Degritter

The more I looked at it, the more I got convinced that the Degritter might actually be the pinnacle of record cleaning. I read all the reviews and got more and more excited to the point that I just had to experience it for myself. Before I dive into the results, let me explain the exact principles behind the Degritter.

Degritter – Principle

Ultrasonic cleaning works by creating a large number of microscopical bubbles in a cleaning bath, a phenomenon called cavitation. The bubbles are a vacuum created by high-frequency pressure waves moving through the water. During every ultrasonic cycle, bubbles are formed and collapsed, releasing energy as heat and minuscule strong water jets that remove dirt from the grooves as they implode against the groove surfaces. These effects combined thoroughly clean all surfaces down to a microscopic level.

The Degritter is available in silver (shown above) and black

The core of Degritter is its 120kHz ultrasonic cleaning system which provides finer and more evenly distributed cleaning action than lower-frequency systems. In fact, this technology at even higher frequencies is used to clean parts in the semiconductor industry, where surfaces need to be pure on a molecular level. The Degritter’s system has been carefully designed in-house to make sure that records are thoroughly cleaned but without any damage to the surface of the record. The standard Ultrasonic cleaner mentioned earlier uses a much lower 40kHz frequency which creates much larger bubbles that on the one hand do not permeate as deeply in the grooves and on the other hand may damage the vinyl.

Another major advantage of 120kHz versus 40kHz is that the former works almost inaudibly whereas the 40kHz as implemented in the Emmi unit creates annoyingly loud high-pitched noises. At first, they seem tolerable but the longer the unit works, the more piercing they seem to become. I’ve even found that my hearing was temporarily affected after using the Emmi for one session, in a very similar manner as to how I would feel after having been at a loud bar or a concert. So, just as I do when attending a concert, I chose to wear earplugs when using the Emmi.

The Degritter has a built-in fan that produces a friendly amount of wind noise during cleaning but the transducers seem to be entirely silent, meaning that you can even use it while listening to music, so long as you don’t start the drying process. But even with the fans on the medium setting (which is more than enough in my tests), the unit is quieter than the Matrix is Silent. Pun intended.

The bath area uses a custom 300W ultrasonic amplifier that has been designed specifically for cleaning vinyl records. The cleaning bath has four ultrasonic transducers (emitters), two on both sides covering the whole record. Degritter also comes with a Frequency Sweep feature, which provides better cavitation energy and power distribution. Degritter is the only cleaning solution on the market working at 120kHz as well as having the Frequency Sweep feature.

Active Filtering

The Degritter also has an active filtering solution that removes small particles and dirt from the water during each ultrasonic cleaning process. This way, dirt that is washed off the record is filtered out of the ultrasonic cleaning bath and it won’t end up back on the record. The filtering solution works by circulating water through the filter and then back into the bath while your record is being cleaned. Water is pulled into the filter from the top of the tank in order to remove all floating dust and particles. Heavy particles that settle at the bottom will be pumped out to the external water tank, which has a dedicated sediment section.

(Used filter shown before replacement, new ones are bright yellow)

The filter is easily accessible from the side of the machine. It is made up of a cylindrical steel mesh that contains a replaceable open cell foam filter. The outer part of the filter is washable, which makes for easy maintenance and upkeep.

The Degritter is all-aluminum, even the rotary dials are made from aluminum and they feel very solid

Adjustable fan speed and power

In order to give users complete control over drying fan speed, and by extension, its noise, the unit comes with 20 different fan power settings that can be selected. Setting the Fan Power to high will dry the record quicker, but it will also generate a significant amount of noise. On low settings, the fans will be almost inaudible, but the drying will take longer.

Safety

The Degritter is equipped with multiple sensors to constantly monitor the state of the machine. This way the machine is able to detect and safely recover from any unexpected use cases like loss of power during the ultrasonic washing or if the water temperature rises to unsafe levels for vinyl. As an extra safety net, there are also software subroutines checking the status of the sensors to prevent any unexpected failures due to sensor malfunction.

The unit is capable of recovering from and warning users in the following situations:

• sensor malfunction
• water temperature too high
• water in the cleaning tank due to switching off during wash
• external water tank missing
• insufficient water
• pump failures

Every Degritter machine comes with a bottle of 40ml cleaning fluid concentrate. It’s not mandatory to use it, but it does have certain benefits. The concentrate is made out of anionic surfactants which help remove the dirt. It’s safe to use and won’t harm the vinyl. The recommended dosage is 1 to 2 ml of concentrate per water tank. This creates a solution where the surface tension is lowered enough to allow ultrasonic energy to break the water more easily while anionic molecules are delicately extracting the dirt from adjacent surfaces.

Here’s what the cleaning fluid can do:

• Further improves the cleaning effect
• Shortens the drying time
• Creates an antistatic layer

The Degritter comes with various accessories, all you need to get started and keep you going for quite some time

Next: Ultrasonic Cleaning to the test

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