Coincidentally, I did a bunch of brass cleaning today too. I just got an ultrasonic cleaner and wanted to test it against my tumbler. The ultrasonic does a good job, as does the tumbler. Neither is better, or worse, than the other. With a tumbler you pretty much dump everything in there, turn it on, and forget about it for a while. Ultrasonic takes more "hands on" and you have to tend to it regularly (to stir the cases, restart the cycle - which is short- etc.)

Because you also have to rinse several times after ultrasonic, then air dry for a few hours, I think I prefer the set-and-forget tumbler. When the tumbler is done, you just dump the media out of the cases and you're ready to go on to the next reloading step (which is visual inspection per my routine). With the ultrasonic, you have to wait for the cases to dry, which takes a few hours.

On .223, the ultrasonic did a slightly better job than the tumbler, but not by a great margin. However, on .45colt, the tumbler did a better job than the ultrasonic. Both produced nicely cleaned cases suitable for use in your die sets. But both also left some tarnish and stains on the cases. The looked good, but not "brand new". That is not something I care about. As long as it's clean, that's all I care about.

Now I have a bazillion cases I need to visually inspect. That is my 3rd least favorite task. My 1st least favorite is trimming bottleneck cases. 2nd least favorite is resizing bottleneck cases (because you have to lube them, then clean afterwards).

Favorite cartridge to reload is .45colt. Everything is so large and easy to handle. Unfortunately, the case is so big compared to the charge you put in it, you have to be careful (or use high-volume TrailBoss powder). If I'm out of TrailBoss, I use something on the opposite end - TiteGroup. Very low-volume, but it is not position sensitive, so it works well in that mostly empty gigantic case. 45colt is also my favorite to shoot. Both in SAA revolvers and lever guns.