Best record cleaning brushes

Dry brush or fluid?

• Dust, before each playA carbon-fibre brush, no fluid: pick 1 or pick 2.
• Dust now, fluid sometimesA brush that works both ways: pick 3, or pick 4 to spread a cleaning fluid (Clearaudio sells its Pure Groove fluid as a separate product).
• Dirt in the groovesA kit with the fluid in the box: pick 5 or pick 6.

A dry brush is for dust, before you play. The makers of dry brushes word it that way: Pro-Ject sells a “Carbon fiber brush for cleaning your LPs before each play” (Pro-Ject), Ortofon says “Simply brush around the surface of a record after placing it on the turntable.” (Ortofon), and Audio-Technica says of its own brush, “The AT6011a is designed for dry cleaning records; do not use any liquid on the brush.” (Audio-Technica). The ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, sets the general rule: “No recording should be placed on a playback machine without having been properly cleaned” (ARSC Guide).

Fluid is for what dusting doesn’t lift. Pro-Ject, which makes both brushes and cleaning machines, says: “The dry brush cleaning before playing the record is good to roughly remove dust. To effectively clean the grooves you need to wet clean the record.” (Pro-Ject). The ARSC Guide agrees: “Wet cleaning can be a more effective technique for grooved media and for spot-cleaning other formats.” (ARSC Guide). A 1991 report from the National Library of Canada goes further about dry methods: “Since dust is usually held in place by electrostatic attraction, dry wiping on its own does not work effectively. The added friction created by the duster will cause the dust to jump back to the charged surface.” (St-Laurent, National Library of Canada). It is old, and about dry wiping in general rather than any brush here.

A record brush is not a stylus brush. A record brush sweeps the record as it turns. A stylus brush cleans the needle, and it goes one way only. Ortofon: “Use the brush in the forward direction from the rear of the cartridge toward the stylus tip and never from stylus tip to the rear of the cartridge and never from side to side.” (Ortofon). The ARSC Guide makes it a step of its own: “Clean stylus before playing discs, brushing from back to front. This will extend the life of the stylus and limit groove wear on the disc.” (ARSC Guide).

The picks in detail

Each pick says what it suits and what to watch for, from the maker’s own page and the dated, sourced notes listed under it. Where a maker doesn’t publish a spec, we say so. Claims about static are the makers’, quoted as theirs; we haven’t tested them.

How we picked

• One job per pick: dust before each play (picks 1 and 2), a brush for dry or wet use (pick 3), a brush for spreading fluid (pick 4), and two wet-cleaning kits (picks 5 and 6). Hand-held brushes and kits only: no cleaning machines, sticky rollers or stylus brushes.
• Made for records, in the maker’s words. Each maker’s page says the brush is for records and says whether to use it dry or with fluid; we quote it, with the page and the date.
• Prices from the maker’s own shop. On 27 Oct 2026: AM Clean Sound’s EU shop (run by the maker, AM Denmark A/S) and Clearaudio’s own analogshop in euros; AudioQuest’s and GrooveWasher’s US shops in US dollars, because AudioQuest’s German and UK store views are dealer-only and GrooveWasher ships only within the US. Goldring’s shop showed no price for the Milty, so we show none. Never a retailer’s price. Prices change, so the shop link shows today’s.
• Static claims stay the makers’. Where a maker says its brush drains, discharges or doesn’t build up static, we quote it as theirs. We haven’t measured it.
• Shop links go to the maker’s own page for that exact model, opened on 27 Oct 2026.

We have not used or measured these for this guide, and we don’t give scores. Where Max has used one himself, his notes will appear under that pick. The full method is on How we pick.

Not published by the maker:

• AudioQuest Silver Anti-Static Record Brush: width, what comes with it
• Milty Record Brush: width
• AM Clean Sound velvet brush: width
• Clearaudio Pure Groove Brush: width
• AM Clean Sound Premium cleaning kit: width
• GrooveWasher Hardwood Record Cleaning Kit: width

Considered but left out: Audio-Technica AT6012 (another record brush); Boundless Audio Carbon Fiber Record Cleaning Brush (another carbon-fibre brush); GrooveWasher RSC (a second GrooveWasher kit).

Questions

Pictures and sources

• All six pictures are our own drawings: we found no reuse-licensed photo that names any of them on Wikimedia Commons or Unsplash. Each is drawn in plain shapes after the maker’s own product photo and description, not traced.
• Sources for every spec and price are linked under each pick. Dry and wet cleaning, handling and the stylus: ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation (CLIR Publication No. 164), ch. 4 “Care and Maintenance” (PDF), Gilles St-Laurent, National Library of Canada, “The Care and Handling of Recorded Sound Materials” (Sept 1991), on CLIR’s site, Library of Congress: Care, Handling and Storage of Audio Visual Materials (records), Pro-Ject Audio Systems: VC-S3 record cleaning machine, Pro-Ject Audio Systems: Brush it, Ortofon: Record Brush, Ortofon: Stylus Brush, Fiber, Audio-Technica support: How do I use Audio-Technica record cleaning products?, Wikipedia: Phonograph record. All checked 27 Oct 2026.