Vinyl Essentials Part 1 – Record Cleaning at MCRU

As the vinyl record resurgence continues with record pressing plants struggling to meet current demand for the black stuff, most audiophiles agree that to hear exactly what is in those tiny grooves and extract the maximum amount of detail the vinyl needs to be spotlessly clean. Not to mention the wear and tear on your stylus from dirt/debris lodged in the groove. Microscopic particles of dust settle on the record playing surface and can be effectively ground into the groove while the record is playing, harming playback quality and wearing the stylus tip which is not good.

With a good quality record cleaning machine the surface dust will be removed and debris lodged into the record grooves will be sucked out leaving the vinyl fresh and like new, even brand new vinyl will benefit from the cleaning process. Step forward the Clearaudio Matrix Professional Record Cleaning Machine. German engineering at its very best. The matrix is so well built it will be the last record cleaning machine you will ever need to own. It takes only a few minutes to clean a record and entire collections can be done easily and effectively. If you are serious about extracting the maximum amount of information from your vinyl and have set your turntable up as well as it can be, cleaning the vinyl properly will bring previously un-heard realism to your recordings.

Once the process is completed the vinyl needs to be stored correctly and MCRU recommend anti static sleeves from Mobile Fidelity. Please do not re-use the sleeve your vinyl was supplied with as paper sleeves cause more harm than good. Invest in top quality sleeves and preserve the quality of your precious record collection.

MCRU will supply 100 record sleeves and a record cleaning brush worth £65 free of charge with all double matrix machines and 50 sleeves and a brush with the Smart Matrix, while stocks last. If you have a very large record collection the clearaudio double matrix professional cleans both side of the record at the same time and once used is an essential component in any audiophiles record maintenance regime.

When playing vinyl as well as record clamps/pucks which will be covered in a later post one important area is the record cleaning brush, a necessity to remove those few remaining particles of airborne dust before the stylus hits the groove. MCRU have over 30 years experience of playing and using vinyl, we owned a pair of Technics SL1200’s as far back as 1978 and have been playing vinyl ever since, nowadays we are a Clearaudio Reference Dealer and have their excellent turntables in use in our demo facilities, the Clearaudio Innovation is our main reference turntable in use daily, shortly to be up-graded to Master Innovation status.