This is a mini review of the HumminGuru ultrasonic cleaner for vinyl records. The following procedure was used for cleaning. 5 minutes of ultrasonic using alkaline water (≈pH 10) followed by 2 minutes ultrasonic in demineralised water and 5 minutes of drying cycle. Both solutions contained 2 drops/400 mL of the HumminGurus "The Small Bottle".
I made some initial tests with an ABBA record that was bought used and my initial impression was that some noise as well as clicks and pops were reduced. There was also an apparent increase in clarity and detail. To continue measure any effects I looked up a record which I once "destroyed" by either wet play or some strange cleaning recipe. It is a record with classical music and also very long (35 minutes on side A), and has horrible clicks and pops. I tried cleaning that record way back but to no luck.
As method I used click repair to quantify the number of pops and clicks on the record, left and right channel for the whole 35 minutes play. As seen in the table, I made three cleaning cycles and recorded the LP between the cycles. There is a reduction in the number of pops and ticks with each cleaning cycle, but it seems to require many cycles with these solutions make significant results.
Now the number of clicks is not always telling what is happening. Most clicks got reduced in level and was still detected.
As a second example I took a used Dire Straits record. This one were also crackly and and microscopic inspection revealed some strange dirt scattered on the record. The first cleaning cycle lead to that the solution got really cloudy after wash and I had to replace it. After the second cycle, there was a decrease in the high-level clicks and pops:
Strangely, however, the number of clicks and pops increased from 33540/20732 to 43620/33332. On further inspection, the noise floor had decreased significantly and the software found even more smaller clicks and pops. The strange dirt remained (between grooves) and probably need a round of my manual "Phiilips Sonicare toothbrush" cleaning procedure (which is quite laborious).
Another result was that the frequency response differed somewhat after clean with a 0.5-1 dB increase in level above 8 kHz. Below a magnification from MasVis, left channel used before (blue) and after cleaning (red):
In conclusion. The HumminGuru works to clean records, but it may also require multiple rounds of cleaning for stubborn records, or it may need more pre-clean methods. It is however very nice to use with its automatic cleaning and drying functions.
I made some initial tests with an ABBA record that was bought used and my initial impression was that some noise as well as clicks and pops were reduced. There was also an apparent increase in clarity and detail. To continue measure any effects I looked up a record which I once "destroyed" by either wet play or some strange cleaning recipe. It is a record with classical music and also very long (35 minutes on side A), and has horrible clicks and pops. I tried cleaning that record way back but to no luck.
As method I used click repair to quantify the number of pops and clicks on the record, left and right channel for the whole 35 minutes play. As seen in the table, I made three cleaning cycles and recorded the LP between the cycles. There is a reduction in the number of pops and ticks with each cleaning cycle, but it seems to require many cycles with these solutions make significant results.
| Before clean (L and R channel) | Clean cycle 1 | Clean cycle 2 | Clean cycle 3 |
| 895076 | 754480 | 671956 | 612632 |
| 1075992 | 821328 | 748792 | 695604 |
Now the number of clicks is not always telling what is happening. Most clicks got reduced in level and was still detected.
As a second example I took a used Dire Straits record. This one were also crackly and and microscopic inspection revealed some strange dirt scattered on the record. The first cleaning cycle lead to that the solution got really cloudy after wash and I had to replace it. After the second cycle, there was a decrease in the high-level clicks and pops:
Strangely, however, the number of clicks and pops increased from 33540/20732 to 43620/33332. On further inspection, the noise floor had decreased significantly and the software found even more smaller clicks and pops. The strange dirt remained (between grooves) and probably need a round of my manual "Phiilips Sonicare toothbrush" cleaning procedure (which is quite laborious).
Another result was that the frequency response differed somewhat after clean with a 0.5-1 dB increase in level above 8 kHz. Below a magnification from MasVis, left channel used before (blue) and after cleaning (red):
In conclusion. The HumminGuru works to clean records, but it may also require multiple rounds of cleaning for stubborn records, or it may need more pre-clean methods. It is however very nice to use with its automatic cleaning and drying functions.
Last edited:
