The UPS guy dropped off the Audio Desk Systeme Pro this morning. To start, I am very impressed with the build quality of this unit. The pictures online don't do it justice! This is not just a glued together box, but a well engineered and integrated component made from tough industrial polymer. It is clear they spent some serious time developing this product, not to mention the money spent on the injection mold tooling. They also did not go cheap on the materials, this appears to be one tough machine! It is much heavier than you would expect. Everything looks solid but also simple as possible. I doubt a single user could wear one out in a lifetime?
Now does it work?
It took just a few minutes to add four and a half liters of distilled water, the unique additive, load my first album and push the button. Per the instructions, I also needed to start the record rotating by pushing on the edge slightly. Now comes the hard part, there is absolutly nothing for you to do for 6 minutes. Nothing. After the cycle stops, you lift out the album and it is ready to play immediately. Absolutely dry with no apparent static!
Yes the viny is clean, damn clean!
The water is completely filtered each cycle. I'm sure after a few hundred albums you may have to clean out the cavities and such but it looks easy enough to do?
To say I am impressed is a gross understatement. Does it clean as good or better than a good hand wash? Yes! I've only cleaned about 20 records now. All of these records were dirty and in my "need to be cleaned" stack. Except for a few scars, the groves are as quiet as any I've ever heard. A few of these albums were actually brand new but still had more noise than a new record should. Not any more. So far I have only used the standard cycle, but you can add 1 to 5 minutes more to the cycle if you think the record may need it.
So far so good, but what about a real dirty record? I grabbed one of my mother in laws old 45 singles. Rest her soul, she died a few years ago and we found a huge pile of old 45s in her stuff. Mostly from the 50s and early 60s. Some cool stuff but all really, really dirty. I also bought the 7" and 10" adapters, so grabbed a 45 that looked salvageable (but man was it dirty!) I put it in the adapter and loaded it into the machine. I set the timer for the max of plus 5 minutes because this guy was dirty!
Except for the label wear, it looked and played like new. Really! I did a few more with similar results and a few of the better looking ones I was able to clean on a standard cycle even though they were actually pretty dirty.
Of course, there are still a few pops and such on some of my older records, after all it will not remove scars, but I doubt you could get vinyl any cleaner than what this machine does?
Only negative is the cost. If this cleaner was 1/4 or even half the cost I'm sure it would put the competition out of business? I'm lucky to be able to make a few adjustments, and free up some money to buy one. Some of you might want to get together with your friends and buy one together for your local audio community? I'm sure this guy is built well enough to last thousands of cycles? Only expense is to buy the additive but you are still only spending $100 to clean 600 to 1200 albums (depending how dirty they are). The brushes are stated to last a few thousand cycles and are about $120 a set.
You could always rent it out?
I now consider any hardship associated with cleaning my vinyl is something of the past. End of problem for this guy!