There's often dust and paper debris in new records and it certainly won't hurt to clean them. I have a VPI and sometimes clean new records, but generally don't (mostly due to laziness). I have at times picked up a bunch of junk on my stylus after playing a new record.
I haven't heard of records stores spraying stuff on used records to hide imperfections. The local record store I frequent does use a VPI to clean most of their records. Most of the other shops I've been to, I have to clean their used records before putting them on my table.
I haven't heard of records stores spraying stuff on used records to hide imperfections. The local record store I frequent does use a VPI to clean most of their records. Most of the other shops I've been to, I have to clean their used records before putting them on my table.