- Joined
- May 10, 2015
- Messages
- 996
- Reaction score
- 613
My long-suffering wife was requested to bring back a Humminguru (among other things) for me from an overseas trip. Pricing in the UK ended up being under R10k from Amazon, including the outrageous UK VAT, so well worth bringing in independently.
It's packaged well, but upon unpacking I was struck by the overall cheapness of the thing. Compared to my ultrasonic cleaner with its stainless steel construction at a third of the price, and the Project RCM at half, this is really plasticky and nasty.
Setup was easy enough, although I was quite taken aback at having to pour water in manually (the device pumps the water out after cleaning, but you need to pour in for each record). This severely affects workflow.
After inserting my first record and trying to clean. I noted that a couple of drops of surfactant are essential, as water beaded on the record, rather than clinging. I retried cleaning the record with the supplied surfactant and gave it a listen. The results were audibly brilliant (virtually silent despite the record's age and visibly average condition), even if the record did not appear to be as clean as I would have liked - there were fingerprints and greasy spots still slightly visible. There's been much discussion about noise, and while I am far from the last word on this, the Humminguru is far from silent. During drying the fan is nicely muted, but cleaning is loud and buzzy, like bugs being electrocuted on one of those lampy things,
After cleaning a few more albums, I noted that the records weren't spinning during cleaning. I swore under my breath, thinking I'd just bought a 10k doorstop! Luckily, I just needed to add a small spacer to one of the guide wheels, and the spinning started spinning again.
100 records in, my view remains. It's wonderfully effective, easy to use, but not as slick as it could be. Overall a solid 7/10.
It's packaged well, but upon unpacking I was struck by the overall cheapness of the thing. Compared to my ultrasonic cleaner with its stainless steel construction at a third of the price, and the Project RCM at half, this is really plasticky and nasty.
Setup was easy enough, although I was quite taken aback at having to pour water in manually (the device pumps the water out after cleaning, but you need to pour in for each record). This severely affects workflow.
After inserting my first record and trying to clean. I noted that a couple of drops of surfactant are essential, as water beaded on the record, rather than clinging. I retried cleaning the record with the supplied surfactant and gave it a listen. The results were audibly brilliant (virtually silent despite the record's age and visibly average condition), even if the record did not appear to be as clean as I would have liked - there were fingerprints and greasy spots still slightly visible. There's been much discussion about noise, and while I am far from the last word on this, the Humminguru is far from silent. During drying the fan is nicely muted, but cleaning is loud and buzzy, like bugs being electrocuted on one of those lampy things,
After cleaning a few more albums, I noted that the records weren't spinning during cleaning. I swore under my breath, thinking I'd just bought a 10k doorstop! Luckily, I just needed to add a small spacer to one of the guide wheels, and the spinning started spinning again.
100 records in, my view remains. It's wonderfully effective, easy to use, but not as slick as it could be. Overall a solid 7/10.
