To clean or not to clean...

Unless you're as dedicated a vinyl cleaner as bikerbw, don't even bother.  Instead, use the extra time saved to polish the knobs on your gear.  Recent studies have shown that dreck, crud, grime and blueberry jam are readily transferred via several pathways to our vinyl. Interesting though, that blueberry jam actually seemed to improve the PRAT on some LPs.

Your system is only as good as your source music. Why would you invest exorbitant amounts or money in your audio system and play less than stellar sources through it? I don't have the record collection some people do, my collection only consists of about 10,000 records half of which were bought new. Under a microscope it is easy to determine the problems that may hinder playback on used or new records. Used records can have numerous problems from mold and dirt imbedded in the grooves that can easily be remedied by a good cleaning to permanent groove damage that there is no fix or cure for other than replacing it. New records (yes even the very expensive LE pressings) are not without their problems mostly we see paper or some type of dust on all new records and a certain percentage of the time (not always) we see what appears to be a film of some sort that we assume to be what is referred to as mold release. The biggest problem we see with new records are the record sleeves, many times they are full of contaminates so even if you clean your record and return it to the factory sleeve you still have the problem you started with. To answer the question should I clean a new record? It is easy, just listen to it if it has clicks and pops and those none recorded noises bother you then clean it. If those non recorded noises don't bother you then don't clean it. It is that simple.

Definitely clean it...