New Hobby Ultrasonic Record Cleaning

Fwiw, I went with the solution described in the first paragraph two posts above on bdp24’s reply. The VinylStack spinner is great, IMO. Have had good results. Tiny complaint, after about 3 hours of cleaning my US (6L size) heats up to 40C even with the heat off. Easy to rationalize that one deserves some quiet listening time after three hours of cleaning, however. 

Well fellas, I have some good news, and I have some bad news.

Last night I emailed the Vinyl Stack people, asking if the out-of-stock single-disc hand-held model would again be available at some point in the future. I figured it would be cool to have one for pre-rinsing newly-acquired old LP’s before putting them in or on the "good" cleaner.

This morning I received a reply from their production manager Erin, informing me that the company was closing shop, and that they were selling what they had left in stock, which included one and only one of the 3-disc "Sonic Spin Cleaner" (the official name of what I thought was named the Vinyl Stack).

I immediately went to their website and bought that last one (the website page showing the SSC now indicates it is out-of-stock). That’s the good news. The bad news is that anyone who had been thinking of getting one is out of luck. Better you than me ;-) .

Now I gotta get a tank. Recommendations, anyone? I put my name on the waiting list for the 132kHz model shown on the Vibrato website, but who knows when that will again be available? The Vibrato designer/builder states that he hasn’t been able to get any of the ultrasonic elements from China for quite some time. Damned pandemic ;-) .

In my experience, the Vibrato 135khz is certainly worth a reasonable wait.  I do 4 records at a time.  I think Cleanervinyl had a higher frequency US tank, but it was more expensive, and as I recall, I didn’t know who made it.  I had a quality issue with a cheap 40khz tank.  The Vibrato has been stellar.

Thanks @sryeager. I guess I’ll get a cheap tank to use until the Vibrato is back in production. Vevor makes a 6L that runs at 50kHz, priced at only $118 including shipping.

Since I don’t care about the drying function built into the Degritter (I would rather suck the water off with my VPI or Nitty Gritty than blow warm air on my LP’s), and water filtering systems being pretty simple to add on, and like being able to clean three records at a time instead of only one, I think I actually prefer this combo (Vinyl Stack + Vibrato) to the Degritter. The Degritter sure looks cute, though. ;-)

It took the Vinyl Stack company closing down to finally get me moving on an ultrasonic cleaner, but better late than never. I really like my HW-17F, but there's no denying the benefits of ultrasonic.

The Vinyl Stack ULTRA Sonic Spin Kit (it's full name) has arrived. All the parts are very well made, a high quality product. And the 6L/50kHz Vevor tank is on it's way. That'll have to do until the Vibrato 135kHz tank is again available. 

Now I gotta read through all the blogs on ultrasonic cleaning, and choose my chemicals. I already know I'm going with Tergitol 15-S-9 as my surfactant, and perhaps Alconox as my cleaner.