KLaudio or Degritter Mark II

price seems rather steep

Seems to be a recurring theme in our hobby :)

I have a Degritter Mark II. The majority of my vinyl collection is between 50 and 70 years old, mostly classical with a good deal of older '70s jazz recordings and 60s and '70s rock and roll. The results that I've achieved have been nothing less than astounding on records that had already been processed extensively previously in a standard cleaning process. Records that are in good condition are playing. absolutely silently. This is far beyond anything that I might ever have imagined being able to achieve.

My experience with a Degritter comes from having had access to an original Degritter machine owned by a friend. The results were so good that I decided to buy my own, a Mark II. What I wanted to report here is that my friends use of the machine was truly extensive and the counter shows approaching 10,000 washing cycles. Because various people were responsible for maintaining the machine, it appears that no one had ever read the instructions to do a cleaning of the interior of the machine every 200 washings or so. After getting my machine and having read about the instructions to do it, I went back to my friend's to examine it only to discover that the interior was still remarkably clean despite the fact that it had never been attended to. Tank changes and filter cleanings and changes were done regularly according to schedule but I can report that an original Degritter is capable of cleaning effectively 10,000 records with no problems whatsoever despite the fact that it didn't even have basic cleaning maintenance done.

I've discussed this with other people that have these and our unanimous observation is that the ownership of this is far more impactful on ones vinyl appreciation experience than an upgrade in a phono stage. We use the example of what would be more impactful to have a $5,000 phono stage or a Degritter and were unanimous in our view. Anyone who wants to chime in here and poo poo a $5,000 phono stage as being beneath them can go elsewhere as far as I'm concerned. It's only meant as an example. The point is that this is an exceptional product and anyone who has a vinyl collection that involves LPs that have any noise at all should seriously consider it before any other type of upgrade to their vinyl listening process. It's a total game changer.

@skywachr Thanks for posting in on this one!  I have read other encouraging accounts of the useful life or life expectancy of the Degritter.  It's good to know or hear that it is a robust or quality manufactured machine.  I've also read that Degritter offers re-build services for what seems like a reasonable price, although I'm not clear on what exactly that all entails (e.g.  shipping to & from Estonia; etc.).  I'm still keeping my eye out on that machine and hoping for a sale and/or a price drop.

I've discussed this with other people that have these and our unanimous observation is that the ownership of this is far more impactful on ones vinyl appreciation experience than an upgrade in a phono stage.

@skywachr I have often described proper record cleaning as the biggest upgrade I have ever experienced. I have never had any reason to change my mind on that.

 Thanks for listening to my thoughts on the Degritter. I want to ad that the wonderful results I reported were achieved in some cases with multiple runs on an Lp which is totally effortless to do, just push the button again. This was especially the case with older LPs.