HumminGuru Review - Affordable Ultrasonic Record Cleaning? 

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Thanks for your effort to show the Hummingurus magic. I have now cleaned approx 800 lp's with this box. And I'm happy! It's using kind of low impact (40kHz) vibrations, so it's treating your records gently. For most records I have used double cycle with 5 minutes cleaning and 5 minutes drying. This is enough in my not-so-moisty, indoor , winter environment in Norway to make it clean and dry enough to play directly after. I have used Hummingurus own detergent as well and distilled water. Many of the comments here says it's a waste of money and I really, really don't agree. For me it has been a lifesaver and has steadily produced record after record with fantastic results. I have done lots of before and after listenings on a good line of equipment and it never disappoints. Of course, fingerprints are a hassel, and for many records I have had to make a double cleaning or even triple before drying it. But hey, it's a machine and it will not be tired. Fat (or jam :) ) is difficult, so sometimes I had to use the liquid directly on the record along with a fiber cloth, and then use the machine. The machine will anyway fix the groves nicely. The bottom line is that for me, the normal process works great for many records, but you will need to do it a couple of times for the most dirty ones. And buy your partner some flowers now and then to make them happy. It's a little bit noisy.

I've owned my Humming Guru since it's initial release autumn last year. In this time I've cleaned and rinsed the vast majority of my collection, now well over 350 titles. Some of which are double LPs and boxsets so easily well into 400 individual vinyl's. I've experimented with all sorts of concoctions. Surfactants, cleaning fluids, deionised water, dehumidifier water the list goes on. None of this has caused any malfunction or negative effect to the HG. I've pretty much settled on my own mix of surfactant, IPA and deionised water for one or two cleaning cycles followed by a single rinsing cycle with just deionised water. I ordered a second water tank so I could keep the clean and rise cycles separate. So if you total that up with my collection and bunches of cleans for friends it's easily over 1000 individual cycles. Still running with its original rollers, I've only needed to change out the tank filters when necessary. Overall I'm very happy with how it's performed for the price that it is. Nearly all of my records we're either new or cared for by previous owners so bear in mind its not had to deal with many dire situations. If you're in the business of acquiring boxes of old records and sprucing them up for a profit then something like the Degritter would probably be worth the investment. There have been articles about vinyl being eaten away by ultrasonic cleaning. I don't know enough to fully comment but maybe the HG being lower in power is not such a bad thing. Maybe I'll upgrade to something more substantial one day, I recently bought an ORB flattener so some crazy money has already been spent! But for now the Humming Guru is working great for my needs.

Thanks for a fine presentation and evaluation 👍Think I'll get one for myself as a Christmas present this year 🙂

Excellent and honest review . I was thinking of upgrading my Project VC s but it looks like they are pretty much similar in terms of results .

Thanks. I always use a surfactant. I've tried several, including washing up liquid and dishwasher Rinse Aid, and they all seem to work as well as each other. A spin clean type/vacuum cleaner might have cleaned that record just as well. A better test would have been to take a record already cleaned by a more conventional record cleaner and then put it through the ultrasonic cleaner to see if it improves the clean and the sound compared to the conventional cleaner. Credit to HumminGuru for developing a cheaper machine, though there are even cheaper Chinese machines available now, which by all accounts work well though they do not dry the record.

Thanks for your video! Days of Future Past is a great album, BTW!

Best I can tell, the power needed for ultrasonic cleaners to be effective is dependent on the volume of liquid, watts/liter, and other ultrasonic cleaners with small liquid capacities like this one are in similar power ranges. I used to have a cheap Chinese jewelry cleaner in this power range and it worked surprisingly well. Too much power can damage the records as well.

i bought a vevor ultrasonic ,229 bucks au ,it cleans my records beautifully ,totally amazing ...does 6 at a time...

I liked your video. I’m happy with my Humminguru and I think it is fine for cleaning “not so dirty” records and I agree it works better with a drop or two of surfactant (G-sonic, tergikleen or even photographic film wetting agent such as Photo-flow all work well). The drying effectiveness is improved with a surfactant too. I routinely do a “preclean” with either a spin clean or even a wet wash with a brush for anything that needs a bit more attention such as a newly acquired second hand record. Not a fair apple vs apple comparison to benchmark against a degritter/KL/audiodesk cleaner which all cost 10-fold more than the HG. This is relatively affordable, dedicated ultrasonic automated record cleaner and fills a much needed niche in the market. I guess we’ll still need to see what its lifespan will be with long term use, but from feedback on the HG forums the customer service from HG seems pretty good.

Thanks for review, I think I will stay with my manual cleaning machine which I think does very good job.

Great video

Hello Mark, I just ordered a HumminGuru to clean my records. I have been using the spin clean, which does an OK job, but as you know, does not get as deep into the grooves as Ultrasonic cleaning does. I noticed your review was seven months ago. Now that you have used it for a while, has your opinion of its effectiveness changed? I would be interested to know.

The 'Guru' is a very good machine for what it is...a machine for the not heavily soiled or deeply grime imbedded records. I have this machine and it absolutely needs the Groove Washer G-Sonic liquid. Nonetheless, I have 'AB'ed the 'Guru' against the much more powerful KL Audio. The KL audio is a better cleaning machine, BUT the price is about ten times what the 'Guru' costs! I think with a vacuum clean first, from any decent vacuum cleaning machine, followed by the 'Guru', one can be in the same vicinity as the KL audio; for a much lower combined price.

I purchased a Guru about months ago for almost 600 dollars, needless to say I sent it back. With almost 4000 records to my collection this was like watching paint dry and it didn't clean as expected. I had to resort to a lot of touching up after using this unit, wasted time and money. So I purchased a Vevor Stainless Ultrasonic cleaner with Motor attachment and 8 label protectors to clean 8 Lp's at one time. I even incorporated a DIY filtration system and a wireless fan and attachment for drying, and all for under 230 dollars. I used Distilled water, Photo Flo, Dawn and ISO Alcohol and it worked like a charm and left plenty of evidence in the tank which was quickly eliminated with the filtration system.

Hi Mark. The HumminGuru certainly is not in the same class as the DeGritter. I have compared the two recently. The DeGritter has a huge advantage over he HumminGuru unit and that is the frequency, 120khz. My tests have shown the HumminGuru to be somewhat ineffective because of its frequency. If you run the spec numbers on the wall adaptor it certainly does not have the power capacity to run everything on the HumminGuru in its cycle at 40khz. Its meant to run at 40khz but i found that it does not reach that frequency cosistently.. A scientist friend of mine who is a mad record collector (like myself) used a scientific cavitation metre which showed an average frequency of 25khz. My own testing on Ultrasonic cleaning has found 120khz to be the safest and best cleaning frequency. The only commercial unit that runs that frequency is the DeGritter because the 120khz transducers are very expensive. The HumminGuru is a cheap all in one unit that will do an ok job. I tested it against the VinylStyl unit (using Tergiclean based cleaning fluid, used same fluid in HumminGuru) and found the HumminGuru to better on light dirt than the VinylStyl but not as good as the VinlSyl on greasy finger marks, but thre HumminGuru is a simple all in one automatic unit that will suit some people. I guess a pre clean with the VinylStyl, (which I prefer to the SpinClean) then a run through the HummingGuru would be a good method of cleaning and still cheaper than the other ultrasonic units. The HumminGuru is not great but it is cheap, and you do get what you pay for. In my tests, the DeGritter is the best unit around but in Australia it sells for around $5,000aud, so the VinlStyl/HumminGuru combo would be a much cheaper option with reasonable results. I do not have any connection to HumminGuru, VinylStyl, Tergiclean or DeGritter products, I'm just a mad long time collector with much tooooo many LP records.....Enjoy the music

I only buy new records so the HG is perfect for me, 5 min clean and 10 min drying time and i have zero problem with any water left on the record, using HG record cleaning agent 2-3 drops and it works perfect.

Thanks Mark, a very interesting and informative video. One thing I am curious about is whether the unit leaves any residue that ends up on the stylus; no one seems to comment on this. Having tried other wet cleaners including Knosti, my experience is that the stylus can become caked with gunk which cannot be good for it and also suggests strongly that the cleaner is not fully doing it's job. I would be very interested in your views before I buy one...

Wonder if the greater benefit might be to use after a manual clean. I have been looking at buying a RCM but the $😊

Thank you for this informative objective video. I have spoken to a number of fellow vinyl junkies and the prevailing thinking is that a humminguru (ultrasonic or equivalent) then followed by a VCE clean is the way to go. I demoed a Degritter a few months ago was left unimpressed given the 5,000NZD price tag. The huminguru and VCE will come in for under 2000NZD. I have owned the VCE for 6 months and have been pleased but on really dirty records, I am atill have to clean using the VCE 5 or 6 times and still too many pops and clicks. (Of course I could be doing this incorrectly :) Any comments on the ultrasonic then VCE to remove all the remaining water for a really good clean? Thank you

Was so excited for this, but there are many reviews that say it’s largely crap. I’ll stick with my manual big fudge cleaner.

The finger prints wont move unless you manually clean the record first think about it how do you get fingerprints off windows .

HumminGuru, is it you? HumminGuru, is it you? Sitting there blowing out hot air....

I have had my HG for almost a year and have great results. I don’t use surfactants. For a record like the Pretenders record you showed I start by running the record through my Spin-Clean, which has a surfactant, first then running through my HG. This has produced the best results for me. Just like you noted, the HG does not remove fingerprints. It’s my understanding that other ultrasonic machines do not remove fingerprints. If I’m incorrect, please let me know and please offer that machine name when responding, because I’m curious as well!

I tried to go to his site that had before and after sounds from the record, but had to leave the site because it was crippled with pop up ads.

If records r that dirty, I prefer to hand wash manually in kitchen sink using Ajax dish soap and a cotton towel. If records not as dirty or brand new, I use my HumminGuru but I do it differently. I first use a Tergikleen (surfactant) distilled water mix to wash the record then dry. The second wash/dry is just distilled water. This works so much better than stand alone distilled water only. I don’t care about the warranty. I want clean records. Look it up as Tergikleen does a good job. The HumminGuru does get hot so I do set a fan behind the unit which blows cool air underneath the unit. I do want 2 try the Degritter but need 2 come up with the $$$$ for it. Ugh

I see they sell their own surfactant now, so should be fine to add.

Will this machine work on 45 records ?..

Would it be worth buying this to clean new records?

4'44, never remove a cleaning brush directly upwards, you leave a little line of dust. Move it outwards to the edge of the record instead.

It’s Not “affordable” first off. And in every single video review I’ve seen on this, the reviewer had to run the record through the process At Least 3x minimum to hear Any difference! Thanks but I’ll stick to my Vinyl Styl deep groove cleaner, which cost me 68 bucks and does the job in one to two cleanings 😂

I applaud your search for a less expensive ultrasonic! It will make a big difference for you Ultrasonics do not remove fingerprints I have had a KLaudio ultrasonice since late 2013. It is priceless but very expensive - but worth it for my very large collection . Place the record in from the top, only distilled water no chemicals, pristine

How much is it and do you need to fill up every time

I’m concerned that you would apply a dry cleaning process before the wet process. In my opinion, this is like taking your car to the car wash and asking them to hold off on using any water on the first pass of the beater brushes. Of course my concern is around large gritty debris, not fabric lint. The last thing you should do is push grit around on the surface. Do something (anything) to get the larger granular dirt off of it before you do a dry process. Use canned air…anything…just don’t push it around on the surface like your sweeping with a push broom. Just my opinion.

Fingerprints are going to cause NOISE during playback??? Man, people have truly lost their minds in this hobby lol. People really think a record has got to be flawless to sound good. How do you expect water and vibrations to remove oily fingerprints from the record? It's not using magic.

Mostly all these ultrasonic cleaning machines are a waste of hard cash. Degritter would be the only investment if you robbed a bank. All very gimmicky and fancy. The true is, if you use a SpinClean machine (the yellow USA one) and glue in some additional goat hair brushes inside like I did, use a good recipe of Purified water, surfactant, pure alcohol and a drop of dishwasher liquid and a few drops of blackhead remover (yes - blackhead remover!) then you have the perfect cleaner for £120 and not £3000.....true story.

My Pro-ject is loads better than this, which is a shame as I was really thinking about getting one.

All in one? I think you show it is not.

10 minutes cleaning and still grime and fingerprints!

Distractingf music

pointless without a before and after

I was suffering through the unboxing… 😱

Excellent and honest review . I was thinking of upgrading my Project VC s but it looks like they are pretty much similar in terms of results .