New Hobby Ultrasonic Record Cleaning


Purchased a cheap $199.00 stainless steel digital ultrasonic cleaner with a very nice record cleaning attachment off Amazon and I am having a blast.

This thing is heated, has a timer and an electric motor to rotate the records in the US tank. It is a 6L unit and it is made in China. Seems well built and it cleans records like a much more expensive machine.

I have cleaned a half dozen albums that are 40 plus years old and have only been cleaned with vacuuming machines and this thing is great. The albums I have cleaned sound darn near new and my wife thought I bought another new cartridge or phono pre-amp.

Can not recommend this type of cleaning system enough.

Rediscover those old albums.. if this thing lasts a couple of years I will be a happy dude. 
128x128skypunk
@skyscraper,

How about $21.75 for a pint -  Tergitol 15-S-3 and 15-S-9 Surfactant | TALAS (talasonline.com).  What Amazon and the labs are selling is spectrographic grade with a nice brown bottle and label and a certificate of analysis (CoA).  Otherwise, they are the same, and the Talas source is what I specified in my paper.  Talas is re-packaging, but so is most everyone else - DOW does not sell Triton or Tergitol surfactants to the general public in small quantities.
@ antinn
Thanks for your concern.  Perhaps there is little to be gained and a lot to be lost by not going from 5% to 3% isopropanol.  I'll think I'll make that change. It's also cheaper.  Thank you.
@escscott482  I noticed that your link has the machine running at 40Khz oscillation rate.   The Kirmuss states that it is unsafe and doesn't work well to use smaller bubbles at Degritter's 120KHz rate.  Kirmuss uses a "70 KHz resonance to a standard 35 KHz sonic" rate.  I think AudioDesk uses 70KHz.  Who's correct?  I can afford $1,000 or $2,000 system but I tend to like the Kirmuss for safety and ease of use (I have 25,000 LPs and 7,000 78s, 12" and 10" records).  I have been using Disc Doctor with a VPI 16.5 (latter for 30 years-works perfectly as upgraded but doesn't clean every record like new, pops and clicks often remain on records previously played while dirty or with a dirty stylus by prior owners).  
https://kirmussaudio.com/safety-first/  35KHz is the recommended maximum frequency (size of bubbles/wave/timing of cavitation at the record surface) with a maximum temperature of 95F degrees.  Anyone contradict this analysis?   
@ fleschler
"Not 45, not 80, not 90 kHz. NEVER 120 kHz or higher. All are proven to damage records over time."  I have never seen any data that can confirm this and I think it is likely hyperbole.  None of the other ultrasonic manufacturers would be in business if this is the case.  I read a post on another forum of someone who ultrasonically cleaned a record repeatedly over a hundred times and found no macroscopic or sonic detriment.  One guys experience and may not be valid.  On the other hand, I can categorically refute "AVOID HOME MADE SYSTEMS WHERE TEMPERATURES EXCEED 95°F, (35°C) as these WARP RECORDS and affect groove integrity."  This is easy since warping is grossly macroscopic and easily detected.  I have cleaned over 1000 lps, some repeatedly, with a bath temp between 40-45 degrees centigrade.  I have never had one change in the flatness of lps.  Period.  His statements, in my opinion, are sometimes self serving and may not be factual.  The warping issue at the temperatures described is pure fallacy.