Unless you’re buying them brand-new—and often even then—your vinyl records are probably filthy. New records are staticky and attract dust; old records have been sitting in boxes in other peoples’ musty basements. Take it from someone who has bought, sold, found, cleaned, and restored some dusty, grimy gems: Your records will greatly benefit from a good bath. Below you'll find everything you need to know about getting (and keeping) your wax fresh. Be sure to check out our list of the best turntables, our guide on where to shop for vinyl records online, and our guide on how to upgrade your home audio for free or cheap. Updated April 2026: We added information about ultrasonic cleaning machines, upgraded the formatting of this page, and updated links and prices. If you do a quick Amazon search, you'll find a ton of products that purport to clean vinyl records. Typically, they use sprays and some form of wiping device, like a cloth or pad, to clean the record's surface. However, vinyl grooves are so small that the fibers of any cloth can't possibly reach inside. While you might get cleaning liquid into the grooves, getting it back out is pretty hard. This means that the traditional wipe-off or spin-and-clean style devices mostly just spread the dirt around in the grooves. That's where vacuum suction or ultrasonic cleaners come in. Fancy record-cleaning machines like this one from Pro-Ject ($450) use a platter and a vacuum system to physically suck the cleaning solution out of the grooves, with a motor that spins the record in two directions. Ultrasonic cleaners use high-frequency sound to essentially shake debris and oil from the grooves. Both work very well to ensure that the dirt, dust, and grime are actually coming out of the tiny grooves on your record. If you're going the suction route, you can buy an all-in-one record cleaner like the one made by Pro-Ject above, or if you're feeling frugal, you can simply buy one of these awesome Vinyl Vac attachments ($30)