Originally Posted by
Infinitely Baffled
Yes, I did this! Way back in the mid-70s I put together my first hi-fi which comprised a Connoisseur BD1 turntable with an Acos "Lustre" arm, an Ortofon VMS20E cartridge all played via a JVC JA-S310 amp into little bookshelf-sized Leak 2020 loudspeakers. It was a very decent little system, and saw me through to about 1983 when I bought (almost inevitably) a Rega Planar 3 turntable.
Anyway, back to the plot. So taken was I with becoming the owner of a "stereo" for the first time that I was determined to go the whole hog (well, as far as was practicable for a student) and acquire whatever extra gadgets I could afford. One of these was a wet playing system that was new on the market at the time, called a "Lenco" arm. This consisted of a hollow perspex tube, about 5 or 6 inches long, with a big reservoir at its back end and a brush (or more accurately, a sort of pad) at its front end. This arm arrangement was mounted atop a thin chrome spindle let into the deck alongside the platter, and on which it pivoted. With the reservoir full of Lenco's proprietary (and, for me, costly) cleaning fluid, the natural balance of the arm would ensure the distribution pad at the front sat on the record and "painted" a band of fluid, maybe 6 or 7 mm wide on the surface of the record as it went round. With the record turning, the pad moved inwards towards the turntable spindle at the same rate as the arm, thus ensuring the needle always sat within the "painted" band throughout the entire side.
How did it work? Well, fine - for a while. One problem was that, for some reason I never worked out, it was not consistent in how much fluid it deposited on the surface of the record. Sometimes there would just be a thin film (which I liked - it meant my bottle of fluid lasted longer) and sometimes it would flood the record surface with a Mississippi-like surfeit. Either way, it certainly banished static and any ticks and tacks from dust or other contaminants. Playback was very silent indeed. Unfortunately, what I found was that once you had used it on a record, you had to continue to use it. There was no going back to dry play after that - it sounded like a bowlful of Rice Krispies. So you were locked into this increasingly expensive and messy requirement to be forever squeezing Lenco fluid into the arm reservoir and watching it needlessly flood your records only to evaporate away (eventually) leaving what must have been quite a crusty residue behind, if the sound was anything to go by. After an aborted attempt to cease using it, I reluctantly bought another bottle of fluid and resumed - only to find that it now sounded crackly with or without fluid! Hell's bells! What was going on? I never found out. I eventually cut my losses. I had relatively few records at the time, so I replaced the records that were worst affected and put up with it on the others. I suppose the effect must have diminished over time, since I never notice it now, and I must still have a few records in my collection from those early days. Some of the records were hard to replace, though : it took 25 years to replace my beautiful recording of Bach's violin Sonatas and Partitas on Supraphon. It cost me three pounds and nine pence from Templar records for the three-disc set. The replacements I got in the early 2000s off Ebay cost thirty times that amount - second hand. What can you do?
Anyway, a lesson to be learned: keep records clean, but don't arse around with extravagant gadgets. These days I use a Nagaoka tacky roller to keep them dust free. And that seems to work fine.
IB