Let’s begin with the don’t s

There are certain things that you should most definitely avoid when cleaning vinyl. The most contentious of the lot and one that will have a few readers and some hi-fi journalists up in arms is pure, isopropyl alcohol. This stuff can be disastrous for vinyl. The problem is, it also lies within many commercial record cleaning products, so look carefully at the ingredients before you use them. Pure alcohol strips away much of the dirt and impurities from grooves – which is great – but it also removes the protective coating that rests on the groove walls/floor. I don’t mean the ‘release agent’ that a record pressing plant utilizes and is often left to bung up vinyl grooves, either. Once that essential protective layer is gone, music sounds harsh and brittle. There have been done a series of sound tests to prove this phenomenon. Initially, alcohol-cleaned records sound great. After the third or fourth clean, they sound terrible. By then, though, it’s too late and your record has been irretrievably scarred.

Another no-no is commercial cleaning products (i.e. sprays, liquids and the like) hanging around your kitchen. They can often attack the vinyl itself or, at the very least, block your grooves with more rubbish than they remove.

Also, do not rinse vinyl under a tap. You risk damaging the fragile record label. Tap water also includes plenty of impurities which re-infect record grooves.

Finally, new records need cleaning too. They are normally infested with dust – even on a micro level – plus that oily pressing plant release agent I mentioned earlier.