New ultrasonic vinyl cleaner in the works: Humminguru

I'll be the first to admit I skimmed through this recent debate on the merits of surfactants:

Found it as I am considering buying a Humminguru and would love folks perspective on whether they use Tergikleen/G-sonic/etc or go with distilled water alone.
 
OnTheRoad said:
I'll be the first to admit I skimmed through this recent debate on the merits of surfactants:

Found it as I am considering buying a Humminguru and would love folks perspective on whether they use Tergikleen/G-sonic/etc or go with distilled water alone.
Click to expand...

I use a drop of G-Sonic per tank. It does seem to help quite a bit vs plain distilled water, and the one bottle lasts forever.
 
I use Tergitol 15-S-9 that I bought on eBay. I fill to the 12" line on the Humminguru tank with distilled water and add one drop of Tergitol.

When I have felt fancy, I have made up a mix of 300 ml distilled water, 100ml 99% isopropyl alcohol and 1–2 drops of Tergitol.

That one gives me a headache!
 
OnTheRoad said:
I'll be the first to admit I skimmed through this recent debate on the merits of surfactants:

Found it as I am considering buying a Humminguru and would love folks perspective on whether they use Tergikleen/G-sonic/etc or go with distilled water alone.
Click to expand...

I use a homebrew mixture of surfactant and detergent very diluted in distilled water.
 
Poly-Rythmo said:
Cheers @Joe Mac for all the help. After half an hour of fiddling with wires (surprisingly easy except for the small board connected to the gearbox which was absolutely smothered in glue)...I'm afraid to say the result is it works exactly as before ie not at all 😭
Click to expand...
End of the saga - it's working. Turns out you can't test it without water in the machine (I did it as I wanted to see it worked before putting the lid back on, putting water in etc). So three weeks later I finally tried it with water and it worked! So happy. Another side effect, which I hope is real and not that the ultrasonics have stopped working, is that it makes almost no noise now, just the turning sound and a v faint other noise. So happy to be able to clean some dirty recent purchases

Edit: OK, the reduced sound lasted one record! Back to squeaky now
 
Last edited:
dansomeone said:
That's awesome, you're going to like it. And for once, the rest of us were able to recommend something to you, lol
Click to expand...
Well it arrived. I have to say I’m pretty I impressed and my G Sonic doesn’t arrive until tomorrow.

I tried 2 of my worst possible cases. The first was a 1978 British pressed Deutsche Grammophon that was gifted to me. Visually excellent but had 2 stuck grooves on the last track on side 1. I was figuring some microscopic crap in the groove that my VPI wouldn’t touch. Well the stuck grooves turned into 2 skips. While play testing though, I was shocked at how much better the record sounded in general.

The second was a Mercury Living Presence from 1959. And it had a living presence for sure- it had been stored in a moldy basement for God only knows how long. It was a eBay purchase for a couple of bucks. Nothing I’ve tried could get rid of the mold/fungus including Scrubbing Bubbles. I ran 2 deep clean cycles and an auto deep clean with a 10 minute dry. It’s clean! The vinyl doesn’t look so hot once all of the schmutz was removed. It sounds great so it’s all surface damage.

Everything else is in great shape and I’m hoping that G Sonic will allow great results with a 2 minute wash and 5 minute dry. Everything going into the Humminguru will have been on the VPI first.

I’m very pleased.
 
HiFi Guy said:
Well it arrived. I have to say I’m pretty I impressed and my G Sonic doesn’t arrive until tomorrow.

I tried 2 of my worst possible cases. The first was a 1978 British pressed Deutsche Grammophon that was gifted to me. Visually excellent but had 2 stuck grooves on the last track on side 1. I was figuring some microscopic crap in the groove that my VPI wouldn’t touch. Well the stuck grooves turned into 2 skips. While play testing though, I was shocked at how much better the record sounded in general.

The second was a Mercury Living Presence from 1959. And it had a living presence for sure- it had been stored in a moldy basement for God only knows how long. It was a eBay purchase for a couple of bucks. Nothing I’ve tried could get rid of the mold/fungus including Scrubbing Bubbles. I ran 2 deep clean cycles and an auto deep clean with a 10 minute dry. It’s clean! The vinyl doesn’t look so hot once all of the schmutz was removed. It sounds great so it’s all surface damage.

Everything else is in great shape and I’m hoping that G Sonic will allow great results with a 2 minute wash and 5 minute dry. Everything going into the Humminguru will have been on the VPI first.

I’m very pleased.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear you're impressed! My experience was that while I expected the HG to remove pops and ticks, what it actually did was make my records sound better. Somewhere back in the depths of this thread, I think I suggested this was one of the best audiophile investments I'd ever made. As for running through the VPI first, unless that's because you already have cleaned all your records that way, I don't know that the extra step is needed, and it certainly is more work. I just run everything through a 5-min wash and 5-min dry cycle on the HG and that seems to get the job done.
 
Russ I said:
Glad to hear you're impressed! My experience was that while I expected the HG to remove pops and ticks, what it actually did was make my records sound better. Somewhere back in the depths of this thread, I think I suggested this was one of the best audiophile investments I'd ever made. As for running through the VPI first, unless that's because you already have cleaned all your records that way, I don't know that the extra step is needed, and it certainly is more work. I just run everything through a 5-min wash and 5-min dry cycle on the HG and that seems to get the job done.
Click to expand...

I can’t really see the HG as a stand alone solution. I do see it as a final deep clean.

A couple of reasons:

Because it uses water as the fluid- no detergents- it cannot remove fingerprints or other oils. I’ve seen new albums with fingerprints. It’s not uncommon.

It cannot remove hair. I have a long haired dog. He sheds. A. Lot.

Vacuuming will take care of both of these issues.

On the upside, I like that it uses water. It should, at least in theory, remove any leftover detergents from the groove from previous cleanings.

I see the VPI and the HG working together as a system. Each unit is good at what the other isn’t. And it’s still a value- the two combined cost thousands less than other ultrasonic units designed for record cleaning. Even the expensive vinyl ultrasonic cleaners have the same weaknesses as the HG.
 
HiFi Guy said:
I can’t really see the HG as a stand alone solution. I do see it as a final deep clean.

A couple of reasons:

Because it uses water as the fluid- no detergents- it cannot remove fingerprints or other oils. I’ve seen new albums with fingerprints. It’s not uncommon.

It cannot remove hair. I have a long haired dog. He sheds. A. Lot.

Vacuuming will take care of both of these issues.

On the upside, I like that it uses water. It should, at least in theory, remove any leftover detergents from the groove from previous cleanings.

I see the VPI and the HG working together as a system. Each unit is good at what the other isn’t. And it’s still a value- the two combined cost thousands less than other ultrasonic units designed for record cleaning. Even the expensive vinyl ultrasonic cleaners have the same weaknesses as the HG.
Click to expand...
Perhaps experience will change your thinking on this. I used a VPI HW-17 for over 20 years with various cleaning solutions. Was always happy with the results. The Audio Desk completely changed my mind and the VPI was sold. Haven’t had any remorse since then. Simply no comparison between the two systems. I use the AIVS enzymatic concentrate.
 
OMC said:
Perhaps experience will change your thinking on this. I used a VPI HW-17 for over 20 years with various cleaning solutions. Was always happy with the results. The Audio Desk completely changed my mind and the VPI was sold. Haven’t had any remorse since then. Simply no comparison between the two systems. I use the AIVS enzymatic concentrate.
Click to expand...
I have only pulled out my Record Doctor once since I got the Humminguru, and that was in the early days.
 
Russ I said:
Glad to hear you're impressed! My experience was that while I expected the HG to remove pops and ticks, what it actually did was make my records sound better. Somewhere back in the depths of this thread, I think I suggested this was one of the best audiophile investments I'd ever made. As for running through the VPI first, unless that's because you already have cleaned all your records that way, I don't know that the extra step is needed, and it certainly is more work. I just run everything through a 5-min wash and 5-min dry cycle on the HG and that seems to get the job done.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I bought it mostly with the hope that it would improve a lot of my quite dodgy African pressings. But where I've been most impressed is with new/newer pressings where I feel it's really lifted the sound.
 
Poly-Rythmo said:
Agreed. I bought it mostly with the hope that it would improve a lot of my quite dodgy African pressings. But where I've been most impressed is with new/newer pressings where I feel it's really lifted the sound.
Click to expand...
I’ll give it a shot. My preorder from Deutsche Grammophon will be here in a bit over a week.

I have to say I like the idea, as nothing touches the grooves during cleaning if only the HG is used.

My day usually starts before dawn, and even though I’m off today, I’m up before dawn. I cleaned a favorite Mozart album last night and I’m spinning it now. It sounds incredible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top