Unless you buy They are only brand new – and often even – your vinyl records are probably dirty. The new files are stateticky and attract dust; The former records were seated in boxes in the basements of others. Take it to someone who bought, sold, found, cleaned and restored dusty and fatty jewels: your files probably need a good bath.
Below you will find everything you need to know to get (and keep) your fresh wax. Interested in other audio advice? Make sure to consult our list of the best decks and our guide on how to upgrade your domestic audio for free or cheap.
Updated March 2025: We have added information on ultrasonic cleaning, updated formatting and verified links and prices.
Alive with unlimited access to Cable. Get the best class reports that are too important to ignore $ 2.50 $ 1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber content. Subscribe today.
Why wiping will not work
If you do A quick amazon searchYou will find a ton of products that claim to clean the vinyl records. As a rule, they use sprays and a form of wiping device, such as a fabric or a pad, to clean the surface. However, vinyl grooves are so small that the fibers of a fabric cannot reach inside. Although you can clean the liquid in the grooves, having it removed is quite difficult. This means that traditional style wiping or rotation and cleaning devices mainly distribute dirt in grooves.
This is where vacuum suction or ultrasonic cleaners enter. This pro -ch ($ 450) Use a tray and vacuum cleaner system to physically suck the unpleasant cleaning solution of grooves, with an engine that runs the disc in two directions. Ultrasound cleaners use high frequency sound to essentially shake grooves dirt. The two work very well to make sure that dirt, dust and dirt actually come out of the tiny grooves in your file.
Trade tools
If you follow the suction way, you can buy an all-in-one record cleaner like that made by pro-project above, or if you feel frugal, you can simply buy one of the These impressive attachments ($ 30) For a small vacuum from the shop.
Then everything you need is Cleaning solution ($ 35)A cheap brush ($ 7),, A Empty ($ 50)And an old disk or a pin to turn the disc while you suck the solution from the grooves. Look for the ancients in thrift stores, because everything you need is a table that turns physically, not that plays music. I had narcotic results to clean my recordings using this system, taking old crisp records in brilliant clean masterpieces in a few minutes.
If you want to clean ultrasonic recordings (better for people with large collections, as you can clean several discs at a time), I recommend A generic level of level of level like this ($ 425). (A Premium model You will manage you about twice as much, but it does exactly the same thing.) The ultrasonic cleaner vibrates the cleaning solution around the records at a super-elevated frequency, which helps the grain and the dirt immediately falls into the cleaning basin because it turns on the engine included. Once clean, you simply place them on the drying rack included.
