Frustrated with Vinly

@chakster Cleaning a record with my VPI 16.5 takes maybe 2 or 3 minutes, really not much more time than it would take to run a brush over the record. 

The VPI is like a turntable.  You put a record on it and you squirt a little cleaning solution on it, spin it around a couple of times with the cleaning brush and then you vacuum it for two revolutions, flip to the other side and repeat.  I don't see spending two or three minutes getting the record clean before I listen for 40 minutes to be a huge ordeal.

Of the 6 or 7 record stores within 45 minutes of me, there's only one that I know of that cleans their used records.  That is where I buy most of my used records, so I don't spend a lot of time cleaning used records.  When I order records from Discogs, I always clean those.  As I mentioned, I don't normally clean new records, but if I open it and it's covered with a bunch of dust from a cheap inner sleeve, it gets cleaned.

I grew up on vinyl and frankly am surprised at how quiet some records can be when played back on a nice system.  The little bit of noise I hear doesn't bother me, but I don't care for loud pops when I'm intently listening to the music.  I'm not sure cleaning does much for those, if it does, that's great. 

In most cases, I don't notice the night and day differences some claim after cleaning a record, but I can tell you there have been a few times when a record didn't seem to be playing well and I cleaned it and it sounded dramatically better.

A while ago I had cut back on how often I used the cleaner.   I was listening to records with my girlfriend one night and the record was sounding noisy and not very dynamic.  She noticed it too and said "Why don't you try cleaning it?".  I said "I bought it from __________ (the store that cleans all their records), so it's probably not going to make any difference, but I'll give it a try".  I wasn't expecting it to help at all.  I cleaned it, and most of the noise went away.  Since then, I've been using the machine more often.

Clean, don't clean... I don't care.  What I don't understand is why you're trying to convince people it's not helpful, or that it's time consuming or hard to do.  Those are all falsehoods.

You can buy after-market end of record lifting devices so don’t let manual only tables turn you off. That said, I already recommended a semi-auto Technics 1500c if you can't stretch to a 1200GR. Forget the Thorens. A used VPI Classic might also suit. 

I’m with Chakster on this. I try to buy original pressings in Ex to M condition.  I clean with a quick swipe with a carbon fiber brush before use.  No problems whatsoever.  With the amount of money spent on cleaning devices, I would rather buy a few more rare original near mint gems. 
 I’m sure that ultrasonically cleaned records probably make a difference, I just haven’t felt the need on my system with my records.  

@noromance,

Thanks for suggestions,  I am going to research those but am curious why not Thorens.

Are they not good?

Going all the way back to the 70's, I realized that handling records is what caused most of the 'cracks and pops'. that's when I bought a reel to reel and recorded my records so that I could listen without handling them.

Since that time I've graduated to 'half track' at 7.5 IPS on a much better reel, and listen to my records that way.

Recently, I upgraded my rig including a tube phono that likes $300. NOS tubes, that come to $600. a pair. While that's nothing to some, it's very expensive to me. This whole high end analog thing is expensive, but worth it.

After all of that upgrading, it was time to record my entire vinyl collection, a big job but well worth it. Reel to reel tape costs much more than it did ages ago, but so do a lot of other things. I also down-load my vinyl to separate hard-drive.

Many people deep into analog don't realize that you can down-load to hard drive and wont be able to tell the difference between playing a record and listening to the playback on your play list from the computer. That was hashed out some years ago, and the consensus was that if you did it right, you couldn't tell the computer from playing a record. Doing it right goes into a whole litany of things. Now, I rarely touch my records.

But getting back to the fundamental problem with records, I was listening to a record I bought used that had some wear. This record is absolutely unavailable anymore on any format. I was listening to it after it had been recorded to reel and down loaded to hard drive. The upgraded analog increased the music to noise ratio, and I could hear the record noise, but only if I focused on it. Since I chose to focus on the sublime music, the record noise disappeared. Maybe I need to repeat that sentence.....

This record hobby has it's limitations, and you go with the flow when it comes to record noise; however, with my philosophy of only handling records to clean and record after an extensive upgrade, plus an investment in record sleeves, I have records I bought in the 80's that are the same as brand new. I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that I had so many when I down-loaded my collection.

Focus on the music instead of the record noise when it occurs.