>They are worse in literally every other respect, especially sound quality, since they have no method of pushing dirt and dust out of the groove
How big of an issue is this? I imagine that the same peice of dust that can be pushed aside by the stylus can also be blown away with a blast of compressed air, so blowing the record prior to playing it should solve any dust-related issues. It might not be viable for everyday listening, but for archival purposes that might be worth it to get a better copy.
Laser players are pretty rare, but those who have them say it's a huge issue, and the noise from dust and dirt is very distracting. It's apparently very difficult to get the records to be sufficiently clean.
How big of an issue is this? I imagine that the same peice of dust that can be pushed aside by the stylus can also be blown away with a blast of compressed air, so blowing the record prior to playing it should solve any dust-related issues. It might not be viable for everyday listening, but for archival purposes that might be worth it to get a better copy.