I've cleaned around 30 odd LPs now with the HumminGuru and overall I have to say that I'm impressed. Before I bought this I was using a Pro-Ject VC-S2 vacuum machine with a citrus/distilled water mixture - seen next to my new HumminGuru.
The HG came with a free cover and 'little bottle' of cleaner, and the cost delivered and including taxes was around 375 GBP I think. As noted previously, the speed of delivery was very impressive - only a couple of days from HK to the UK, even around Christmas! I used 2 or 3 drops of the little bottle mixed with distilled water, as directed by HG. I'm going to try the cleaning regime detailed previously on this thread when the 'little bottle' runs out, which will be quite a while yet. When the US cleaner is running it's too noisy (IMO) to have running whilst listening, but not as a noisy as the Pro-Ject and each cycle only takes 10 minutes ish so can just be done in another room whilst getting on with other things. Plus, the cycle is automated and the machine can be left unattended to do its thing, cleaning and then drying ready for the next one - very convenient and the drying cycle is not that noisy at all. The duration of drying can also be altered between 5-10 minutes.
Most of my records are pretty clean as they've all been through the Pro-Ject already and I'm relatively picky about where I buy them from (or at least I try to be), but there were still a minority that had residual noise on them before a clean with the HG. I think that this probably reflects a combination of poor pressings (e.g. 'confessin the blues' vol 1 and 2 - great music, poor quality LPs), old second hand vinyl that's not been cared for, or a combination of the two. New and/or good vinyl comes up very well indeed, both visually and audibly. Bad pressings and damaged LPs, unsurprisingly, remain bad records (which annoyingly includes original pressings of Leftfield 'Leftism' and Iron Maiden's 'A Real Live One'), but it seems to me that the HG makes a good albeit slightly dirty record that much cleaner and therefore quieter in comparison to a record that has been vacuum cleaned. The difference isn't night and day between the Pro-Ject and the HG, and subtle, but real, at least based on my initial impressions. With some of my records I noticed a further slight improvement over the Pro-Ject (noting that I'd previously cleaned them with that) e.g. Mofi mastered SRV 'Couldn't stand the weather' and 'The Blues - a Real Summit Meeting' - now both dead silent with no crackles, and great pressings of great music to boot (IMO!).
My initial impressions are that the HG is very good, especially for the money. I was going to buy a Degritter but was dragging my feet a bit, mainly because of the price. Maybe the Degritter is better than the HG, but I imagine that it's probably not 7-8 times better and I'm quite happy with the HG. I think that an US cleaner of some sort is probably the way to go with vinyl cleaning and don't see the Pro-Ject getting that much use now. Time will tell but it's all looking good at this early stage!
Tangram, you've got me intrigued to see if 6 drops will give better or worse results regarding cleaning vs surface noise from any residual cleaning fluid - I'm only putting each record through one cycle, not an additional rinse with pure distilled afterwards.