To clean or not to clean?

New LPs may look clean to the naked eye, but aren’t necessarily. Plus, don’t you intend to get into buying used records? They REALLY need a deep cleaning. You may eventually want to get an ultrasonic cleaner to augment the VPI.

Send it my way!  How much do you need for the postage?

If you think your records look clean, try looking at them with a LED headlamp. You might want to be sitting down.

Take it out of the box and use it.  I've been surprised on more than one occasion when I thought I was playing a record that was already clean and it didn't sound right until I gave it a spin on the VPI.  It's not a bad idea to clean all records, including brand new ones.  It's surprising how much dust and crud can be on a brand new record.  Seems to help with humidity/static issues also.

When I started buying used records, I thought all the pops and clicks were just scratches. Then I got a VPI cleaning machine. Turns out, about 90% of that noise is JUST DIRT. If you are careful not to buy badly scratched old records, you can buy all kind of stuff with dirt, fingerprints, mold, etc and the VPI makes them sound great by cleaning all of that stuff out of the grooves. I started cleaning all of my own old records, purchased new in the 70s and 80s and which I kept in very good condition, and they sounded better too — clearer detail, more depth, better separation of instruments. As for new records, they have mold release compound on them which acts like a dust magnet. Clean them once, and they won’t get as dirty as fast.