For the last few years, more and more listeners seem to be buying into groovy black discs to consume their music. Over time, these vinyl records can accumulate surface gunk that adversely impacts playback. The RCM from Austria's Rekkord Audio has been launched to help you keep your collection in pristine condition.
If you play vinyl records regularly, you likely already use a thin-fiber brush of some sort to remove surface dust before lowering the tonearm. But sometimes that simply won't be enough, and a deeper clean will be needed.
There are a number of different cleaning machines available, some giving records an ultrasonic bath and others vacuuming the surface. The Rekkord RCM is a whole surface suction device – which means that the vacuum arm reaches across the surface of the record as opposed to point suction, where a vacuum nozzle follows the grooves while cleaning.
The mains-powered wet-clean machine measures 418 x 269 x 328 mm (16.5 x 10.5 x 13 in ), weighs a hefty 8.6 kg (19 lb), and has the look of a boxy turntable. Up top is a motorized platter upon which the vinyl record is placed, and secured with a heavy aluminum puck (which also protects the label during cleaning).
The user applies some of the supplied non-alcoholic cleaning fluid to the surface of the record and spreads it uniformly using the supplied brush before moving the chip-lathed vacuum arm across and powering on the suction. The platter rotates at 30 rpm.
The vacuum arm removes applied fluid and accumulated grime to a 2-liter (0.5-gal) tank inside a main body made up of 4-mm-thick aluminum composite panels, with Rekkord saying that the record surface should be clean and dry within one to two rotations. The process is repeated for the flip side, and then the residue-free vinyl is ready for playback on a turntable.
Since much of the vacuumed cleaning fluid will likely evaporate in the internal tank, maintenance is minimal – with the company saying that the RCM "will almost never need to be emptied."
The Rekkord RCM will be available via the company's dealer network later this month for a suggested retail price of €699 (about US$760), which makes it more costly than the similar VC-S2 from Pro-Ject but comes in much cheaper than the latest Degritter.
Product page: Rekkord RCM
