I just received my $600 from President Bush. I feel suddenly rich. Who said money doesn't grow on trees? In order to do my part in stimulating this dismal economy, I've decided to purchase a few phono accessories. (Yes, I will also be buying more records. Duh.) Wee!
I had been browsing around several websites, looking for inexpensive goodies, and I finally decided to begin my shopping at
Mobile Fidelity. I like the guys from MoFi. They're a lot of fun at parties and they give good advice about girls. Plus, I'm hoping that by writing this I will have reminded them (passive-aggressively) to send me a copy of Santana's
Abraxas.
Hello? MoFi guys, are you out there? Oye, como va?
About $69.97 into my shopping, with five items in my cart, I remembered that Mikey Fremer had surveyed several record-cleaning products in our November 2005 and January 2006 issues. I paused to take a look back at those columns. Distilled water, super-pure water, ultra-super-duper-pure water, alcohol-free solutions, enzymatic cleaners.... While veering completely off-track and becoming more confused, reading about the $2995 Hannl Aragon record cleaner, I noticed a
Music Direct ad. It read:
We've taken all the guesswork out of record care! Try one of our money saving packages.
Beside these delightful words were pictures of Mobile Fidelity's record sleeves, brushes, and cleaners—all of which were already in my cart! Obviously, it was a sign. I abandoned my research and went to the Music Direct site. There, of course, matters only became more complicated. Questions arose.
For instance: What's the difference between MoFi's record cleaning brush ($20) and AudioQuest's carbon fiber brush ($20)? Do I need both? Do certain record cleaners require use with certain brushes? Why do some record cleaners come packaged in bundles along with several brushes? Which cleaners do I need? If I use a cleaner, do I also need a vacuum machine to clean off the cleaner?
But I don't want a vacuum cleaning machine right now. I just want to be able to manually clean my very dirty records so I can play them.
What do I need? I need to spend my money. I need to stimulate the economy!
I'm going to send an SOS to Mikey Fremer.
