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Collecting Vinyl Records
Collecting Vinyl Records
The further from centre, the more strongly this hobby leans that way. Your quiz answers are scored against exactly these fifteen.
Buying, playing and looking after vinyl, learning pressings and condition grading. Charity shops and record fairs are the usual hunting grounds.
TonightTime to first win
About an hourA session
Mostly indoorsWhere
Step 1: Get a turntable with a proper tonearm.
Is it you?
What you need
2 thingsThe honest floor, taking the cheapest option in each$211
How we make money: if you buy through one of these we take a small cut, and the price is the same either way. The cheapest option that works is always listed first.
The path
15 questsASetting up2 things to sort, in any order$188
BThen the quests
- Set up a turntable and play your first record
- Clean a charity shop record and make it play clean
- Grade ten records and check yourself against a seller's grading
More on Collecting Vinyl Records
Everything else we have written about it. Free to read, no account needed.
Guides1
What to buy3
Best Beginner Turntable (2026): 3 Picks That Won’t Wreck Your RecordsThe cute all-in-one suitcase players are exactly what you should not buy, their heavy tonearms and cheap needles quietly grind down the records you are paying for. A real beginner turntable protects your vinyl and sounds dramatically better. Here are three that do it right, from a true budget pick to an audiophile deck.Best Phono Preamp (2026): A Cartridge Puts Out a Thousandth of Line LevelPlug a turntable straight into a normal input and you get something thin, quiet and strangely trebly. That is not a fault. A cartridge outputs a few thousandths of a volt against the one or two volts a line input expects, and records are deliberately cut with the bass reduced, so something has to put both back.Best Record Cleaning Kit for Beginners (2026): 3 Real PicksClean records sound better and last longer, full stop: dust and grime in the grooves cause the crackle and pop people blame on vinyl itself, and they grind against your stylus over time. The question is how deep you want to go. A simple brush-and-fluid kit handles everyday dust; a wet-bath washer deep-cleans thrift finds and neglected records; a cleaning machine does it fastest and best. Here are three good options across the range, plus the one habit that matters more than any of them.
From the blog2
Best Hobbies for ISTJs: What Genuinely Fits the Methodical MindIf you are an ISTJ, most 'hobbies for your personality type' lists read like a checklist someone filled in without thinking: gardening, reading, done. They are not wrong, exactly, they are just shallow, and shallow is the one thing you have no patience for. So here is the considered version. The wrong hobby for you is not merely boring, it is unserious: something you are supposed to wing, that has no proven method, that leaves nothing solid behind when you are finished. You do not want to pass an afternoon. You want to do something properly, build real competence in it over years, and end up with a result you can point to and stand behind. This is a careful list of the hobbies that actually fit that mind, whether or not they are the obvious ones.The Ultimate List of Hobbies: 200+ Ideas Sorted by TypeMost 'list of hobbies' articles give you 50 generic ideas. This is the real thing: 200+ hobbies, organised by the kind of person you are and the kind of payoff you want, so you can actually find one that fits instead of scrolling past 'stamp collecting' for the tenth time. Skim the type that calls to you and follow the links.
Hobbies like Collecting Vinyl Records
Same shape of evening, different thing to hold at the end. Or follow a tag sideways.
