@chakster Cleaning a record with my VPI 16.5 takes maybe 2 or 3 minutes, really not much more time than it would take to run a brush over the record.
The VPI is like a turntable. You put a record on it and you squirt a little cleaning solution on it, spin it around a couple of times with the cleaning brush and then you vacuum it for two revolutions, flip to the other side and repeat. I don't see spending two or three minutes getting the record clean before I listen for 40 minutes to be a huge ordeal.
Of the 6 or 7 record stores within 45 minutes of me, there's only one that I know of that cleans their used records. That is where I buy most of my used records, so I don't spend a lot of time cleaning used records. When I order records from Discogs, I always clean those. As I mentioned, I don't normally clean new records, but if I open it and it's covered with a bunch of dust from a cheap inner sleeve, it gets cleaned.
I grew up on vinyl and frankly am surprised at how quiet some records can be when played back on a nice system. The little bit of noise I hear doesn't bother me, but I don't care for loud pops when I'm intently listening to the music. I'm not sure cleaning does much for those, if it does, that's great.
In most cases, I don't notice the night and day differences some claim after cleaning a record, but I can tell you there have been a few times when a record didn't seem to be playing well and I cleaned it and it sounded dramatically better.
A while ago I had cut back on how often I used the cleaner. I was listening to records with my girlfriend one night and the record was sounding noisy and not very dynamic. She noticed it too and said "Why don't you try cleaning it?". I said "I bought it from __________ (the store that cleans all their records), so it's probably not going to make any difference, but I'll give it a try". I wasn't expecting it to help at all. I cleaned it, and most of the noise went away. Since then, I've been using the machine more often.
Clean, don't clean... I don't care. What I don't understand is why you're trying to convince people it's not helpful, or that it's time consuming or hard to do. Those are all falsehoods.
