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Nitty Gritty Mini Pro 2 vs the competition

I have owned a NG for about 10 years. It has served me well over those years.
I had to send it back to NG last week as it was leaking. After cleaning 15 or so records water would drip through the bottom plate. Removed it and noticed that the entire undercarriage was saturated with condensation dripping everywhere. Long story short, Gayle at NG was very helpful and the likely cause is a compromised seal. Heat, which this machine generates with water (a leak) will cause condensation. They will fix it as new she says.

What i really like about the NG is that you can clean (or rinse as i do with purified water) both sides at the same time. I am not very familiar with other cleaning machine designs (VPI, Loricraft, Monk, Clearaudio Matrix, etc) but i believe that they do not let you clean both sides of a record at the same time. The drawback is, when you flip the record over, that dirty side was touching the platter (or mat), now you have the side that you have just cleaned touching that platter (or mat) that has just "seen" the dirty side of that record.

I am debating if i should sell & replace my NG when it is returned from NG and go with a more "quiet" design but without the drawback i have mentioned above.

Any comments, opinions, suggestions welcomed. If you say keep your NG that's fine too. I do not want to replace it just for the sake of it.
Thanks

smoffatt
riffer
362 posts
 
I bought one used and had to redo all the seals. I plan to take the whole thing apart and refurbish later this year. I would send it to Nitty Gritty, but shipping is too much from Canada.

That being said, I like the machine and have no plans to replace it due to the reasons you mentioned. There is a clearaudio that does both sides at once, but a little expensive for my taste.
mrjstark
1,112 posts
 
How about new Kuzma???
french_fries
815 posts
 
even if you could clean 95%+ of the dirt out of the grooves, it still has to go back into the record sleeve. i have an older nitty gritty machine, which turns and vacuums one side at a time. BUT, i have a terrific if quite basic nylon brush which i use to scrub BY HAND the wetted record. i was taught to be quite aggressive with the brush, so i am, scrubbing at a 45 degree angle in the direction i'm moving my hand. i feel the vacuum does a good job from there. the record may still have some residual pops, etc. but i can tell by cleaning it a second time that the noise that's left is there for good. unless you get a really expensive machine that (promises) to do an even better job, i don't see the point in worrying about it.
headsnappin's avatar
headsnappin
295 posts
 
I have a VPI 16.5 and I use an extra cork mat to "lay" on top of the "dirty" mat so the cleaned side is always on a clean mat. An extra mat is $12. I also own a nitty gritty and I think the VPI does a bit better job. Works like a charm.
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