All good advice, and it essentially comes down to your budget. If you can afford it, the VPI 16.5 RCM is probably the best bang for the buck. If it's not within your budget, the Spin-Clean is your next best option. The importance of a record cleaning machine in enjoying vinyl cannot be overstated.
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Pivetta; how many records are you planning to clean? A few hundred? A thousand? Thousands? As Actusreus suggests, it depends on what you can afford now, and over time. If you don't plan on accumulating more than a few hundred albums and want to keep your cost down, the two basic models suggested by Tbromgard from Record Doctor or Nitty Gritty will work fine. I also recommend the KAB EV-1 (see link below), which uses your own vacuum cleaner. It's what I've been using for years and it's probably the best value going, as long as you have a vacuum cleaner you can use. However, if I had to do it over again, I might consider spending more money to get a cleaning machine that's more automated. After cleaning 1500 albums (and counting) the convenience would have been worth the extra cost. If you consider cost per album, it might help in deciding how much you're willing to spend. In my case, at $170 for the EV-1, I'm at around $0.11 per album. If I had purchased a VPI 16.5 ($600) I'd be at around $0.40 per album. The convenience would have been worth the extra $0.29 per album. But if I'd only cleaned 400 albums the difference would have been $1.08 per album ($0.42 vs $1.50), so I probably wouldn't spend the extra money. KAB EV-1 record cleaner Regards, Tom |
As a good value, IMHO, it's hard to beat the KAB EV-1 at $169. You supply a canister vacuum for this all-manual version of a VPI cleaner. If you don't mind applying the fluid and turning the record yourself, it works just as well as a VPI cleaner at a lower price. Been happy with mine for about six years. |
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