Well, I just purchased one from a local dealer. It's quite nice! My previous LP cleaning machines are … a Nitty Gritty (still miss it ... what a difference that made although boy was it loud and a bit of work … still, it was lovely to meet Gayle when I had it overhauled back when I loved in Southern California), an Okki Noki, and an iSonic Ultrasonic cleaner (about to go on eBay). The Degritter is the easiest by far, just put in an LP and it is done roughly ten minutes later.
My own observations regarding sound is that it does reduce noise a little bit, although it can only do so much on old and abused records, especially since virtually all of my LPs have been vacuumed on the Okki Nokki or Nitty Gritty and my AMG Viella V12 does a ludicrously good job with tracking. What the Degritter does do well is improve dynamic range and the low end. I haven't heard any loss of high frequencies, but that could be the characteristics of different systems.
Back to the Viella for a minute. The Okki Noki is $500, the Degritter is $3,000. I was using the Okki Nokki with a Clearaudio Performance DC that cost me something like $4,000 counting tonearm and cartridge. The Viella V12 cost more like $27,000. The Clearaudio Performance is fantastic and I'm selling it to my best friend. But the V12 is even better. We are talking 95% vs 99.9% here but one thing that I would have never expected with the V12 is that it tracks so much better that much of the static and noise that marred my LP experience is gone now due to better tracking. The same happened when I moved from a Thorens TD 160 MKII to the Performance DC.
So what's the lesson here? To me, spending roughly 10-15% of what your turntable cost on some form of record cleaner makes sense, but I wouldn't recommend spending more unless you plan on buying a new turntable soon. And if you've spent a considerable sum on your turntable, well then, a Degritter is as easy to use as any technology could be.
