First impressions of the Audio Desk Record Cleaner

"Maybe I should have bought one sooner."

Having used the AD whenever I've had the opportunity, I'm certain I would think the same.

Long time SC user, who keeps waffling on getting a proper machine.

As a bin diver looking for period presses, US is most certainly the way to go. When I take the leap, it will be the AD or Degritter.

Enjoy your noise free LP's.

@tablejockey

 

When I take the leap, it will be the AD or Degritter.

These were my choices too - the used AD came up first.

Enjoy your noise free LP’s.

Thanks!

That’s a $10 per record cleaning investment. Plus your time. A third party service might have been a decent alternative. 

Unfortunately buying this record cleaning machine comes with a longevity life span of 300-1000 records. There’s an almost certainty that after that it will fail on you. Everyone that I know who has bought one has had it fail on them after using it extensively to clean their collection. I’m not talking about early generations either. One person had to return the pro x 3 times for a new model. Luckily he bought it from a reputable dealer and it was still under warranty. They aren’t fixable if something goes wrong. If it’s out of warranty your screwed. As good as it cleans your LP’s the reliability issues that have plagued it from the beginning still remain. At $4500-5000 you would think it would last a lifetime!

I have had good luck with mine - my record collection is small (300ish); however, most are old enough to be the President of the United States. 
 

I tend to view it as ‘insurance’ for my sanity and hopefully the needle. And if anything it was cheaper than buying replacement records out of concern for cleanliness. 

I've wanted an AD cleaner for a long time but also have followed several threads here on Agon regarding the many failures of the machines over the years. Just didn't want to take a chance. I'm sure it performs wonders when it works.

Congrats macg19. I have had mine for about 3 years and love it. I had a VPI 16.5 prior and it was a great machine but the AD just make is so much easier and does a much better job, in my opinion of course. So far I haven’t had any issues and the only complaint I had was the way draining had to be done. But I made some modifications and have a ball valve with a drain tube and it makes life easier. I don’t know why that isn’t standard or an accessory, but it was a simple enough fix.

Enjoy!

Not sure where some of the math comes from...

AD is $4K new as most retailers in the US and mine listed for $2,500 and came with brand new roller brushes, filter, wiper blades and 5 bottles of cleaning solution (so supplies for ~500 records. It was used on about 200 records prior to me.

As for my time - it takes ~1 min per record, so call it 8 hours of my time for 400-ish records.  

I'll report back if it breaks. 

In the meantime, the results are well beyond my expectations.

I have used mine only on records that have remained noisy after multiple, thorough cleanings with a vacuum machine (Nitty Gritty).  For almost all of these records the added ultrasonic cleaning made no difference.  But once in a while a record I though was damaged (because repeated cleaning did not cure noise or distortion) dramatically improved after such cleaning.

"I have used mine only on records that have remained noisy after multiple, thorough cleanings with a vacuum machine (Nitty Gritty).  For almost all of these records the added ultrasonic cleaning made no difference."

Even the best RCM will not fix groove damage.