[BobM]

OK, so I've had this little experiment on the back burner for about a year now. Recently I picked up an inexpensive bulk tape eraser on e-bay for the purpose of trying out magnetics on my vinyl and CD's to see if anything (yes, ANYTHING) happens. I'm not a believer that anything would, but I am open to the experiment to see for myself.

So, taking Mike fremers contention that he heard a difference on his vinyl when he used the $3000 magnetic record thingie that was advertised last year, I tried it first on some records. first listening to a song or two, then runnign the record over the bulk tape eraser slowly and listening again.

Well, as you might expect I heard no discernable difference on the songs I tried. So ... on to CD's. I first tried a decently recorded  compilation CD and, you guessed it, no difference. So I figured I would try it on some crappily recorded CD's. What's crappier than a 70's live rock album. I pulled out Yessongs and put on eart of the Sunrise. Dense music with a very flat presentation and a lot of congestion when the song gets complicated. Great performance but bad recording. sounded just as expected.

Then I ran the CD over the bulk tape eraser and tried it again. Do my ears deceive me? It has some depth and soundstage now and the congestion is gone. so I tried another dense and less than perfect sounding CD. On to the Best of ZZ Top. Same thing with the before and after. Lets try something that I know is recorded digitally and is over hot - Dave Matthews crash. Yup, a noticeable improvement afterwards. WTF??!!??

So back to the records. Yessongs sounds far better on vinyl with some sense of space to it that the CD totally lacks. No change after the magnetics that I could detect. No change with Sound chaser off of Relayer either.

Back to the CD's and something much better recorded - some Patricia Barber. Now this sounds damn good either way but I'd be lying if I said I really heard an improvement after the magnetic treatment.

So am I going crazy? Can someone please confirm what I am hearing here? Anyone else want to experiment and report back? This seems to be fairly easy to notice on bad recordings, but not on good ones and not on vinyl at all, to my ears and in my rig and in the short time I've tried it. No idea if it lasts for any length of time or if repeated treatments make it better yet.

Thanks for reading through all of this,
Bob

(PS - I posted in general because I really wasn't sure where this topic should go, and I am trying to reach a broad population and not just the Lab Geeks, who would probably just shoot this down out of hand without giving it a real try.)

[BobM]

Nope, I'm not crazy. I tried it again this morning and I can hear an improvement on those crappy CD's (still no noticeable change on records though). Ther's a few guys coming over to my place tomorrow to I'll use them as test subjects and see if they hear what I hear.

The Bendini Clarifier works on similar principles, I think. But they say it doesnt last and is only temporary. I wonder if I treat a CD and then burn a new CD from it if I will get the benefits permanently etched into the new CD? Or if it's only inherent on the plysical CD itself and not in the bits and bytes on the disk.

[Wayner]

Bob, the problem is that a "demagnetizer works on things that have magnetic properties. CDs are made from acrylic and flashed on aluminum. No magnetic things here. However, acrylic is known to be sympathetic to static charge. I have not really witnessed a static discharge when handling a CD, unlike an LP which to me is a gigantic disc capacitor. Then the other consideration is that is there enough static on a CD to influence the CD reader head or electronics? Of course, you are looking for a scientific explanation, as we all are, but I am yet to have one.

Wayner   

[Ric Schultz]

None of this is new.  Robert Harley talked about using a bulk eraser to good effect on CDs years ago in Stereophile.  Yes, a bulk eraser works, so does lots of things.  The trouble is the effect is very temporary.  Try 20 minutes into the CD and demagnetize again.....again it gets better....because it had slowly gotten worse whilst spinning.  This is the problem with all demagnetizers and destaticers......and another reason why hard drives and fixed memory sound better (all other things equalized).  However, I always zap my CDs with the Mapleshade Ionoclast....

[BobM]

Had some guys over this past weekend and ran the test past them. Basic consensus was that there was no effect on vinyl but there was a discernable but slight effect on CD's. Much more noticeable on bad 70's recordings than pristine audiophile recordings. Mostly spacial effects like depth, and better definition and separation and a little brighter perhaps.

But they also thought it seemed to wear off rather quickly. Now that could be the ears adjusting to it. Who knows. All I know is that there was a perception of improvement and definitely something to be said for the practice on bad CD's.

I still wonder if it might help when you're burning/ripping a new CD, or even to the hard drive?

[rollo]

None of this is new.  Robert Harley talked about using a bulk eraser to good effect on CDs years ago in Stereophile.  Yes, a bulk eraser works, so does lots of things.  The trouble is the effect is very temporary.  Try 20 minutes into the CD and demagnetize again.....again it gets better....because it had slowly gotten worse whilst spinning.  This is the problem with all demagnetizers and destaticers......and another reason why hard drives and fixed memory sound better (all other things equalized).  However, I always zap my CDs with the Mapleshade Ionoclast....

One of our club members is a Maplshade dealer. He demoed the Ionocast on his system. The results were noticeable and did NOT diminish as the disc played. Affective and IMO worth the price.

charles

[BobM]

The adventure continues ... Christmas Eve Update

So I played a little more last night, trying something just a little bit different. I thought ... well, if demaging a CD, which is generally non-magnetic, produces a spacial effect akin to opening up the soundstage and separating the instruments so things appear clearer, then what will happen if I actually apply this bulk tape eraser to something that IS magnetic?

So I did. I ran it over the power cords on the CD player and amp and preamp, the speaker cables, and the interconnects. I did this following the natural flow of electricity in each in the normal diurection that things would be travelling in.

Well I won't say it was miraculous and I have no idea if it is a lasting effect or not, but it seemed to produce the same effect as demagging the CD. I got a clearer soundstage with more separation of instruments and a blacker background. All this in a very subtle way though, so I can't swear that this is an absolute effect or not, and obviously I can't go backwards to prove the effect for sure. But in any case it did not change things for the worse.

Perhaps this is something similar to those system demagnifying disks and other stechniques advertised by some tweaky manufacturers. Don't know.

Anyone else want to try this and report back on your findings?

Merry Christmas,
Bob

[aerius]

What about going the other way?  What happens if you take a nice big magnet and try to magnetize one of your CDs?  Does the sound change, and can you undo the change with the demagnetizer?