Cables & Accessories

Spend enough time accruing and listening to records, and the issue of surface noise will rear its head before too long. Even if you exclusively buy new vinyl and keep it in anti-static sleeves while adhering to the sort of cleanliness policies normally associated with assembling satellites, debris picked up during the production process to say nothing of basic airborne material that hits the record during playback, will gather to the point of audibility.

This is where record cleaning comes in. For a long time, the choices available were between wet cleaners which rotated the record through liquid before you dried it by whatever means you saw as appropriate or vacuum cleaners that apply a cleaning fluid you put on the surface of the record before vacuuming it back off. While there a few genuine masters of the art of wet cleaning, it is vacuum cleaners – particularly in their more ornate forms – that generally offer the higher performance.

Ultrasonic cleaners are billed as a way of taking the basic premise of wet cleaning and increasing its ability to shift stubborn debris from the groove. By applying a high-frequency pulse to the water bath, an ultrasonic machine can dislodge material that is wedged tightly in place that would not be extricated by simply rotating the record through a fluid bath.

HumminGuru has been producing ultrasonic cleaners for some years and the NOVA is its flagship offering. It is built around the same basic principles as more affordable models, but has some niceties not present on them. Enhanced with frequency sweep and upgraded power drive, it still uses a 40kHz ultrasonic pulse applied to both sides of the water bath to agitate debris out of the groove and this cleaning programme can be applied in two, five or 10-minute cycles.

When complete, the water is automatically drained into a catch tank. Having done so, the NOVA begins drying the vinyl via an internal drying system which can be selected in three and six-minute increments. The fan rotation speed has been increased to 9,000rpm, which HumminGuru says should be enough to dry pretty much any record in six minutes. Also new for the NOVA is the fact that the rotation system that passes the record through the bath can be adjusted via a supplied tool for seven and 10in records, which is a handy feature.

HumminGuru’s war on noise doesn’t end there. Static electricity build-up (primarily caused by friction from the stylus or when removing the record from its sleeve) can also result in surface noise, so the company has developed its Orbit vinyl static remover. Coming from the position of finding the Milty Zerostat 3 (HFC 411) quite a fancy solution for handling static, the Orbit feels almost impossibly sophisticated. Sit it over the spindle and press the start button and it will perform 10 rotations 23mm above the playing surface, discharging positive and negatively charged ions to ensure that there is no charge of any nature present on the playing surface. The whole device is self-contained and recharges via USB-C.

Something that the bald technical description of both devices doesn’t really convey is that they are extremely confidence inspiring to use. We’ve always been a little reticent around immersion cleaners – we have enough used records with watermarks on the label to feel that getting levels and positions correct can be more of an art than a science. With the NOVA, so long as the tank is filled to the correct level – a process made simple via markings on the water tank and on the adjustment tool – you won’t get the label wet. The controls are logically laid out and user friendly, and it feels like it’s been assembled by people who know what they are doing.

The Orbit is, if anything, more impressive still. For the entire time we’ve been using turntables, the process of applying antistatic treatment has felt somewhat arcane – more sorcery than engineering. The Orbit is the first time the process feels rigorous and repeatable. However, we don’t feel that the water tank on the NOVA, which doubles as a jug, is an ideal pouring device and enough water escapes the tank during the drain process to ensure that some trickles out the side. Meanwhile, the Orbit is sufficiently heavy that softly sprung decks might find it hard to support.

Sound quality
To test the NOVA, we select a tatty example of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and give it a pre-wash play on our resident Vertere MG-1 MkII. Fine detail on the opening Second Hand News is audibly compromised by noise and distortion and we don’t get too far into Dreams before the stylus physically jumps the groove.

Selecting the five-minute wash with a few drops of the supplied cleaning agent added to the bath, we leave the NOVA to get on with trying to revive it. The wash process is pretty quiet and has the advantage of being able to do both sides at once; something most vacuum machines cannot. We find the six-minute dry cycle ensures the record is completely dry at the end. This is a fairly noisy process, but if you want a quieter option you can use the NOVA’s lid as a drying rack.

The record that comes out the other end still won’t qualify as mint, but it plays in a manner that is recognisably better than before. Crucially, the Vertere can now play all the way though Dreams without the skip taking place. Of no less interest is the effect on a newly arrived copy of WH Lung’s Every Inch Of Earth Pulsates. An initial play sees it sound perfectly good, but after the two-minute clean it is even better still.

By contrast, the Orbit has to wait for a change in the weather to show its potential. The mild and damp conditions of early December mean our equipment doesn’t have any static issues to apply it too. With the dry and cold snap in early January, the conditions allow for more static build up and the Orbit rises to the occasion brilliantly. When a relatively new and clean pressing of Warrington Runcorn Newtown Development Plan’s Your Community Hub sounds noisier than expected, we give it a two-minute wash on the NOVA. The result is certainly better, but still noisier than we would have hoped.

After 10 sweeps of the Orbit, the result is considerably quieter. This is more surprising than the effects of the NOVA because our test space is typically immune to severe static effects, particularly in the winter. That the Orbit can still have an effect is impressive and the simplicity of how it operates only seals the deal further.

Conclusion
It is the user-friendliness of both devices that stands out over and above their extremely good performance. The NOVA marks the first time we have used an immersion cleaning machine where we don’t have to worry about bits getting wet that we don’t want wet and simply crack on with the business of cleaning. The experience is sufficiently reassuring and repeatable that it encourages you to do it regularly – often the biggest limitation of cleaning devices, no matter how effective they are. This is a fantastic pair that will benefit playback even in the most scrupulously maintained systems. ES    

DETAILS
Product: HumminGuru NOVA
Type: Ultrasonic record cleaning machine

FEATURES
● 40kHz ultrasonic pulse cleaning
● Handles 7, 10 and 12in records
● Fan drying

Read the full review in  Issue 525