So, fellow forum member ZLS came over last week and brought a bunch of goodies for us to play with (as he always does!). One of them was the Ultrabit Platinum CD enhancer. I'd heard of this product a while back, but never thought to pursue it further as the logic behind it sounded (somewhat) reasonable to discs being played back in real time (in a CD player or transport/dac combo), but didn't follow through to ripping discs for playback in a computer audio setup (which I do exclusively).
I gave Z Pink Floyd's disc 1 from The Wall (an album whose every nuance is permanently burnt in my head) and he treated it, which basically consisted of applying a few drops of the product on both (!!) sides of the disc and then gently wiping with an appropriate disc-cleaning cloth. Upon visual inspection after application, the disc was definitely more luminous and shiny (and my discs aren't dirty).
I then ripped the treated disc to AIFF files and tagged them with -Treated in the album name field. I now had the ability to quickly switch between the original rip and the 'treated' rip. The results? More sonic information. We spent a good deal of time going back and forth with the first 20-odd seconds of Mother. Guitar harmonics were more pronounced, and fuller. Overall it affected the mids and in a good way. Not believing what I was hearing, I then proceeded to randomly switch tracks while Z was in the listening chair. He was able to identify the treated track every time.
I wish I knew how it worked, but it does. And now I'm possibly contemplating a library re-rip.
PS: We also did a great comparison between two highly regarded USB dacs.
