Key Factors To Consider When Choosing The Best Vinyl Record Outer Sleeves

When it comes to choosing the best vinyl record sleeves today, outer sleeves are certainly a no-brainer. They are designed to shield the best album covers of all time from wear, dust, and damage. Outer sleeves can also be paired with the best inner sleeves to achieve all-round protection for your vinyl records.

However, for you to get the best out of your outer record sleeves, you need to work with the right product. This begs the question—what to consider when choosing the right outer vinyl record sleeves today? You’ll find all you should know about this vinyl record-related question in the rest of this post.

Why Use Vinyl Record Sleeves Today?

You may be wondering why exactly it is important to use outer or inner sleeves for your vinyl records. Well, the simple answer is that these valuable records need to be protected because they are delicate and highly susceptible to damage.

Not using the best inner or outer vinyl record sleeves can expose your records to different types of risks today, including the following:

• First, frequent handling of your vinyl records without sleeves can always lead to surface scratches. Sadly, this issue can affect the record’s audio fidelity and result in different complicated issues, such as audible clicks and pops.
• Static electricity can easily attract dust particles. When this happens, it can cause different issues on your vinyl records—a good example is when your record makes unnecessary noise during playback.
• As mentioned earlier, clicks and pops during playback are warning signs that dust is attracted to the grooves. If care isn’t taken, the continuous buildup of dust can cause permanent damage to the quality of sound delivered by your vinyl records.

With the right vinyl record sleeves, you can easily avoid all these aforementioned problems. You can either use inner sleeves, outer sleeves, or a combination of both options.

How To Find The Right Outer Sleeves For Vinyl Records

By factoring in the following things, you can easily choose the right vinyl record sleeves at Groove Guardian today:

1. First, you need to consider the type of material used for the outer sleeves. Two common materials you’ll find in the stores today are polypropylene and polyethylene outer sleeves.

   Polypropylene sleeves are very clear and long-lasting. They also provide great protection for vinyl records. The only problem with them, however, is that they are less flexible and very expensive.

   Polyethylene outer sleeves, on the other hand, are highly flexible and easy to use and handle. These sleeves are also highly cost-effective. They also offer good protection for the best album covers of all time—one big problem, however, is that the protection level is lower when compared to that of polypropylene sleeves. Also, they tend to lose their clarity over time, making it harder to see the album artwork.

2. Furthermore, you need to pay attention to the size and thickness of the outer sleeves you’re looking to choose. Speaking of size; we recommend choosing a sleeve that fits the record’s exact dimensions. Choosing a perfectly fit sleeve will certainly prevent your records or their covers from getting damaged.

   Thickness, on the other hand, is an even more important factor. We recommend choosing a product that comes with thicker sleeves—4 mil, 3 mil, or 2 mil. That’s so because thicker outer sleeves tend to provide your vinyl records with better protection.

3. In addition, you need to also factor in the clarity of the record sleeves. Polypropylene vinyl record sleeves come with higher clarity and as such, we recommend using them. These products will provide you with better visibility of every detail on the album cover.

Get high-quality outer sleeves at Groove Guardian today.