Do You Clean New Records Before You First Play Them?

[Brad]

You may find this thread from Hoffmann interesting. I’m in the Yes camp.

Do you clean new vinyl before first playback?

[sidewinder]

Yes - makes quite a difference.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I dry brush every record every time I play it. I don't own a record cleaner. Never have owned one and never saw the need to buy one. If a record is particular dirty, I might put some fluid on my D4 brush. That's the extent of my cleaning.

BTW - as I've gotten older, I've realized that my finger tip is an excellent tool to get off small pieces of junk that get stuck on a record. With a little skill and a soft touch, I've been able to pick off some pretty tough pieces of gunk off of LPs and my success rate has been pretty good. In most cases, pops and clicks that were present before I got that junk off now play clean.

[sidewinder]

I find that with new records, quite a bit of gunk comes off on first clean with the VPI - some form of setting compound I think. Sonically, there is always an improvement.

[HutchFan]

I clean before the first spin too.

[porcy62]

It depends on my laziness but I tend to agree with the Yes party.

[AllenLowe]

when I was doing a lot of transfers for clients and record companies I owned that thing with the fluids and the turntable - can't think of what it was called but it was considered high end at the time  - and I rarely heard a difference with the average, medium-dusty LP. So I don't do it that often.

But I often shower myself first, just to make sure none of that old-age dust gets on the vinyl.

Edited October 17, 2020 by AllenLowe

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

got a lionel hampton "jivin the vibes" 30s comp on Camden sealed in the bag w/ no sleeve the other day-  lp was wrecked but upon cleaning it became mint again

[JSngry]

Did Camden actually use inner sleeves? Budget label, etc.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

not always

[ctjazzguy]

I usually don't unless it is noisy.