What is the first thing you do when you unwrap a new vinyl record?


That is, apart from kiss the person who gave it to you!

You might play it, catalog it, archive it, clean it or simply store it.  I am sure there are many other things you do!

128x128richardbrand

Interestingly enough Joe Harley weighed in on this subject on the Tone Poet news page.  He points out correctly that every record comes out of the press with release agent still in the grooves.  He suggests that each new record be thoroughly cleaned before first play for that reason.  Joe is an authority by any yardstick.  I think his regime involves the use of a vacuum machine first followed by a final rinse using an ultrasonic and distilled water.  I use my HW-17.  Whatever you do, clean it first.

@billstevenson

Thanks Bill!

I have been wading through all 192 pages of "Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records". My take so far is that much of the muck in the microgroove is smaller than the human eye can see, and some in fact is smaller than the wavelength of visible light making it impossible to ’see’ under any light microscope.

I’ve often wondered why lasers are not used instead of diamonds in cartridges. That’s one explanation!

Electrons have a much shorter wavelength, and electron-microscopes can resolve minute detail, but they are hardly consumer items!

I was pleased to read that carbon-fibre bristles get further into the groove (my Audio Quest brush had half a million bristles at last count) so I will continue to use it to stir up the larger lumps of detritus and hope that my ultrasonic machine (still en route from China) will blast out some of the smaller stuff.

Cheers

At first unwrap and removal from the sleeve, I hold it to the light to check for warping. I give it a sniff to become familiar. I find side one, and place it onto the spindle facing up. I place the centerweight over the spindle. Then I verify that the tonearm rest is in the up position before unlocking, With some years of practiced motion, I aim the stylus at the initial silent grooves, and slowly lower the diamond to meet the vinyl. Indeed, for the first time, with a new LP.

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I'd be curious about the numbers of the vinyl fans collections. I have somewhere around 700 LPs. Unindexed, and sometimes second copies from my brother's and my wife's albums, now all residing in the house. I buy maybe two albums per month from browsing the used bins along with the new pressings, maybe more lately with a new turntable. I do not clean before playing when new out of the bag, but then, I don't own a formal record cleaner. I feel my collection is too modest to justify a record cleaner?

@zarf 

I probably only have a tenth of your collection, but then I switched to CDs almost as soon as they came out. Before then I mostly borrowed classical records from my local public library - a free service even in uncouth Australia.  And I recorded all my Dad's records to cassette when I went back to the UK for a visit.

My interest in records was rekindled when I discovered the prices being asked for 1960-era Garrard 301 turntables.  My Dad gave me his at the same time I went CD and I had hardly used it since. Now the rest of my system is much better than it was then, and I have tried to give the 301 a reasonable shot - new main bearing, idler, micro-line cartridge and plinth internals. I am blown away by how good some pressings sound!

I've got an ultrasonic cleaner coming from China - it cost less than the best pressing of Kind of Blue!