EXPOSED: Are These Record Cleaning Kits Worth It? Testing 8 Bundles! 

Thanks so much for your kind words Tom. I did hear somewhere that the old Discwasher was directional - interesting. That stylus brush is new to me though. Cool walnut handle! Happy listening :)

Like you, I have used Discwasher since the mid 70s and also have the stylus cleaner brush (which is also a thing of beauty). When the last lot of fluid ran out I was wondering what to get as a replacement. Your comments about using the Groove Washer fluid with the Discwasher brush convinced me to go down that path. Thanks!

Thanks for watching and for your comment. I think that was one of the first kits I picked up back in the day.

Thanks for watching and subscribing. Enjoy the music 🎶

Thanks for watching. Enjoy the music!

Thanks for watching! I hope the GrooveWasher kit serves you well. Happy listening

Thanks for your additions! The gunk build up usually means you've disturbed and loosened up some stubborn grime and potentially residue from old record cleaning fluids. It can take several cleans when doing this by hand. Your vacuum will help reduce the amount of cleans on these types of records because you're sucking to contaminated cleaning fluid away from the record surface rather than mopping it up. The prices of records have certainly gone up sadly! Lost of factors in that phenomenon.

It’s just plastic I doubt most things are gonna destroy it, these plastics don’t break down easily

If you want a pretty thorough coverage on cleaning with alcohol, check out the Audiofile Man's channel. Bottom line after actually visiting multiple vinyl manufacturers, and indepth studies has concluded that there is no adverse effects and great benefit to using a proper ratio of alcohol to distilled water. He does a surfactant/water, then alcohol/water and finish with a distilled water rinse.

The standard GrooveWasher pad is a microfibre towel, but I think you might mean a finer finishing version? If so, those are great for finishing and polishing a surface, but less good at absorbing the fluid, which is what you want when finishing a record. Hope this helps. Any other questions, so let me know 🎶🎧

@@soundmatters when I said microfiber brush I’m meaning the smaller one that is used to remove light dust or lint prior to playing the record. Not the standard, bigger brush used to clean with liquid. I don’t believe Groove Washer sells those and was wondering which one of them you recommend. Thanks.

Thanks Mark. Appreciate the kind words. I think a vac followed by ultrasonic is a great method 🎶🎧

The cover is out of production at the moment. They're always working on new products though, so perhaps we'll see a new version in the future. Hope this helps

It depends on the cleaning fluid; I've not used the Spincare fluid but the GrooveWasher stuff doesn't leave any discernible residue. By all means, try the distilled water after and see if you get better results.

@@soundmattersI’ll give the distilled water a go, and switch to Groovewasher and compare results, thanks!

That is just a matter of opinion.

@@dhala54 It’s still a valid request.

All of them need something to break the surface tension. If its not alcohol then it will a detergent or even something harsher. At least with alcohol it will evaporate as you wipe it around allowing the other ingredients to do the cleaning. Water alone is a waste of time.. But yep I would like to see a vid actually showing how good the solutions are. Not just a comparison of the bottles..

@@Jewellerybybarrie This is why they use solutions like Tergikleen, that breaks the surface tension, and cleans just as well without alcohol. I have a Spin Clean. I like the Spin Clean solution, and it doesn’t have a drop of alcohol in it. Bottom line: even with alcohol, you need to thoroughly rinse your records before playing, for best results. You can play your record right after you use alcohol, but there’s no need for it. As I said earlier: the less ingredients used on your vinyl records, the better.

In fairness, I think that’s how they intended it to be used. I just don’t find that’s enough to do anything other than surface level, but perhaps that’s all they intended with it. The fluid seems solid 🎶🎧

Thanks for your question. I use the GrooveWasher stylus brush. I know that might sound bias, but compared to all the options in this video it is far FAR safer. The angle helps get under the stylus and the brush fibers are soft and not dense enough to push the cantilever in anyway that might damage it. Unlike so many of the OEM brushes. Link below: discount code in the description of you'd like to support the channel. Thanks for watching and happy spinning. www.groovewasher.com/collections/groovewasher/products/sc1-stylus-cleaning-kit

@@soundmatters That looks better than all the rest I've seen - and I've looked at every single one on Amazon. The included cleaning solution, I've seen some can be quite harsh and should only be used on rare ocasions - plus you mentioned some smelling akin to nail varnish remover.. is the Groove-Washer gentle? Thanks!

@@JudgeDrokk - yep - one of them smelt pretty bad! The GrooveWasher one I've been using for years - very gentle. No huge alcohol smell at all. Why use a sledgehammer to kill a fly!? 🎶

The shape of the pad is meant to be round and to be slowly swiveled in one direction, towards the oncoming rotation, to gradually lift the dirt and contaminants out of the grooves. A flat pad would not do this. It would just keep moving the dirt and contaminants around in the grooves without lifting and removing them. The Discwasher is the best brush as it has a nap to it that you need if you want the bristles to lift the contaminants out of the grooves.

I am saying the length measurement of a Discwasher is flatter than the groove washer. @@leononle478

Looks like another company sourcing OEM from China. I’m sure the products are ok, but they’re not making their own as such.

Sorry if that wasn't clear. It's always a difficult one when it comes to sponsors; I have to be transparent about that of course, but there will always be people who are put off by that. In terms of which kit cleans records better... there are many factors that come in to play. None of the other kit makers (with the exception of Music Nomad) actually make their own record-cleaning fluid. They're basically just sourcing parts OEM from the far east and packaging them up nicely. In many cases, it seems like these kits are either very high in alcohol content (Vinyl Styl) or basically just distilled water. Both of which aren't very effective at cleaning records. The GrooveWasher stuff is much more expertly put together using laboratory-grade ingredients (something I'm sure the other producers couldn't lay claim to). In terms of the brushes, most of the other kits are a velvet brush, which is good at scrubbing the groove a little and spreading the record cleaning fluid around, but very poor at absorbing the fluid and taking it off the record surface, meaning you're just spreading muck around. Microfiber towels are better at absorption, which is why I recommend using GrooveWasher's black magic velvet pad first, followed by the normal microfiber version to soak everything up. At the end of the day, there's only one kit on this list that I actually use personally on my records. The others I'm happy to throw away. My preferred approach to record cleaning when cleaning very dirty records is a quick pre-clean with GrooveWasher first, then a cycle through an ultrasonic record cleaning machine. The pre-clean helps loosen everything up and the ultrasonic does the hard work in the grooves. Compiling your own kit is one way to go, for sure, just be sure you're confident in the quality of the ingredients you use and avoid using too much ISO alcohol. Thanks for watching my videos and I hope this comment goes some way to better answering anything I missed in the video. Any other questions, just let me know. Happy listening

If it's clean, sure. But in my experience, they aren't very absorbent. Hope this helps!

@@soundmatters i’ll probably just buy new microfiber towels. I have cats so it’s hard to find anything absorbent that isn’t covered in cat hair even after washing

GrooveWasher. There's a link and discount code in the video description. They call it the "Big G" cleaning mat.

I don’t personally find this as effective. It seems this would leave the fluid with no real time to work on breaking down contaminants and holding them in suspension before being mopped up. But hey! If it’s working for you?

Eventually, yes. Of course you want the fluid to spread, but if you don’t eventually take the fluid away you’re just spreading stuff around

Hey! Firstly, thanks for watching and welcome to the hobby. Thanks also for the feedback. In my very small room, the camera position is quite tricky. I recently changed my lens which has helped a little, but if I can it up any further, it will hit the wall. I'll have a play with the height though. Enjoy the music!

The trouble with the other kits handles is less about the material quality and more about the design. A) The velvet material on the other kits is good for spreading fluid around, but not so good for absorbing the fluid, which is what you want to do when cleaning by hand unless you want to simply spread stuff around. B) The fact you can't remove the cleaning pad from the handle on the Big Fudge kit, or even the Boundless Audio model means they are much more "throw away" as products. Regardless of whether GrooveWasher sponsored or not, I would still use their products.

Thanks for your reply. @@soundmatters

Yes, absolutely. I've got videos on this too. Aiming to cover all budgets. Thanks for watching and happy spinning

Still stinks 😂🎶🎧no sisters. Two daughters though.

You can get some from Juno Records. Hope this helps. Enjoy the music 🎶

@@soundmattershave done so already, :) items on the way, but they dont sell what I wanted and that is the very thing you had on your vlog the Walnut record cleaning kit :( And why dont you link Juno Records, since I assume your are English and living in UK that you direct us to a site/company that dont export to the UK, only via Juno. Doesnt make sense.

Because I have more subscribers in the US than the U.K. and my partnership is with GrooveWasher directly. That and stock levels at Juno, as you’ve noticed, are not exactly reliable. Eventually there might be an offer exclusive to those in the U.K., but for the moment that doesn’t exist I’m afraid. GrooveWasher are looking to stock more on Amazon in the U.K., so that may improve availability in the future.