Vinyl foibles

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I do most of them but don't clean my HVAC filter as often as I might. As for my turntable platter, I cover it with a cork mat because it is a VPI made of metal. I like a little more softness. I have no idea how to clean the cork mat, though, and I sometimes think this might be the culprit. I cover it with the felt mat VPI provides when the turntable is not in use. I have a static gun that really doesn't do all that much good, I think. Certain records are so full of static they lift the cork mat off the turntable. As carefully as I can I use a fingernail to separate them. I always use MOFI-type inner sleeves. For some reason 180 and 200 gram records seem to pick up the most dirt. They also get real, unremovable ticks. A stereo store owner who was highly regarded in the analogue field told me that the 180 and 200 gram records are made of softer vinyl and wear more easily. 

I agree with billstevenson. Inner sleeves by Sleeve City are the best for keeping dust off your records. I used Mofi sleeves for years and I’ve recently come to the conclusion they are dust magnets. 
 

I also agree you should clean your records, even new ones, before you play them. Washing before playing will clean out any gunk in the grooves that will be driven into the grooves by playing. 
 

Ditto on cleaning BEFORE playing. Especially with brand new records.

Jumping to a new topic. There are many when it comes to vinyl. For years I was happily running my system with an ARC Ref 3 preamp and ARC PH-7 phono preamp. My Hovland Radia amp was designed by a tube amp designer and he took many years giving the Radia the rounded edges of tubes. So, I was basically a tube guy.

I have kind of aged out of tubes. I no longer can stoop in the 2 foot space behind my system to unhook all leads into the preamp so I can take it out and change tubes. Ditto the PH-7. I have replaced them with Pass Labs XP-30 preamp and XP-25 phono stage. 

On most records this combination is superb. But a friend of mine came over and wanted me to play Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark." It sounded pretty bad. The treble was just too aggressive. I did a little research and the allbum this song is on, "Born in the USA," was taken from a digital source and "mixed hot." Compressed to be played on car radios. I had the same thing happen on a "Counting Crows" album. 

It's not a huge problem because I mostly listen to old jazz and classical music. Still I wonder if anybody out there has had to deal with this problem.

My system consists of a VPI Prime Signature 21 turntable, VPI Shyla cartridge, the afformentioned electronics, and Sonus Faber Olympica Nova V speakers, which do not have the treble softness of earlier Sonus Faber speakers. I run the preamp loading at 160 and the capacitance at 200, which is perfect for almost all of my albums.

Back to the record cleaning, here's what I do on my limited budget (and works very well):

After putting the record on the turntable and tightening the clamp, I spray some distilled water on a rolled up piece of corduroy about 5" wide and spin the record at least once around; then, I move the corduroy roll a bit to lightly dry the record before lightly taking a soft brush to the stylus a couple times.

I do this religiously every single time I play a record; it's much cheaper than an expensive cleaner and works very well for me.