if I buy an ultrasonic cleaner for my records will I be able to hear the difference?

As I mentioned earlier, I don't yet have experience with USC as I'm still awaiting my Degritter USC.

But if you want to hear a comparison before and after an old record was cleaned, Degritter recorded such a comparison.  If you go to the Degritter site here:

http://degritter.com/

You'll see a link just down a bit under "News," to the recording of a polish singer, where you can listen to the before and after recordings.Not all the crackle is gone, but there is an impressive (to me) clearing up of the sound, especially instrument tonality.  Before sounds flat and whitened with noise.  After at least sounds like hearing more realistic voice/instruments through some noise.

Of course grains of salt must be taken as this recording is offered by the company selling the record cleaner. 


I'm still going to temper my expectations.   For one thing a pal with a nitty gritty cleaner cleaned some old records of mine.  They looked spanking new afterwards, but didn't really sound that much more free of noise.  Similarly, I just received a 1979 record (bought on discogs) advertised as near mint.  It sure looked near mint - either unplayed or having been put through a record cleaner.  But it actually played as one of the noisiest records in my collection - tons of pops and ticks, and background noise (that did abate somewhat in to the recording).

So I'm learning you can't necessarily tell how noisy a record is going to be just by how clean it looks.


(And I'm also appalled at how visually dirty many new vinyl pressings are when I open them!)

@prof 

IME, you can't judge record cleanliness by appearance. All my records have appeared pristine since I bought a 16.5 back in the Precambrian.

Five years ago I bought a lab grade German US machine and ran it at 80 KHz. After cleaning and rinsing, the records look the same - pristine. But grunge collects on the bottom of the US tank, indicating just how much further there was to go - I would say about 80%, meaning the 16.5 was good for maybe 20% of the deep crud. The sound of the records gives a similar impression.

To come clean, these are just crude subjective guesstimates, not measurements. Also, you may not get what you pay for when you buy a US machine. High frequency, high power, hot chemistry, proper spacing, and a machine that actually meets its specs all make a difference. Quality costs, here as elsewhere - but bang for buck is very, very high.

At Degritter site you can hear the comparison before cleaned and cleaned record.

Although the recording is not particularly good you can still hear that on the non cleaned one you have focused presentation, with piano, vocal, accordion and violins have their own space in the venue.
On the cleaned recording nothing is anymore from one piece. Instruments are out of focus, transferred to left or right, vocal became big and hollow for the same reason. Everything is in your face. It seems cleaner, but you loose the event hologram. Something that happens when you go from Decca to London.
 If you have very high resolution system everything is more obvious and you can clearly hear what US cleaning does to the records.

A.

Gosh Alceta,
if I read you right you are saying Ultrasonic cleaning makes things worse and the better the playback system the worse it will sound. Am I right ??

"transferred to left or right"

From this statement alone I call BS

Good Listening

Peter