The history of pop music is littered with stories of bands and artists who released their first EPs or singles independently and went on to achieve great fame under contracts with major labels. Imagine what kind of gold mine you’d be sitting on if you had an original copy of the U2-3 single from 1979 or an original pressing of “Tigermilk” by Belle and Sebastian. Copies of Nirvana’s first single “Love Buzz” have fetched thousands of dollars at auction.
The story doesn’t end there. Vinyl records now outsell CDs, and people often aren’t buying them to listen to them – they’re buying them as display pieces and investments.
Whether you think of your record collection as an investment or not, though, whatever you have will almost certainly become rarer and more valuable in the future. Even if you don’t care about that, you definitely want your records to sound as good in a decade as they do now – and you don’t have to break the bank to accomplish that.
Here’s how to preserve your record collection without spending a lot of money.
Keep Your Records Protected
Your records need protection, and the original jackets and paper sleeves aren’t doing that job. You need to protect the outer jackets from light, dust and moisture because the artwork is a big part of the draw when people buy records. You also need to keep dust away from the records themselves because dust that settles in the grooves can lead to poor sound quality. A piece of dust that gets caught under your turntable’s needle could potentially even cause a permanent scratch.
The ideal protection for a record usually consists of a clear plastic outer cover for the jacket and a polythene liner for the record. Don’t use a paper or PVC inner liner. Paper liners shed tiny particles, and PVC liners will interact chemically with the PVC in your records.
Don’t Smoke Around Your Records
This one is not negotiable. If you want your records to sound and look great for as long as possible, you absolutely can’t smoke around them. Cigarette smoke gets everywhere, and it’s extremely difficult to wash off of a record’s surface. In the case of a record’s outer jacket, washing away smoke residue is basically impossible because you certainly aren’t going to wash a cardboard sleeve in water. Things will get even worse if you ever want to sell your records because nobody wants to buy a record that smells like smoke. Grab a Foger vape wholesale and use that instead when you need to breathe some nicotine.
Clean Dirty Records Before You Play Them
You’re probably already aware that dust can make a record sound muffled and hissy when it settles into the grooves. That, however, is the least of your worries. Dust can also potentially get stuck under your turntable’s needle, gouging out the plastic and causing permanent skips. You obviously don’t want that to happen, but the solution is very simple: If you have a record that’s dirty, clean it before you play it.
Records aren’t difficult to clean. You can invest in something fancy like an automatic ultrasonic cleaner, but expensive equipment usually isn’t necessary. Create a cleaning solution with distilled water, a drop of dish soap and a little isopropyl alcohol. Rub the dust away gently with a record brush, rinse away the cleaning solution and allow the records to dry completely before putting them away.
As long as you invest in good dust protection, cleaning your records can generally be a one-time event or at least something that you only need to do occasionally. Don’t forget to put your records away immediately after playing them because they’ll gather dust if they’re left out.
Maintain a Good Storage Environment
Sunlight, humidity and rapid temperature changes are the main enemies of records that you want to preserve.
- Ultraviolet radiation can cause the artwork on a record’s jacket to fade or turn yellow.
- Excess humidity can lead to mold growth and musty odors.
- Rapid temperature changes can cause a record to warp, permanently ruining its sound quality.
The ideal storage environment is one that remains within a comfortable temperature range at all times and never becomes overly humid. To protect your records from sunlight and dust, store them in boxes with lids. Make sure that your records are always kept upright. You don’t ever want to stack records on top of one another because the weight can cause the platters to warp.
Buy a Turntable That You Can Calibrate
This is a case where there really no getting around the need to make a bit of an investment: You absolutely need to have a decent turntable. Every time you play back a recording on an analog medium, you’re causing minute wear to that medium. There’s no reason why a record can’t continue to sound great for decades, but anything that causes accelerated wear shortens the record’s usable lifespan.
A good turntable doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars. At minimum, though, you need a turntable with:
- Adjustable tracking force, which allows you to change how firmly the needle presses against the grooves. You want to use only the minimum tracking force necessary to attain good sound quality. If the tracking force is any higher than that, the needle is causing unnecessary wear.
- Anti-skate adjustment, which counteracts the tonearm’s tendency to pull toward the sides of the grooves as it approaches the inner portion of a record. Skating causes a record’s grooves to wear down unevenly, and anti-skate adjustment helps to prevent it.
- A replaceable cartridge, because all record needles wear down and gradually flatten over time. A worn stylus impacts a record’s sound quality, and it greatly accelerates wear as well. Ideally, you want to choose a turntable compatible with high-quality universal cartridges that are easy for you to buy. You wouldn’t want to get locked into one brand’s proprietary ecosystem. You might end up delaying maintenance if the cartridges are too expensive.
