Pristine Vinyl ViVac RCS Record Cleaner

May 22, 2026

PRISTINE VINYL VIVAC RCS RECORD CLEANER REVIEW

Janine Elliot tries out Pristine’s Vinyal ViVAc RCS record cleaner costing from £2750.

I’m not the best when it comes to baths and showers; yes, of course I do it, but I hate the preparation and then the cold house in the wintertime, so consequently, cleaning my records is not something I actually enjoy, either. I have one of those cheap manual washers where you end up hanging up all the wet records afterwards and hope they are still clean when they’re dry, so why would I want to spend £2750 for a ViVac RCS record cleaner? Well, despite the sophisticated design, I actually found it so much simpler and oh so much quicker, that I was hoping designer and CEO Jason Walker could similarly design something to ease my own agonising ritual evening scrub.

Jason, like most vinyl collectors, was fed up with all that dust in our homes that almost ritualistically heads for the PVC. There have been several record cleaners and famous names associated with them over the years. Some look good (I really loved this design of this RCS when I first saw it in 2015) and others that you’d rather consign to the under-stairs cupboard between uses.

The design of this latest RCS goes back far further than their original machine of 2015, to the 1960’s and then to Auntie Beeb back in the 70s. Having spent months locked away in their gramophone library in my Studio Manager traineeship, I can sympathise with their need to find something better than a BIB felt record cleaner. So did Jason. And just as you wouldn’t share your towel or bathwater with lots of other people, the idea that the dirty water in my manual record cleaner would then be used to wash the next disc just never appealed to me, nor indeed just using that same cloth to clean each record before putting it on the platter. Jason is a very keen audiophile with more records than his wife would perhaps like to see, so he needed to design something that was not only very effective but also meant that there would be no contamination between each record he cleaned.

What makes this technology so clever is the use of the “magical thread”.

The Magical Thread

Only British boffins in the 60’s and 70s could design such a Wallace and Grommet solution. The BBC have been over-designing things for decades; think of the over-designed crossover in their LS3/5 speaker, or their unique mechanical design to get “instant starts” from a Garrard 301 turntable in the 1960’s in the brilliant DRD5, where the revolving 301 below a stationary platter (with the already cued-up stylus on the groove) simply raised up to start it immediately. Brilliant! The clever idea on the threaded record cleaner was simply that after wetting the record with detergent, a vacuum cleaner that moved across the spinning record sucking away the liquid and dirt needed to deploy a thread between the record surface and the vacuum arm to create a small air gap to ensure the pump worked effectively (try putting a conventional vacuum cleaner on your hand and try moving it; it won’t move easily!) I used to think that the thread actually ran in the groove to clean and dry the record by itself! That “used” tiny section of thread bit by bit makes its way into the dirty waste container hidden below the platter.

While the original RCS1 and 2 models of 2015 were great products (the RCS1 was manual in the way you put the cleaning liquid onto the record at the start of the process), Covid unfortunately put a halt to the RCS, and Jason and his wife ended up moving from West Sussex, temporarily living in a motorhome until they could set up their new factory and home in Hampshire. Jason has now, in 2026, been able to bring back this clever design and to make it even better, with two clever circuit boards inside the unit. The original design had been made with the assistance of Jason’s father, him being an engineer; Jason’s background was as an architect and draughtsman involved in house-building and planning, so he was in new territory designing vinyl cleaners.

BUILD AND FEATURES OF THE VIVAC RCS

The standard version of the RCS comes with an oak plinth, matching quite brilliantly with my own kitchen tops. Jason felt that an MDF plinth would just look too cheap, and I agree. A white or black gloss version is, though, also available at £100 more. Other colours can be requested, too. The good-looking unit has two separate arms; one that puts the liquid on the record (which you spread evenly with the supplied brush), and a second motorised arm which, combining the thread, sucks up the detergent and the dirt into another container, the waste container, resulting in a clean and dry record that you can immediately put back into the sleeve. The waste container has a lovely blue light to help you see when you will need to empty it. When the arm reaches the edge of the record and falls off, it automatically feeds the used thread into the lower section of the arm, which also feeds into that waste container. According to my calculations, the 100-yard white thread should last around 18,288 record cleans! The thread comes from a bobbin just under the platter, which is fed to the vacuum arm and then returns via a tube under the main vacuum arm to the waste bottle. The unit comes with a curvy, clear cover to keep that horrid dust off its vital parts. Everything you need comes cleverly packaged in the box, and a very well-written instruction manual goes through the whole process for you, even showing you how to pull new nylon thread through the unit once you have cleaned those 18 thousand discs!

SETUP AND USE

When the unit arrived, and I started reading the manual, I thought that it was all going to take ages to clean each record, and that it might even be too complicated for me. How wrong I was, and there is even a YouTube video to show how easy and quick the whole process is. From the very start until the record is dry at the end takes no more than 90 seconds! I wish my showers were that quick. Firstly, you put the cleaning liquid into a supplied external plastic container whose aquatic air pump tubing is connected to the RCS via a quick-release connector. Move the application arm over to the start of the dirty record and start the platter motor. As the arm slowly moves to the centre of the disc, press the application switch to pump that special detergent onto the record. A few seconds later, having completed that, with the platter still revolving, use the supplied brush to spread that liquid (not too much of it) evenly on the record surface. It’s not a scrubbing brush, though! Everything will be correct when you can no longer see any of the grooves. Finally, move the suction arm over to the closing groove of the record, let it sit on the record with that nylon thread in between, and within a minute, the motorised arm will make its way to the edge of the record and then fall off. In so doing, the tiny bit of used thread is sucked into the waste container that is sitting under the plinth. There are several controls, such as vacuum pump and vacuum arm motors, but apart from the platter motor, all these controls turn off when the arms are in their standby positions. So easy. So clever. Extra tools are supplied to help you feed a new thread through the unit once the bobbin is empty, and you should be able to clean 40-50 records before you need to empty the waste container. With my “white” Katie Melua ‘In Winter’ LP, it really gave me a chance to physically see the amount of grey/black dust and dirt being picked up by the cleaner, it was so effective. Also, with the liquid moving towards the edges of the disc as it spins at fairly high speed (centrifugal force), there can be a tendency for some liquid to end up on the plinth of the RCS, or onto anything placed within a few inches to the left of the device on your table, so I would advise putting the cover on when using, or just be cautious not to place anything too close, and also not to use too much liquid! It wasn’t a problem, but it was evident.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE PRISTINE VINYL ViVAC RCS?

For the review, I did think of cleaning albums by Wet Wet Wet, but wisely decided instead to clean some albums of mine that really are embarrassingly too dirty to play. One of which is the 4 LP Pink Floyd “Echoes”. These are undoubtedly my dirtiest discs. After they were cleaned, they simply looked brand new. Yes, they played far better now, and whilst crackles of dust had 100% disappeared, any scratches on the record could never be cured, whatever cleaner I deploy. My Bowie BlackStar album could not be improved; I had simply purchased a copy from a very bad stamper. Maybe it’ll be worth more one day, or I’ll simply rename it “Stardust”, perhaps. Not sure Ziggy would approve, though. Particularly, records that had sat on my turntable many times over the years were now as good as the first time they were played. Luckily, I have always been very careful playing and storing my albums, so there were only a few that couldn’t be improved, but any dust and fingermarks that had found their way onto the records were removed brilliantly. For anything more serious, then an ultrasonic cleaner would be a good move, but that requires more financial outlay on top. Using anti-static inner sleeves for these newly cleaned records would be a good investment, too. Luckily, Pristine Audio does sell a range of products for the vinyl lover.

QUIBBLES

Nothing to complain about at all. Just be mindful of liquid ending up near the spinning disc.

CONCLUSION

Having selected what Justin believed to be the very best cleaning formula available, his development of the design made my cleaning of records so simple and actually fun to do. Just putting the records back in their alphabetical position in my racks required some thinking. There is a large range of cleaners from different manufacturers and at different prices, and whilst this isn’t the cheapest, I found this the best looking, and it would look great sat next to my turntable. I could not believe just how effective the ViVac vinyl vacuum system would be, and I will certainly re-evaluate my own thinking on record care. Unlike my Blackstar album, I give this RCS five stars.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality and Features:

Excellently thought-out design and presentation. Excellent build quality, too

Sound Quality:

Cleaner records!

Value For Money:

If you really value your vinyl collection then this will be worth investing in

We Loved:

Looks (you don’t need to find a space in the garage to hide it between use)

Easy to use

Clever design

Very quiet in operation

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Like everything, just wish it was all cheaper

Elevator Pitch Review: Why is it that dust always heads for my vinyl collection, particularly noticeable when the sun is shining! Cleaning records is never fun, especially if you have a manual bath wash system. I thought Pristine Vinyl’s all-singing, all-dancing two-arm electronic RCS cleaner would be too complicated and take me even longer, but after just 90 seconds on each side of a record I had a lovely clean smile on my face. Just wish my own showers were that easy.

Price:

£2750 (Oak finish), £2850 (Black, white)