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Ben..than you for the very thorough review. I have two quick questions: Did you use a static removal device before each play and what are your current opinion of the HumminGuru?..tks!

Using only distilled water won’t do a thing due to the inability for plain distilled water to get into the grooves. You MUST use a surfactant

I bought a Vevor ultrasonic lp kit for $161 delivered. I preclean using tergitol solution and a brush, then run the Vevor for 5 or 6 minutes depending on the age of the lp in destilled water, then I vacuum dry on my 35 year old Nitty Gritty 1.5. The sound is fantastic. Its not just the lack of clicks and pops, lps sound "better". Best hifi money I've spent.

I purchased a HumminGuru cleaner and a Vevor ultra Sonic Cleaner both On Amazon. Used them both and kept the Vevor. In the end I saved about 250.00 returning the Hummin Guru as it did not perform any better than the Vevor to warrent the extra 250 dollars. Plus I can clean 8 albums at a time...

Too bad for your experience. I've been cleaning using a solution... obviously... water is useless when the surface tension cannot be broken sufficiently. I've never had a single dud. All of the records stop crackling after a maximum 2 wash cycles.

I agree that if the HG is your one and only cleaning method, it might fall short of expectations. I researched all the ultrasonic machines I could find for $1k or less and considered how I plan to use it. I still use my vacuum machine to get the record surface clean and only task the HG with cleaning down into the groove. Two drops of Photo-Flow and a five minute wash cycle. I don’t use the dry cycle but rather vacuum dry the record. This is working for me and I’m very happy with the results.

God damn it Polly, they are camping in the caves! Get back on the Xbox!

Awesome reviews. Where have you been? Get on the box, Poly!!

God damn it Polly, they are camping in the caves! Get back on the Xbox!

26:04 - dude, have you drinked the water from the cleaner, or what ..?

I just got mine and after six records it has stopped spinning

...And you take this "beautiful glossy vinyl"out of it's sleeve by touching it? This review is worthless because you don't have a clue....

i am worried that after using the humming guru the stuff i am working so hard to remove from the grooves is just now on the surface of the record and not in the water tray. is there any truth to that ? If so what is the best way to deal with that issue.

A local shop actually has a dollar wagon they put on the sidewalk. I’ve never even looked at the selection as I’m too particular to get vinyl in the best condition possible.

I've probably cleaned about 30 records since I bought mine and I will say it's worth its weight in Gold. it works. plain and simple. I have a lot of my Dads old vinyl and the difference in playback is Night and Day. lots of noise and clicks are gone that were there before and definitely made enjoying my purchased used vinyls enjoyable and brought them right back to Life. for its price point and what it offers as an all in one Ultrasonic it's a bargain.

for cleaning records i had created a thinning concoction because distilled water alone is too thick to penetrate record groves, i like that it looks sexy, I'm willing to void the warranty and use my concoction

I stopped smoking 1,5 years ago and some of the money I saved because of it went right into great records

The problem with the Humminguru is power.... All 35 to 40 khz units are equally loud. This unit is quieter meaning that it is not generating enough power. The specs on the power supply do not add up to produce the amount of power that a 40khz unit needs. In my opinion the humminguru is a scam. It does nt do the job its meant to because of the lack of current from the power brick. I don't have one but a record collector friend of mine does. He is and electrical engineer and he noted it on the specs as soon as it arrived that it can not produce enough bubbles for the power used. To me it is a cheap and nasty unit that certainly does not do what its meant to do.

Just used mine for the 1st time On tea for the tillerman mofi which had surface noise on beginning of 1st tracks on both sides after the surface noise all but gone and sonically sounds so much better so so far very impressed

Hey Ben - Love the Radios Shack speaker! Is that the 10 inch subwoofer version? I had 4 of those and a RS Quadraphonic receiver in the 70's as a young teen. It was my first foray into "Hi-Fi". Those speakers look so good. I have the smaller 8 inch now that I just rebuilt. I hope you show more of yours and talk about them!

I nearly did not order after seeing all your reviews but I gave it a go in the end and my impressions are a bit different then yours. I have a record that simply sounded horrible (John Frusciante - Empyrean) - album is full of clicks and not listenable, had it even sent out externally for a deep clean and when it came back it didn't sound any better. One deep cycle with HG and one long drying cycle and this record sounds as good as it can with nearly 0 clicks, I am really impressed by this thing. I obviously used a bit of spinclean fluid and the result is amazing.

Thank you very much for the video, I think it was a very honest review. Normally high-end audio journalists don't dare (or can't) say things so clearly. In absolute terms, the machine is mediocre. In relative terms, for the price and for its design, it is reasonable. From what I have seen, this machine is not very powerful, so a solution of distilled water with some surfactant should be used. Even dilute (very carefully, never more than 1%) with alcohol. And complement it with other cleaning systems (manual and vacuum). Greetings

I got mine this weekend. Am totally stoked to finally see this machine. After setting up and cleaning about a dozen records, in my experience, It worked great. It may not be as good as the 3k dollar degritter, but I can clearly see and hear a difference in the records I cleaned. For the money, I think it's a great piece. So far at least.

Thanks for the review. I own a record shop in Toronto and was considering carrying these but your review gives me pause and something to consider. I love my Kuzma VinVac cleaner but unfortunately they don't make them anymore.

I hate to say this, but I strongly suspect that the more resolving your system is the more you are going to hear the differences. Unfortunately, I think that possibly this is really the true determinant here....

Ben, Thanks for your interesting review. A few things I thought you might want to know...I recently demo'ed a Kirmuss to compare against my VPI 16.5. I did NOT want to do the Kirmuss method, which is involved and lengthy. Instead, i just used distilled water and nothing else. ( No surfactants). The Kirmuss also displayed the same issue that you noticed, several records being bone dry as they rotated through the water ( very odd!) However, this is due to a number of variables, one of which is the cleanliness of the record to begin with and whether it had been previously treated or cleaned.( if it had, the result was typically a dry record). The Kirmuss has a fundamental issue, that is it can damage the record if it slips off the rotator wheel ( which on many occasions the record will do!) The records do come out of the US better cleaned than the VPI. The need for surfactant is only going to be necessary, I believe, IF the record is very dirty to begin with. I have ordered the Humminguru, hope to use it like the Kirmuss, wherein it will only clean basically newer and cleaner vinyl. I suspect ( strongly) that you would have exactly the same opinion of the Kirmuss if you were to compare it to the new Humminguru...each would have the same cleaning ability ( if used with just distilled water, like I did). The Kirmuss is not designed for records, as such its propensity to damage the record is probably much higher than the Humminguru! The Humminguru's slot seems like a better solution for record rotation. I dont have the Humminguru yet, so I may be as disappointed as you appear to be, BUT I also was extremely disappointed in the Kirmuss after it damaged one of my records ( luckily not a valuable one, but still!). I also suspect, as another poster pointed out, that you had a static issue with the record you displayed in this video, and would have had exactly the same problem with any other cleaner...vacuum or US.

Very helpful, thank you. I had high hopes for the Humminguru, but now I will look for another solution.

Interesting. I used a surfactant from the go. Now use the Degritter cleaning fluid.

Appreciate the way you have presented your findings. Looking at it from your own personal perspective. The good and the bad. Hope you will be able to improve the results you get. Enjoyed watching the 3 videos. Cheers. /Paul

Even though the manufacturers don't recommend it for 78s/ shellack, I find that it does a great job in 'cleaning up' dusty/ grimy records bought recently.

If the water takes too long to air dry on a vinyl , you will definitely hear that next playback. It will sound both clicky and like static. I realised this with tweaking my cleaning protocol. I have a spin clean that I use and I thought letting them air dry would be best , but they would sound terrible at certain parts , especially lead in groove to about two or three minutes in. After realizing that was where it took the the longest to dry because on the rack the water would drip down and stay there the longest. Now , I squeegee and dry with a micro fiber cloth then put them on the drying rack. Problem solved.

Great review. Thanks. Do you have a tip for vinyl purifier for reasonable money?

I’ve cleaned about 20 or so records since receiving the unit on 11/15. Some were brand new records and others were used records from the 70’s to the 90’s. I have a Spin Clean that I use religiously but for my test case records the Spin Clean previously used but unable to get those records sufficiently clean. As far as the new records go, all of the deeply ground in production grit was removed and the records play just about dead quiet. A couple probably need another run through on the HG to get them to my satisfaction. The used records all came clean. Examples of what I cleaned are Cowboy Junkies: Trinity Sessions, ZZ Top: Tres Hombres (London), Dire Straits: Love Over Gold/Solid Rock 10” EP. The only remaining issues were slight scuffs causing pops and clicks. So for ultrasonic record cleaning this is great unit to have. How it compares to the Degritter and other similarly priced units is unknown to me. I’ve collected records since the early 80’s and this is the best product I’ve used. One thing users will want to do is get new inner sleeves because you don’t want to put a clean record back in a dirty jacket.

I purchased a degritter a couple of years ago and I honestly do not see the benefit, just as you noted (and I have tried the surfactant). My VPI 17.5 has done an adequate job on used albums for over 20 years. I think we all jumped on the bandwagon, not my best audio investment.

You need a better camera.

Thanks so much for these videos, especially this latest one. I appreciate your honesty and candor, and the thought and care you put into making these videos has helpful as possible for the rest of us. Ron Kenosha WI USA

I am glad I waited to make a purchase decision. Going to investigate the Isonic...

Regarding no water on the record during cleaning comment... I use a Kirmuss and Degritter - I typically find that the cleaner the record, the less water "sticks" to the surface + some formulations of vinyl seem to repel better than others. I actually LIKE to see no water on the record when using the Degritter for this reason (note I only use surfactant in the Kirmuss - the Degritter is water only as a final rinse/dry stage of my cleaning) as it means the record is really clean and it's a nice visual hint of such. So I wouldn't be overly concerned about this...

Nice job, Im just starting out, would you like to sell the spinclean?

Appreciate your review and this will allow me to not pull the trigger when they go on line tomorrow. Question? Isn't there someone to call for customer support regarding this new machine? Why would they NOT want you to use a surfactant? I really do not even know what that is, but they are telling you no, only distilled water? Call me cynical, but this kind of product reminds me of automatic dishwashing machine pods. They will tell you, oh no need to scrub off the food it'll clean off all by itself, yea right;-)...somehow the pods seem to work better if you before hand scrub off most of the food ;-) Hard to believe though they would NOT invest in customer service folks to take consumer questions!? Oh well thanks so much for helping all of us who are on the fence with this new product.

I commend your honesty across the three reviews. You've given an in-depth warts and all appraisal and unfortunately it comes up short. You might just have saved a lot of folks from making a very expensive mistake! In all honesty, all of the machines require a bit of time to do the job when in fact we all just want to take the record out of the sleeve place it on the turntable and play it without much hassle. Relying on the old tried and tested cleaner spritz and brush is the most simple and effective method and it does a decent job for a mere fraction of the cost.

I think its just static because you said its sounds better after you spray it with your usual cleaning solution. However I agree that it needs a multiple runs to get the feel that its actually cleaning the record, which is to me pretty standard even with the Degritter. Also, probably your water is a bit colder and maybe you should warm it up slightly. Im very happy with mine, I got what I need but I do not have anything super dirty and even if I do, will do a manual cleaning first and then I will use the ultrasonic. Just how I clean my glasses. Will try to find something in the bin over the weekend and try again.

Another thoughtful review and video. While I appreciate it, I have had such completely different results that it makes me wonder if we got the same machine! Haha. While it’s not perfect, the difference has been dramatic on the majority of the records I’ve cleaned. I’ve gotten about 60-90% of the surface noise off of many records, especially for some reason my UK Beatles, Floyd & Stones first pressings. I have only had a handful where no significantly noticeable difference has been achieved. I would also bet that adding some surfactant will only increase the positive results, but have yet to try it. For new, scratch free 180g records that just need a quick bath to remove factory debris, I’ll still just use my Spin Clean. Simple and effective. But for my vintage records that have no doubt acquired a lot of built up groove gunk, this is easily 20 times more effective. Just my two cents again. :)

Too bad about the results. I will say that with vacuum cleaners a common mistake is doing too many rotations, especially in dry climates, thus creating a large static charge on the record. This adds noise, clicks and pops. A couple plays or less rotations usually eliminates this charge, but scares a lot of beginners. Im not sure how this machine would produce static but I dont see how else it would worsen some records. Youre mistaken on one part though, not everyone can be right about the improvements vs setbacks. Its either better or not and from what I heard in part 2 I didnt hear anything special. But as I said there, you really would wanna try using some alcohol with the water because that really plays a big part in breaking the surface tension and loosening the dirt.

Thanks for your honest opinion, many times a new product need some tweaking. In the world of Consumer Electronics especially audio accessories often need to be field tested which is what you have just done. Hopefully the manufacture will step up and tweak this unit.

Did you ever add a surfactant? Did you ever add warm water? Did you ever use a dirty LP? Don’t listen to the manufacturer. Get creative. That machine has potential. Find it.

Whats with people saying the dynamic range is better after cleaning? I assume you just played them at slightly different levels. I heard no improvements on the noise anyway, could be that its more so damage than dirt though. I would try more records before deciding anyway and possibly try to add alcohol in the water as soon as you feel comfortable. No other USonic machine uses ONLY distilled water I dont think.

Btw - records are cleaned in distilled water to prevent mineral deposits from tap water. Basically all records cleansing machines will require distilled water. Not unique to this unit.

Thats made my mind up to get the Degritter...thank you for your honest opinion

Good video, however no ultrasonic cleaner solution for vinyl works w/o a surfactant due to the surface tension of vinyl. I own the Kirmuss and it works very well with a surfactant. Add a surfactant and you s/b good to go.