Clean the Black Circle

Washing away the sins of the fingerprinty smokers of yore

This copy of music from “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” already played better than it had any right to, since it looks like someone dragged it across sandpaper, but we’ll see how the Spin-Clean shines it up!

I didn’t think I’d ever use this space for unsolicited, unpaid product endorsements, but here we are: the Spin-Clean Record Washer is, if I may be so bold, the absolute tits.

It was $80 postage paid, which seemed like a lot for a piece of plastic with sponges and rollers and whatnot. But I’ve never really had a proper LP cleaning system, and I had an ever-growing stack of halfway decent vinyl with fingerprints or grime that I planned to get to eventually, and I finally had enough when I put on a record I really wanted for my own collection, and it skipped all over the place despite having no scratches.

You pour distilled water into the basin, dump a couple capfuls of the cleaning solution onto the sponges in the middle, and you insert a record. It sticks! It’s wedged in there tightly. But you manually turn the LP, three times clockwise and three counterclockwise, with your fingers at 10 and 2 on the edge of the record, then you take it out and gently wipe it dry with the included cloths. Nothing gets on the label, and the cloths dry the vinyl enough that it can be immediately played or put back in the sleeve.

The water from the Spin-Clean basin after washing 30 LPs. Anyone for a glass of record juice?