There is no best record cabinet, only the one that suits your collection, your room and the way you listen. Most storage comes down to four ways of standing records up. Here is what each one is good at, where it falls short, and the questions that decide it. We make one of the four, so read our part with that in mind.
Four ways to store records
1. Spine-out shelves
Records stand side by side with the spine to the room, usually in a cube shelf such as the Kallax. It is the cheapest way to store a lot of records in little space, and the same grid holds books and boxes too. The price is that you read spines rather than covers, and you pull a record out to see it. Keep an eye on the maximum load per shelf: a compartment packed with heavy pressings gets close to it.
Good for: large collections, a tight budget, an archive you know by heart.
2. Browsers and crates
Records stand upright in an open box and you flip through them from above, the way you do in a record shop. Browsing is quick and you see every cover as you go. Most are low or desk height and hold a few hundred records per unit, so a big collection needs a lot of floor.
Good for: a few hundred records you play often, a hi-fi corner, a home studio.
3. Drawers
Records stand upright in pull-out drawers and you flip through them from above with the drawer open. You get a lot of capacity in a closed piece of furniture, and the covers show when you are looking. Drawers carry a lot of weight, so the furniture is heavy and usually expensive, and it is harder to add to later.
Good for: a large collection you want out of sight and dust-free.
4. Cover-forward compartments
This is what the Coverfront does. Every compartment shows one sleeve to the room, and around 60 records stand upright behind it, leaning back, so you flip through them from the front. You change the front sleeve whenever you like, so the wall keeps changing. It is priced as furniture rather than as storage, and you plan the height from the start: a column grows sideways, not upwards.
Good for: a collection you want to see and play, in the room where you actually live.
The questions that decide it
- How many records, now and in five years? Most people underestimate how much they buy in a year. Count what you own and add room. Our capacity table helps with the sums for a Coverfront.
- Do you want to store them or show them? Spines are efficient. Covers are why most of us bought the record.
- How do you look for a record? If you know exactly where everything is, spines work. If you browse until something catches your eye, you want to flip.
- Which room does it stand in? A spare room forgives a lot. A living room is looked at every day.
- How will it grow? Check whether you can add to it later, and in which direction.
- Floor and wall. Records are heavy. Check the depth, how it stands on an uneven floor and what the load per shelf or drawer is.
- Budget. If the money is better spent on records, spend it on records. A cheap shelf now and a good cabinet later is a perfectly sensible route.
Whatever you choose
Put your records in outer sleeves. A thin clear plastic sleeve keeps dust and fingerprints off the cover and stops the sleeve wearing at the edges as you flip. In a cover-forward cabinet it also protects the sleeve that faces the room, so keep that one out of direct sunlight, which fades printed covers over time.
Plenty of collections are too big to show every record, and that is fine. Many people keep the archive spine-out and use a Coverfront for what they are playing now. For a direct comparison with the most common shelf, see Coverfront or Kallax?, and for a wider look at what is on the market, Recordstack's overview of record cabinets (Dutch).
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