A Personal Guide to Record Collecting for Beginners

Why Should I Collect Records?

So you want to be a record collector? You’ve come to the right place. For the past two decades, interest in vinyl and record collecting has grown tremendously across the globe. Since 2007, vinyl sales have increased every year.

Vinyl is now more popular than it has been since the late 1980s (when CDs were king), and shows no signs of slowing down. A learning curve exists when starting your own vinyl collection from scratch.

What follows is a mix of rules, prompts, and questions — things to consider as you embark on building a vinyl collection. Beginning with, why collect records?

What Gear Do I Need For Record Collecting?

To play records, you need a turntable as the main part. You will also need a few other important pieces of equipment. You can either buy a ready-to-play unit or build your setup as you go. Here’s a list of the basic gear you need:

Turntable: This is the primary device that plays vinyl records. Turntables come in various types, including belt-drive and direct-drive. Choose a turntable that suits your preferences and budget.

Phono Preamp: Most turntables need a phono preamp. It boosts the weak signal made by the stylus on the record. Some turntables have a built-in preamp, but others may require an external one.

Amplifier: Connect the output from the phono preamp to an amplifier or receiver. The amplifier amplifies the signal to a level that can drive your speakers. Use audio cables, usually RCA cables, to connect the phono preamp’s output to the amplifier’s input.

Speakers: Choose speakers that are suitable for the size of your room and your listening preferences. People commonly use bookshelf speakers or floor-standing speakers with turntable setups. (Ensure you have the appropriate cables to connect your amplifier or receiver to your speakers.)

Records: You’ll need a collection of vinyl records to play. Start with the classics: Begin your collection with essential albums from iconic artists and genres that interest you. Look for popular titles that are widely available and well-regarded by music enthusiasts.

Where Should I Buy Records?

You can find records for sale in a variety of places, from local garage sales to thrift stores to department stores to record stores. And that’s not including the Internet. If you’re looking to buy records online, Discogs.com has most everything you need.

If you love a band and want to pre-order their new vinyl, follow the band and their record label on social media. This way, you can stay updated on new releases, pre-orders, and old stock.

How Do I Find Records on Discogs?

The search option is at the top left of each Discogs page. Simply enter the word(s) you would like to search for and then hit return/enter on your keyboard. This will search all releases, artists, and labels.

Set the default search to All / Everything, and notice that your search results include tabs for Release, Master Release, Artist, and Label. Select one of these tabs to narrow your search results to just that category.

To get to the Advanced Search, just start typing in the search bar and select Advanced Search from the drop down menu.

How Do I Store Records?

Keep them away from heat, humidity, and water, and always store them vertically. Be careful to not let your record stacks lean against each other, as it can create undesirable pressure on the vinyl. Discogs has an entire article devoted to record storage if you’d like to take a deep dive.

How Do You Clean Records?

If you are buying used vinyl, it is important to spot records that look bad but just need cleaning. Sometimes, a good wash can easily remove the grease, dirt, and smudges that build up over the years.

Most people rely on the classic Spin-Clean, which can thoroughly scrub old records relatively cheaply. And by having this device, you might be more likely to take chances on cheap LPs that look dicey.

After using the Spin-Clean, use a carbon fiber brush for each play. Let it spin for a few turns while the dust collects on the bristles. With these low-cost implements, it’s fairly easy to keep your new collection sounding its best.

Where You Listen to Vinyl

The most significant difference between listening to a vinyl record and listening to another format is the LP is not portable. (Unless you have a Sound Burger.) The main reason the LP stopped being the top format in 1983 is its lack of portability. The Walkman made cassettes more popular than LPs.

Listening to your personal music collection was something that only happened in a room with a turntable. And that’s still true for vinyl. So think about what you listen to in that room, and the conditions necessary for you to play records.

But bear in mind that vinyl has a richer, more distinct sound than compressed MP3s, so it’s important to reserve time and space for the vinyl you listen to at home.

Learn How Much Record Wear You’ll Tolerate

For a lot of people, 90% of the fun of record-collecting is buying used. That’s where the history is, and it’s also where the deals are.

Used vinyl used to be cheap and easy to find. That is not true anymore. More people are interested in it now than 20 years ago.

If you buy used records in person, you will learn to recognize the types of wear that cleaning can’t fix. Clicks and pops are common with used records. Everyone has a different tolerance for how much noise is too much.

Are You a Completist?

One of the best things about your new music collection is that you’re going to discover new artists that immediately make you think, “I need everything from them!” Call these your go-to artists.

As you’re browsing shops, it’s fun to have a list of go-to artists like this, preferably from artists that have released a lot of albums. As you begin your collection, consider if you want high-quality albums or if you like to collect everything. This will help you decide how to explore a record store.

Are You An Eclectic Collector?

In Wantlist

Man On The Moon – The Flight Of Apollo 11

Roy Neal

1969

Non-Music, Radioplay, Education

Vinyl, LP, Club Edition

Shop Want

Once you cross the completist threshold, there are even more considerations to consider. Enter the “eclectic” collector, someone who needs a little bit of everything in their collection, including novelties, field recordings, and one-off record store surprises.

We all have some of these in our collection. They can include NASA recordings of human heartbeats.

When Vinyl Was King

In Wantlist

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd

2016

Rock

Vinyl, Album, Reissue, 180 gram

Shop Want

As mentioned above, cassette tapes overtook vinyl as the best-selling format in the early 1980s. The recording industry is a technology industry. Since that milestone, they have focused more on formats that make money. They spend less time on making vinyl albums sound their best.

The years in which the long-playing vinyl was the dominant format — this varies by genre, starting earlier with jazz in the 1950s and later with rock and pop music, starting in the late 1960s — are the years when the industry was most invested in making the format as good as it could be.

So copies of Steely Dan’s Aja, Pink Floyd’s Blue, are still standard-bearers for sonic quality all these years later.

By the middle of the 1980s, record companies cared more about making CDs sound good than they did about LPs. By the 1990s, some had stopped producing vinyl. The format came back, and there have been many terrific-sounding records since, but it’s never a bad idea to imagine where, exactly, vinyl stood as a priority when you are looking to buy LPs.

Open Yourself to Surprises

In Wantlist

Big Fun

Shalamar

1979

Funk / Soul, Pop, Disco, Funk

Vinyl, LP, Album

Shop Want

You can easily build a collection in this current day and age without ever setting foot in a record store. And depending on where you live, that may be the only option.

Record stores are where you can take chances on music unfamiliar to you. Take some chances on records with interesting covers (such as Shalamar’s Big Fun), records from genres you don’t know well, and records that your intuition tells you to buy.

Create A Discogs Wantlist

The flip-side of embracing uncertainty is to keep a list of records you’re looking for. Every good shopping experience should have a mix of both. Before Discogs, most people would keep a handwritten list of “records to buy” in their wallet or pocket. Now, thanks to the Discogs Wantlist, it’s easier than ever to keep track of “records to buy” and even easier to move them to your Collection once you’ve purchased said albums.

How Do You Catalog Your Record Collection?

Concerning your physical collection, there are a variety of ways to catalog your record collection. Consider the following options: Alphabetical, Chronological, Genre-based, Label-based.

To store your cataloged records, use crates, shelves, or record storage units. Then use dividers or separators to keep different sections of your collection organized based on your chosen catag system.

But there’s more: Using Discogs to list the releases you have in your Collection is one of the main features of Discogs. And it’s simple. 

You can: Add a release, Manage and edit, Remove a release, Share your collection.

Be Social

Record collecting doesn’t must be a solitary pursuit. Check for record swaps, vinyl meetups, listening parties, and other music events near you. These are great places to meet other collectors. You can buy, sell, or trade records and enjoy the culture of vinyl collecting.

If you’re on Instagram, #VinylCollection and #VinylCommunity are good places to start too.

What Vinyl Records Do Best

If you like to listen to one song or skip through an album, streaming may be a better option. If you want to enjoy an album as the artist meant, listen to it from start to finish. Vinyl makes you do this because of its limits.

Look for LPs that you’ll want to listen to for at least one side at a time. Many dedicated artists put hours of work into the sequence of tracks on their albums.

And there’s the vinyl packaging. You can learn things by reading a record, especially the liner notes, thank you lists, and lists of contributing musicians. Before the Internet, liner notes were like clues that could help you search for new bands, discover distinctive production sounds, and plan future purchases. , vinyl LPs can teach you things. 

We can’t forget the 12-inch by 12-inch image on each cover. This visual experience is unique and hard to replicate. Many artists spend a lot of time creating album artwork, layout, and typography to match their music. These visual elements can also lead you to explore further.