building up during play sticks to the pad.

 

[TriodeLuvr]

I get the impression that the bug just moves the dust around on a record, but does not remove it the way a handheld brush would.

Sorry to dredge up a thread so old, but this is not correct. I used a Dust Bug on my first turntable beginning in 1970, a Dual 1209. Then I went through a phase about 10 years later where I used a Discwasher handheld brush. Although the latter picks up some of the surface dust, it grinds the rest of it down into the grooves. Many of my albums were damaged and met a premature demise using this method. I abandoned it entirely and reverted to a Dust Bug when I started playing LPs again about 20 years ago.

The Dust Bug works because the "roller" brush is moistened before each use. The tracing bush up front loosens dirt laying in and on the grooves, and the dust then adheres to the roller. Note that the roller doesn't actually roll when the brush is in use. It wouldn't work properly if it did. The brush is fixed in position, but it can be rotated to a new position by hand if the bristles become worn. I never tried this system on any belt-drive turntable, so I can't comment on that. I use it now with a direct-drive Denon, and there are no ill effects. The original fluid is unavailable, so I moisten the roller with Discwasher fluid (currently using D4+). There's some irony in that, I guess.

I'll add that the Dust Bug is the only system I've ever seen that absolutely prevents pops and crackles from forming when playing an album. And because I almost never buy used records, I never invested in a separate cleaning or vacuum system. Those are useful for an initial cleaning, but do nothing to prevent dust that settles on the record during play from creating pops. Only the Dust Bug does that.

After owning the Dual 1209 and Dust Bug for a few months, I noticed that some albums that were entirely clean during previous plays would suddenly exhibit a few pops. Cut to the chase, this turned out to be the result of sliding the vinyl in and out of the paper sleeves. I've never seen this reported by others, but perhaps that's because none of the other cleaning methods are as effective, so pops and crackles are unavoidable. Anyway, once I realized this was happening, I cut one side of all my LP sleeves with scissors. This allowed opening the sleeves and setting the album inside, instead of sliding it against all the accumulated dust and dirt. Problem solved.

The Dust Bug is indeed more work than simply swiping the disc with a brush before each play. Nevertheless, if you value your albums and want the best possible musical experience, this is the way to go.

Jack

 

[TriodeLuvr]

Works best with LPs that already had a wet wash. Dust building up during play sticks to the pad.

The wet wash is unnecessary unless the disc is heavily impacted with dirt. This is why the original instructions say to "play" the entire album with the Dust Bug at least once prior to actually setting down the stylus.

Jack

 

[sergeauckland]

The wet wash is unnecessary unless the disc is heavily impacted with dirt. This is why the original instructions say to "play" the entire album with the Dust Bug at least once prior to actually setting down the stylus.

Jack

I question that, as old records will have all sorts of normal everyday pollutants on them, and brand new records will have mould-release agents on them, so both will benefit from a wet wash and vacuum from a Record Cleaning Machine.

The only issue I found with the Dust Bug, as I mentioned earlier, is that the stiff bristles 'play' the record, and consequently, there is some added coloration from its use. I also don't know whether dynamic wow is introduced, especially with belt-drives, although I wasn't conscious of any when using a Dust Bug with my Connoisseur and Linn turntables.

S.