New ultrasonic vinyl cleaner in the works: Humminguru

debianlinux said:
Anyone tried the Big Thief 4AD pressings? All of those are terribly noisy and I am curious if it's fixable.
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so I cleaned my copy of Masterpiece from Newbury. it improved it--the dynamics seem a bit better and less overall noise. before i cleaned it, there was some noise between songs and that is largely gone. but i think it's just an inconsistent pressing. still some sections with a repetitive clicking even though there's nothing visible there. it is a clear record though so hard to tell visually. it's not unlistenable for me (and wasn't even before I cleaned it) but it is improved IMO. "Paul" sounds fantastic. I wish their records were better pressed overall though...the Humminguru isn't a miracle worker. The Adrienne Lenker solo album Songs & Instrumentals sounds incredible. Reading reviews of that one though, I may have just lucked out.

I may try again with some surfactant again later once i get some to see if that may fix those sections.
 
MikeH said:
so I cleaned my copy of Masterpiece from Newbury. it improved it--the dynamics seem a bit better and less overall noise. before i cleaned it, there was some noise between songs and that is largely gone. but i think it's just an inconsistent pressing. still some sections with a repetitive clicking even though there's nothing visible there. it is a clear record though so hard to tell visually. it's not unlistenable for me (and wasn't even before I cleaned it) but it is improved IMO. "Paul" sounds fantastic. I wish their records were better pressed overall though...the Humminguru isn't a miracle worker. The Adrienne Lenker solo album Songs & Instrumentals sounds incredible. Reading reviews of that one though, I may have just lucked out.

I may try again with some surfactant again later once i get some to see if that may fix those sections.
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Nice though that Lenker's solo albums seem to be pressed very well and sound great, especially Songs and Instrumentals.
 
Russ I said:
Nice though that Lenker's solo albums seem to be pressed very well and sound great, especially Songs and Instrumentals.
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I thought I'd heard a ton of complaints about that pressing. I had ordered it at one point and the Discogs reviews made me cancel.
 
kvetcha said:
I thought I'd heard a ton of complaints about that pressing. I had ordered it at one point and the Discogs reviews made me cancel.
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I may have gotten lucky but mine sounds very good. I did just read some bad reviews too and it's a shame because they went through the trouble of recording and mastering the album AAA.
 
kvetcha said:
I thought I'd heard a ton of complaints about that pressing. I had ordered it at one point and the Discogs reviews made me cancel.
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Hmmm, interesting. Mine sounds great, and it's kind of important because it's an album for which the arrangements become gradually more simple as you move through the sides of the two records, with the final side just Lenker's voice and maybe some nature sounds IIRC. If it wasn't quiet, it would suck.
 
Russ I said:
Hmmm, interesting. Mine sounds great, and it's kind of important because it's an album for which the arrangements become gradually more simple as you move through the sides of the two records, with the final side just Lenker's voice and maybe some nature sounds IIRC. If it wasn't quiet, it would suck.
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@kvetcha, this is what I wrote about it in the Definitive Audiophile Pressings thread back in February (which is better than trying to rely on my memory!):

A lot of space in this thread is devoted to represses of audiophile quality, and of course that’s justified because there are a lot of those out there, and more coming all the time. But it sure is nice to find an album that gets it right the first time, so I want to shine a light on Adrianne Lenker’s Songs and Instrumentals. I picked this up recently and just have been listening to it for the first time. It’s 2 LP’s. Side 1 is comprised of Lenker’s voice, her acoustic guitar and some subtle nature sounds, with a number of instrumental and vocal overdubs. Side 2 is just voice and guitar (and subtle nature sounds) with no overdubs. Side 3 is just guitar, nature sounds and wind chimes. Side 4 begins with the same, but the guitar disappears and then it’s just the nature sounds and chimes. It’s a quiet acoustic album, and when you read about the rustic setting and somewhat antiquated approach to recording the sessions direct to tape in a cabin in some Massachussets backwoods, the audiophile quality of the recordings is very impressive. The vinyl is dead quiet and everything else is downright beautiful. The quality of the music itself is no real surprise given Lenker’s track record, but the breathtaking intimacy of it as captured here is really something special. If you’re a Big Thief and/or Lenker fan and you don’t have this album, grab it while you can.
 
apholden said:
I think it was worth it. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it knocked off some background noise.
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So far I’ve had some albums where it seems to do wonders and others where it’s not as noticeable and I chalk it up to being a bad pressing. It’s much more convenient than my vacuum cleaner because I can just leave this in another room and hit the button to clean and walk away.
 
So feel free to RSR me, but I believe I read that the water tank isn’t dirty afterward. So like…. Where’s the gunk that’s it’s cleaning off going?
 
Tys1 said:
So feel free to RSR me, but I believe I read that the water tank isn’t dirty afterward. So like…. Where’s the gunk that’s it’s cleaning off going?
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So far for me I’ve not cleaned a lot of new or dirty used records so it’s not got dirty as such. I’ve been going back through my collection. There has been a mild sort of detergent deposit in the tank, which I put down to it dragging out deep buried spin clean detergent that the cloths never got to. The filter does get pretty dirty so it’s definitely doing it’s job in filtering out the solid dirt.
 
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MikeH said:
So far I’ve had some albums where it seems to do wonders and others where it’s not as noticeable and I chalk it up to being a bad pressing. It’s much more convenient than my vacuum cleaner because I can just leave this in another room and hit the button to clean and walk away.
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I’ve just had a revelation again. An RC pick up, a Japanese OG of Déjà Vu with Atlantic labels in a colour I had never seen before (blue and green). It wouldn’t track before used to keep getting stuck at points on the opening track despite 2 runs through the spin clean.

I gave it 3 full cleans and then one full auto and now it’s playing through perfectly, sounds like a dream!
 
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