“My mind’s been blown. The ridiculous extent that we went to, to clean this record and to try to eliminate any variables so that we could really determine if the LAST treatment makes any difference, um… I wasn’t expecting it. I was not expecting to hear much of a difference at all, but boy that wasn’t the case. Absolutely there is a difference and it was so shockingly different I said I don’t know, maybe I did something wrong. So we actually cleaned a few more. …Immediately I heard what I was hearing with the Mingus. Ditto for the Yes album, and especially true for this one (Debussy Seong-Jin Cho). This really drove it home for me. Really understood what differences that I was hearing, and I admit at first I wondered – is there some softening of the initial transient attack, you know, like a pluck on a guitar string?
At first I thought it sounds a bit softer and I wondered if that’s what I was hearing. But I soon became apparent that what I was really hearing was a better separation of the notes, and it was particularly evident with the flourishes of notes played on the piano on this record. It separated those notes far more clearly. It was not only evident when you closed your eyes and listen critically in the dark – you could be in the next room and it was just clear as day that this was a superior sound. It’s better, guys. I know some of you don’t believe that. I’ve seen lots of arguments online back and forth about whether last treatment improves the sound or not, but I got to tell you on every one of these records, for me, for our ears in this room, it absolutely improved it, and, it wasn’t subtle, wasn’t subtle at all.
I would also say that the images within the sound stage were clearer – they were more precisely presented – not so much that it became overly hi-fi, where you get those laser sharp images, it was still very natural sounding, but the biggest improvement was clarity of the various frequencies that were being played. That’s the best way I can put it. And, uh, I really liked it, so, I did not expect to, frankly. I thought, we cleaned these records so well, that’s the best sound that you’re going to get, and it just wasn’t the case. So I am a fan of LAST. I will be acquiring their largest container because it’s not inexpensive. I think if you get the biggest quantity, based on the number of record size that you get out of an ounce of LAST, probably paying around 60 cents a record. That’s my estimate. I think it’s worth it. So.. yeah. Wow. I’m absolutely blown away by this. I did not expect to come to this conclusion, but, there you are and that’s what my ears told me.”
Transcript from audio analyst E183: The POWER of LAST’s Record Preservative
Hello everyone. I’m Greg Weaver welcome to the audio analyst.
With episode 148 I shared my remarkable recent experiences with the simply splendid stylus and record care products from the LAST Factory in Livermore California. The name last is an acronym for liquid archival Sound Treatment Treatment.
I first came upon and used the LAST products back in the 1980s. There were two stylus formulations, one to clean and a second for preservation, two different LP cleaners, one All-purpose and one for Power Cleaning, and finally to my mind their Piece de resistance: their utterly remarkable record preservative.
It should be noted that they also make a host of optical disc and Magnetic Tape care products as well. While I do not pursue optical or magnetic media use to any length these days, I must assume based on the efficacy of their LP and stylus products that these products are deserving of your attention if you do.
Today I want to highlight on the efficacy and incomparable value of using the LAST Record Preservative, a product I see as indispensable to anyone serious about vinyl playback. There are other products out there that claim to improve sound and to help to preserve your Lps, none of which enjoy the notoriety or reputation of the LAST Factory’s formulation originally developed in 1979 by Lawrence Livermore laboratory scientists Ed Catalano and Emmett Wrenn, along with audio expert Walter Davies. And guess what? These cats weren’t out to start a business or even to create a product: their motivation was the purest of all. They just wanted to find a way to preserve their own record Collections.
In my discussions in episode 148 I pointed out there was my own idiocy that led to my abandoning the use of these extremely effective products in the late 1990s as given their dearth of both advertising materials and coverage by the audio press, I had mistakenly assumed that the rise of the CD had spelled their demise. I was adult and was clearly just not paying attention. But the practical resurrection of this unique brand must be credited to the foresight and efforts of audio Enthusiast Jeff Kaskey, a longtime friend of the last Factory’s co-founder Walter Davies. Recognizing that the strong Resurgence and reinvigorated interest in the lp presented an excellent opportunity to grow the last Factory’s exceptional line of products. After devising a plan that would create a partnership with Walter structured so that Walter would remain with the company as an adviser, Jeff agreed to purchase The LAST Factory. The two worked together in that capacity until Walter passed away in 2020 at the age of 83.
When I recently reached out to Jeff,asking him some questions including as much detail as he could comfortably provide on how the formulation works, he responded by explaining that even at the factory they don’t like saying the name of the secret ingredient; not even in their accounting or other in-house documentation. He explained that as such Walter had begun the practice of just referring to that ingredient as “magic”.
Jeff’s next point was a clarification about chemical terminology,explaining that when you see a bead of water form on a surface like glass, the bead of water you see is the result of the strength of the molecular bonds which prevent that bead from just spreading out evenly across the surface. This is a manifestation of the bond strength known as surface tension. Different liquids will have different amounts of surface tension, and by extension that same concept, when applied to solids, is called surface energy. Again, different solids exhibit different surface energy.
If you want to exert less drag as one surface -say a diamond stylus- is dragged across another surface -say our vinyl LP- an excellent way to do so is to reduce the surface energy of one or both materials. Jeff stressed that this is fundamentally different from just introducing a lubricant between the two surfaces, though it should be obvious that the result would be similar.
Noting that changing the surface energy characteristics of a diamond would be difficult, but that vinyl, being a polymer with plasticizers, a semi-permeable material opens the door to introduce compatible chemicals that diffuse into the polymer, and will reduce its native surface energy. By reducing that surface energy -and thus decreasing drag, you may successfully reduce the ability to put dynamic force into the vinyl surface, which he says also dramatically reduces the intensity of the resultant shock wave created by the stylus transcribing the groove.
As I mentioned in episode 148, a phono stylus set to track in the vicinity of 2 grams translates to the equivalent of over two tons of pressure at and on the LP’s Groove walls. The result of the friction generated by the stylus at these pressures creates immense heat which is very destructive to the record’s life. Measurements published by Van der Wall show that those temperatures reach 320° F or 160° Celsius.
The original literature LAST presented in the 1990s suggested that the record preservative ability to diminish the vinyl’s native surface energy and its resultant relaxed drag and shock wave generation was able to reduce the generation of heat by almost 100 degrees. This drastically diminished destructive energy produced by the extreme pressure and friction of the surface-to-groove interaction, not only all but halts the physical deterioration of the vinyl surface for something on the order of 200 plays. But it improves its perceptible sonic performance as well.
Now at this point he had addressed another of my questions which was to understand why an LP immediately post-treatment with the Preservative sounded significantly improved. My listening experiences comparing the sonics of a newly treated record to that same record before its treatment with the LAST Preservative revealed consistent enhancements, though to occasionally varying degrees. Among those enhancements were notably reduced surface noise resulting in a quieter presentation overall, refining microdynamic clarity and expressiveness. Tone and timber were presented more vividly. Image focus and specificity were enhanced, as were resolution and its resultant transparency. And the record would often seem slightly louder.
He explained that by chemically reducing the vinyl surface energy and its interrelated drag reduction, the stylus is freer to follow the groove more accurately, and that the amount of improvement will be dependent on an assortment of variables, such as the compliance of the cantilever, the diamond profile and polish, the formulation of the vinyl used, even – believe it or not -the kinds of tracks you are listening to.
The result is a secondary synergistically beneficial byproduct of the chemical changes the Preservative makes necessary to extend the playback life of your records. He explained that while magic has not changed since day one of the LAST Factory, the key to its successful application is the use of an effective delivery carrier. That carrier is a fluid that has to be totally missible with magic, meaning that it must form a homogeneous mixture with magic, it has to be completely harmless to the vinyl formulations used for records, and it must cleanly dissipate, leaving no trace of itself once its task is done.
It turns out that certain chlorofluorocarbons specifically freons were capable of doing just that. So freon was the obvious choice for their first carrier fluid when the product was introduced in But as the EPA began phasing out freon in 1992, heralding its eventual ban, big chemical companies like 3M and Dupont went to work developing substitutes with comparable properties but without the negative environmental impact concerns. LAST settled on one of the more recent carrier fluids from 3M’s family of such products. Among its other desirable attributes it still exhibits the property of very rapid evaporation,leaving nothing of itself behind. The only thing left behind on the vinyl is Magic.
The fluid is available in 2, 8 or 16 fluid ounce bottles at roughly $65 $229 or $433 respectively. And each bottle includes the required plastic pipetttes and microfiber application brushes and the last dot sticker used to indicate which LPS have already been Treated. The 2 oz. bottle is estimated to treat about 180 sides, or roughly 90 LPS. So one may extrapolate about 360 or 720 LPS for the larger bottles, which would break down to about 72 cents 64 cents or 61 cents per record treated with each larger sized bottle.
Application is a Snap. LAST suggests placing a clean record on your turntable or a clean firm surface. I use a freshly cleaned glass tabletop just outside one of the doors of my music room. Once you have the record prepared, you open the bottle of fluid and fill the pipette to its guide mark, which is roughly about one squeeze of the bulb. The current instructions say to gently squeeze the dropper along the length of the microfiber applicator brush to evenly distribute the fluid. I still use the older instructions, which suggested holding the applicator brush almost perpendicular to the bottle with the bottom end over the open bottle’s mouth and dispensing the fluid from the pipette starting at the top of the brush and letting it flow down the applicator,allowing excess to flow back into the bottle. While this violates the age-old chemistry lab rule never to return excess chemicals to the master bottle, it does prevent excess waste of fluid.
Next you place the applicator on the record surface- rolled to one side. Then with a continuous gentle sweeping motion you follow the record grooves around the record twice while rolling the applicator to help distribute the preservative more evenly. Once the first side is done just flip the lp, re-wet the applicator, and repeat. All that is left to do is to place one of the last dots on the record jacket to indicate that your record has been treated and you are done. No meaningful waiting time is needed once you see that the carrier fluid has evaporated. And though there is a diffusion process that occurs over a relatively brief period, as the preservative treatment is absorbed into the outermost 10 or so molecular layers of the record surface.
You may play or return the treated LP to its sleeve by the time you’ve put the cap back on the bottle. And do that quickly. Recall that one of the properties of this fluid is its rapid evaporation. But according to Jeff, chemically speaking the sonic benefits will improve slightly over a day or two.
One further point on its application: Here the electrical engineering persona in Jeff felt that rather than place the record on any surface, perhaps a better idea would be to use a simple platform that would support a record only by its central label, so that the bottom side would never touch anything. This would allow the record to be cleaned without finding a clean surface to work on and make it easier to do the cleaning on a crowded surface.
He was driven to create the Last Stand (sorry I think it’s a clever title, don’t you?) and it turns out that it has become a popular device with users. You may buy one of these stands from LAST for about $60 or you may make one with parts readily available at a hardware store by watching the tutorial video at their site. I have provided links for both.
Finally, my my last question to Jeff had to do with what impact cleaning an already-treated LP would have, especially cleanings with an ultrasonic cleaner like my Audio Desk Vinyl Pro X. Would it diminish its effectiveness, given ultrasonic cleaning works by using cavitation bubbles induced by high frequency sound pressure waves to mechanically beat on the vinyl surface?
He responded that it is certainly possible that some magic is physically removed from the polymer matrix, but noting that ultrasonic cleaners use different frequencies and approaches, and that their testing has shown that higher frequencies do less damage to plastics, he added that ultrasonic cleaners like the Audio Desk are likely safer for multiple and extended use than some others.
Overall he still feels that cleaning treated LPS manually or with vacuum powered machines will have the least impact on the preservative’sdurability. I hope you now have both a better understanding of how this remarkable LAST Record Preservative works, and why I find it to be an indispensable addition to my vinyl playback ritual. This product should be seen as a necessity. I simply cannot imagine LP playback without its implementation, deriving both the short and long-term benefits it affords. I would wager that once you try it you will be as impressed with its contributions as I have been.
In closing I want to thank Jeff for his generosity and offering his detailed responses to my questions, many of which are answered on The LAST Factory website, and for manufacturing and distributing such exceptional products to significantly enhance the lp playback experience for music lovers. If you aren’t using the LAST Record Preservative you have yet to release and experience all the potential detail, nuance, and magic captured in your record’s grooves.
As always thank you for taking the time to drop by today. Further information on supporting the channel may be found in today’s description section, or at my website the audio analyst.com please stay safe and keep the music playing. Till next time, cheers!
We sell The Last Stand as a handy way to clean vinyl records while keeping the dust off of the back side. But you can also make it yourself. All you need is a trip to the home improvement store for about $10.00 worth of parts, and you’ll have the parts to drill and assemble the stand. Watch how to use The Last Stand to clean records at this link.
LAST RCM fluid can be used in many styles of record cleaners. The small squirt bottle we include is convenient with vacuum-style cleaners. This video demonstrates how to use RCM fluid with a vacuum style record cleaning machine.
Watch other demonstrations on using Last products on our YouTube Channel.
Watch this video on how to apply Last Tape Preservative to reel-to-reel tape. If you have older tape, you probably should dehydrate it first. See advice on how to do that here: (How and why should I dehydrate my tapes?). In this video, Jeff shows how to use the tape deck to apply Tape Preservative evenly over the entire tape. Your bottle should last about 60 applications.
Moisture and oxidation are the top causes of tape degradation. They damage the binder of the tape, which is made of acetate or polyester. LAST Tape Preservative stops that deterioration and stabilizes the binder. It also dramatically reduces the friction at the tape/head interface.
LAST Tape Preservative has many benefits. It significantly reduces data loss from magnetic tape, and protects the tape binder from deterioration by humidity. The smoother tape action extends the life of the heads and guides. Last Tape Preservative reduces tape wear and distortion, as well as tape abrasiveness and scrape flutter.
After treatment, you will notice improved playback performance and high frequency response. The S:N ratio will increase, resulting in clearer music. With the protective properties of Tape Preservative, your tape will last up to 10 times longer.
Pro-Tip: keep your records safe and dust-free by elevating it during cleaning
This video shows how to clean vinyl records on the LAST Stand. One of the problems of cleaning a record is that after you clean one side, you must flip the record and set it down on a surface to clean the other side. Meanwhile, that annoying stray speck of dirt or dust on your record jacket or towel will get stuck to the “clean” side of your record. A good solution is to use The LAST Stand. This device elevates your record so that nothing will touch the grooves after you’ve cleaned them.
Using The Last Stand to Clean Vinyl Records
DIY – Make The LAST Stand Yourself
You can make the stand for your own use. All you need is a trip to the home improvement store for about $10.00 worth of parts, and you’ll have what you need to drill and assemble the stand. A drill press makes it much easier, and while most steps are straightforward, pressing the pin in place may require some fiddling. We now use an arbor press (not shown in the video). You may see some other refinements (please, let us know!) and if you have questions shoot us an email. Watch the video tutorial here.
