As per title, if you had to switch away from Spotify ASAP, what streaming service would you go with? Ideally something around the same price range, meaning the change won’t incur in extra expenses. Also good if the service does its job well: playing music and paying artists. Any feature parity with Spotify is a bonus, except podcasts, which don’t require a paid streaming service. Or audiobooks. Focus on music. No piracy either (it’s illegal). The more money going to artists, the better.
Edit: extra bonus points if it is not 'Murican! Also, piracy is very illegal!!!
It shouldn’t be necessary to clean much as long as the records are stored in their sleeves, don’t touch the record sides, and so forth.
I wouldn’t say that vinyl is fragile, but it definitely pays to take care of the records.
Tone arm adjustment is possible on a lot of record players and will make a big difference. Different pickups has different requirements for the weight on the needle. On my record player this is adjusted by a counterweight on the tone arm. Is there a local hifi-/record-shop where you can talk to someone about this?
I don’t know of any fancy local shops. My vinyls come either from the internet, or “local” stores (i.e. they’re here, but also can be found all over the country. Not a small, local store. Just a locally-available bigger store)
Ok. Then I’d try to take it step by step with information online. As you get more familiar with the topic you might get a better sense of what is important and what isn’t. And have small conversations with collectors, hi-fi stores, record stores if you get the chance.
The first thing I’d do is search the internet for “{record player brand and model} tone arm adjustment” (example Marantz 6150 tone arm adjustment) and see if you find good information.