The Best Record Cleaning Kits For Beginners

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Cleaning your vinyl records isn't rocket science. Sure, it can be a little intimidating putting your hands anywhere near the grooves of your new and expensive record, but with the right cleaning kit and proper care, you will extend the lifespan of your record and retain the quality of its sound. Cleaning kits come with a variety of tools and gadgets, ranging from brushes and microfiber cloths to ultrasonic liquid immersion devices.

In this guide we will review and recommend a variety of products that will help keep your vinyl records pristine. This is not a guide on how to clean your records, so if these elements are foreign to you, reference the product's accompanying user manual or watch an instructional video online. If you are new to vinyl collecting, maybe don't use these unfamiliar tools on your new favorite record — a $2 copy of "Frampton Comes Alive!" will do just fine. Getting the right cleaning kit and using it properly will help you avoid classic record-collecting mistakes every beginner makes. Here are our recommendations for reliable products across price ranges.

The Big Fudge 4-in-1 Vinyl Record Cleaning Kit is your most basic vinyl cleaning package. At $24.99 on Amazon, it is easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to acquire. This package includes a standard velvet brush with a suave wooden handle, as well as cleaning solution. The best perk of this kit is the accompanying stylus brush. When lint and dust collect on your stylus, stop trying to blow it off, or flick it with your finger nail. The stylus brush allows you to carefully clean the stylus without risking damage.

The biggest critique we have about this set is the bristle brush. A quality anti-static bristle brush is long and wide like a comb, and helps dislodge the dirt deep in the vinyl's grooves. The brush in this kit is advertised for that purpose, but the instructions say its intended design is for brushing the dirt off of the velvet brush, which seems counterintuitive and likely to spread the dirt around rather than getting rid of it completely. Either way, this kit is a great way to get many useful tools at once, which you can supplement with other gadgets as you see fit.

If you're willing to drop an extra $5, this Vinyl Styl Ultimate Vinyl Record Kit is the best place to start. Available on Amazon for $29.99, the Vinyl Styl kit comes with a velvet record cleaning brush, record cleaning fluid, a stylus cleaning brush w/fluid, and a quality anti-static bristle brush. The velvet brush even comes with a secret compartment that has a smaller bristle brush inside it for getting debris off the velvet surface.

This package is a bit more expensive than the Big Fudge packet simply because it has more stuff in it. The anti-static brush is a must, but the stylus cleaning fluid is a nice bonus. One of the downsides compared to the Big Fudge kit, aside from the price, is the casing on the velvet brush is plastic instead of wood, so if you're really into the visual aesthetic of your record collecting, that might put you off.

The Victrola Record Cleaning Kit is usually around $30, but regularly goes on sale for a steep discount. This kit is useful, but has fewer tools than the previous two: it has an anti-static bristle brush, cleaning fluid, and instead of a velvet brush comes with a microfiber cloth. While a velvet brush is easier to use and handle, the microfiber cloth serves the same purpose and is easier to clean; just throw it in the wash with your laundry.

The best perk of this kit is that it comes with a cute little stand that holds your cleaning accessories and the record sleeve. For a kit that's $10 cheaper, comes with all the essentials, and has a stand, it's a great deal for casual record listeners. If you're buying dusty old records out of dusty old bins, you're going to want a kit with more gadgets, but if you primarily buy your records new, this kit will have everything you need at half the price.

If cost isn't a concern, get yourself this HumminGuru Ultrasonic Record Cleaner. If you collect classic records that have accumulated years of dust and grime, this machine will do way more for you than any brushes or cloths. At $394.00 this is no small investment, but if your goal is to keep your vinyls in pristine condition, it's hard to imagine a safer cleaning method.

This machine works by spinning your record in record cleaning solution and blasting it with sound waves that implode on the record surface to dislodge dirt and grime. The small size of the microscopic bubbles allows them to unobtrusively enter and clean between the record's thin grooves. This machine is advertised to perfectly clean and dry your records within 7 to 15 minutes, but once it's clean, it is clean. If you're collecting records that are in rough shape, this is an especially appealing option, as there's no abrasive scrubbing required.

This might be closer to rocket science. What if you're a beginner, but you have dedicated your life to vinyl like Leonard Cohen dedicated his life to monkhood? Go all out with the KirmussAudio KA-RC-1 Ultrasonic Record Cleaner. At just about $1,400, this machine can clean four records at a time, and comes with the brushes, microfiber cloths, and fluids from all the other kits. It also includes a goat hair brush, for the finest of vinyl record brushing.

This machine is only necessary if you collect very old, very dirty records, and is probably overkill for your Target-exclusive "Life of a Showgirl" variant. If you are a lifelong music lover and decided to get into vinyl because you have some $3,000 iconic album that really does sound better on vinyl, this is the kind of machine to keep your records pristine, and avoid losing their value. If you want to listen to expensive, collectable records without damaging them, this is the machine you need to maintain them.