Cheap and cheerful, dramatically effective:
1) Get a dirty (not scratched, but dirty) record. Play it and assess it's "noisyness". Look at how dirty it appears in good light.
2) Purchase 2 microfibre e-cloths.
3) Boil the kettle and let it cool.
4) Pour the water into a cup, and add a little Fairy Liquid (washing up liquid).
5) Take one e-cloth, wet in in the cup.
6) Place your record on a clean tea towel.
7) Wipe the record with the damp cloth in a circular motion - it should naturally follow the groove. Avoid the label - which turns out to be pretty easy.
8) Apply firm but not unreasonable pressure.
9) Take the dry e-cloth, and wipe it around the record in a similar manner to 7).
10) Do the other side.
11) Inspect the record - it looks brilliantly clean, no? If you missed a bit, just re-work it.
12) Play it. Fall over at how effective it was!
De-ionised water is probably best, but if you do what I just said above, you will be amazed. I know I was - I just tried it after reading a Pink Fish media thread. My deeply treasured, but through the years dirty, copy of UB40's Madam Medusa 12 inch now sounds utterly wonderful!
Buy the best microfibre cloths you can get - not sure if they have e-cloths in the USA.
Maybe this should have been a separate thread, because it works far better than you would believe!
I've tried washing records before the advent of microfibre cloths, and it was a disaster. This works brilliantly.
