The Vinyl Cleaning Bible?

Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records-3rd Edition – The Vinyl Press

When it comes to cleaning critical surfaces, Mr Antin has a wealth of experience. For many years, he and his team were responsible for devising precision cleaning protocols for the US Navy. Think about some of the mission critical systems and interfaces the navy might need cleaning (and the hostile environments in which you’ll find them) and it’s safe to say that he probably knows a thing or two about the efficiency and long-term impact of different cleaning fluids and methods. Read his book and there will be no doubt at all. Well, luckily for you and me, as a long time audiophile, now he wants to ‘give back’ to the audio community and donate the benefits of his accumulated experience.

Running to 190 pages, his book tackles the issue of cleaning records from every possible angle, examines a whole range of techniques, from different machines or types of machines, to fluids and their constituents and does so with considerable seriousness. The book goes as far as to address the question of alcohol and record compatibility and even deep dives into how clean does the record need to be. But be warned, these chapters (X and XI) are extremely technical and necessarily dense to read. Even if you pass over these ‘difficult’ chapters, the rest of the book is extremely accessible – to the extent that it will actually encourage you to go back and taker on the trickier sections. 190 pages might seem like a lot. It is. But that just reflects the complexity of the subject, the range of options and the depth of enquiry. If record cleaning matters to you and you want to make a truly informed decision about what approach best suits you, then I can think of no better place to start than this. As detailed as it is comprehensive, Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records really does contain pretty much everything you need to know about getting the best from and protecting your invaluable records. Kudos to Neil Antin for assembling this magnum opus: kudos to Bill Hart of The Vinyl Press for helping make it freely available.”