Post by Bigman80 on Feb 5, 2023 11:12:26 GMT
A little while ago now, a friend of mine excitedly sent me a link to his new record brush. A Ramar record brush:
ramar.berlin/en/produkt/tina/
Upon opening the link, my head nearly fell off! £300 + postage for a record brush. This seemed a little bonkers, even for me. However, i am told it works really well and looks and feels amazing. I am sure it does, but do we REALLY need a £00 record brush?
I decided to go on a little bit of an investigative journey into what is ACTUALLY required from a record brush:
1) Fine strands to preserve the surface for the record and to get into those little grooves of joy
2) sufficient surface area - seems logical
3) Does not cause static build up
Other than that, it looks pretty simple.
I have the standard carbon types. You know the ones....£10 Tonar things. I never really thought too much about it. Quick wipe over and youre away. So where next?
Internet wisdom suggested that goat hair brushes were the way to go, other sources declared the carbon fibre as king, so it shouldn't be a surprise to find that the Ramar has both! For £300+ i would expect it to have the goat with it, but hey...this is hifi! lol
I scoured the internet for about 7 minutes and found this:
www.walkingsticks.co.uk/hewitts-goats-hair-brush-for-leather-cleaning.html
I decided to buy one and try it on a few "poorer" pressing i had. When it arrived i instantly grabbed a brand new copy of a Pearl Jam (rubbish pressing) and gave the surface a rub over, quite vigorously actually. Thankfully it left the surface in as new condition. Result.
It's really difficult to try and do some sort of legitimate comparitive test, as you can't really brush the same side of an LP with two different brushes to see which one works better, but i did try to find equally as neglected vinyl as i could and keep things even-ish.
I think the goat hair brush was way more effective than the Tonar one. It makes sense as there are about 100x more bristles, but more importantly, it has passed all three of the required tests. The surface was preserved, the grooves sounded quieter, has plenty of surface are and has not caused any static build up. I have brushed about 20 LPs with it and it is definitely the better brush IMO.
If you need a new brush, i'd suggest giving one of these a go. It's only £290 quid cheaper than the Ramar lol
ramar.berlin/en/produkt/tina/
Upon opening the link, my head nearly fell off! £300 + postage for a record brush. This seemed a little bonkers, even for me. However, i am told it works really well and looks and feels amazing. I am sure it does, but do we REALLY need a £00 record brush?
I decided to go on a little bit of an investigative journey into what is ACTUALLY required from a record brush:
1) Fine strands to preserve the surface for the record and to get into those little grooves of joy
2) sufficient surface area - seems logical
3) Does not cause static build up
Other than that, it looks pretty simple.
I have the standard carbon types. You know the ones....£10 Tonar things. I never really thought too much about it. Quick wipe over and youre away. So where next?
Internet wisdom suggested that goat hair brushes were the way to go, other sources declared the carbon fibre as king, so it shouldn't be a surprise to find that the Ramar has both! For £300+ i would expect it to have the goat with it, but hey...this is hifi! lol
I scoured the internet for about 7 minutes and found this:
www.walkingsticks.co.uk/hewitts-goats-hair-brush-for-leather-cleaning.html
I decided to buy one and try it on a few "poorer" pressing i had. When it arrived i instantly grabbed a brand new copy of a Pearl Jam (rubbish pressing) and gave the surface a rub over, quite vigorously actually. Thankfully it left the surface in as new condition. Result.
It's really difficult to try and do some sort of legitimate comparitive test, as you can't really brush the same side of an LP with two different brushes to see which one works better, but i did try to find equally as neglected vinyl as i could and keep things even-ish.
I think the goat hair brush was way more effective than the Tonar one. It makes sense as there are about 100x more bristles, but more importantly, it has passed all three of the required tests. The surface was preserved, the grooves sounded quieter, has plenty of surface are and has not caused any static build up. I have brushed about 20 LPs with it and it is definitely the better brush IMO.
If you need a new brush, i'd suggest giving one of these a go. It's only £290 quid cheaper than the Ramar lol
