Ecoustics’ Eric Pye shares his best record cleaning solutions to maintain your records.

When I went to Japan as an ESL teacher in my mid-20s, it marked not only a change of location and culture, but also a change from student to working adult (and I use the term “adult” loosely). With that change from student to worker came the need to buy a professional wardrobe, and as a poor recent graduate on a tight budget, that meant careful planning of items to be purchased pre-departure.

Dress pants, dress shirts, a blue blazer, dress shoes and several ties. All good, right? Unfortunately not. I arrived in the Land of Rising Tech sans belt, socks, tie-pin/bar (discovered I hated flappy ties), and overcoat (Sapporo in April can still be pretty chilly). I had most of the basics but felt incomplete for my first month or so until I got paid and could complete the wardrobe with necessary accessories.

So too for many of us audio lovers in our adventures setting up first systems or adding to existing ones. We plan out the budget, divvy it up by percentages for speakers and amp(s) and source(s), and think we’re done. Then a few weeks (or months) later we find ourselves with multiple components stacked on top of each other on top of a turned over milk carton, speakers that don’t sound right as they’re not placed correctly and records that sound awful after a few plays as we’ve nothing to clean them with.

This week and next I’m going to take a tour through some of the accessories I’ve picked up (and some that I haven’t – yet) since getting into vintage audio and back into vinyl. Some I’d classify as optional, but most are requirements if you really want to get the most out of your system, whether budget or high end. This week I’m going to focus on clean records and improving the quality of your vinyl playback.

A clean record sounds better. It also does something very important – it extends the life of your cartridge. 

This article originally appeared at ecoustics.com and an intro has been published here with permission.

Read the full article: https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/best-record-cleaning-solutions/