Record Cleaning

After many, many years of "getting by" without a record cleaning machine, I finally purchased one and very quickly realized I'd unnecessarily put up with far too much background noise and too many ticks & pops. If you plan on buying used vinyl, this is particularly true. Rega seems to fetishize simplicity to a fault in this case. You can also get great results with other wet cleaning methods and/or steam cleaning, but dry brush cleaning is not the e-ticket ride to maximizing your vinyl listening experience.

Randy, I'm using a a basic Nitty Gritty 1.5 machine that requires you to turn the record by hand. It gets the job done though, no complaints. I agree that the ultimate in cleaning is steam cleaning, nothing compares to that method for addressing the worst of lps that need a deep cleaning. I'm a wee bit lazy though. I run a record through the Nitty Gritty first and then play it first before deciding to steam clean. Often, the wet vacuuming all it needs. If I like the lp and it needs further attention, then it gets the steam cleaning treatment. After cleaning, it goes in a new sleeve. Then, all it ever needs again is a good brushing. The degree of success you have removing tics and pops depends on their cause. If they are caused by abrasions and scratches, nothing helps other than selecting cartridges that minimize this type of noise. However, a surprising amount of groove noise, low level tics and such are removed by deep cleaning. I've bought many used records that are nearly mint but were previously owned by cat loving, cola swilling/spilling record owners. After vacuuming away the animal hair, dust, dander, and sticky fingerprints, most of them play like new again.