Anybody with cd/lp demagnatizer?

Along with superfuses, it has to be a joke.
My philosophy is simple.
Plug it in and listen.
If no audible difference there is your
Answer.

 

Thanks Steve! I appreciate it.

So the reason I requested to have this thread reopened is that I just have gained some valuable personal experience.

A good friend who has more money than time had bought a Stein DE3 Demag about a year ago. He used to be excited about using it, but over time, became more and more lazy and simply skipped "zapping" the records before playing them back.

I visited him yesterday and saw it propped up against the wall collecting dust. I didn't think much of it at the moment as I was laser focused on dismantling his Kuzma XL4 turntable and reinstalling it on a new Minus K vibration absorbing platform he just bought for $7,000 dollars. Took about 7 hours or so to get everything setup and dialed in again. Finally sat down and listened and all that work was WELL worth it. His analog vinyl rig sound reproduction went up a quite a few levels. We were both very happy!

Long story short, I came back home with the DE3 just to give it a try if I liked it. I just wanted to try and see what happens in my own system. Indulging with this device at $3000 plus for possible hocus pocus, just isn't the way I operate. However, if I liked it, I can get it for "next to nothing". Can't go wrong with that.

Well, I just zapped my second record and felt compelled to come here and report.

The before and after is NOT subtle in my personal experience with this unit! Here is what I heard on BOTH records I have tried so far.

The sound of instruments is simply more open against a slightly darker background. There is a relatively LARGE increase in perceived soundstage. The cymbals have lost a slight glare and seem to be more resonant. I can hear the cymbals more clearly, just without the etch, yet CLEARLY more defined. The second disc is this new Kenny Dorham - Trompeta Toccata on the new Blue Note 80 vinyl reissue series.
Kenny's trumpet and Henderson's tenor have clearly gained more richness and brassiness. The bass played by Richard Davis has gained more voluptuousness, slightly more rich again.
Maybe the best thing is, I can go higher up on the volume dial and things just get bigger without anything "hitting" me in the face.

Now, luckily I also have a second copy that is not zapped on the DE3 so I can compare (I bought from Amazon and got a replacement copy as the cover on the first one had a split spline in shipping).
Anyhow, the unzapped disc confirmed what I was hearing. No change in volume at all to keep it all the same, the unzapped disc had a smaller soundstage, instruments lost dimensionality, cymbals seemed to have gained that etch (not offensive at all, just present) and there was a gained "tension" in the sound. Still fantastic sounding, but not what is on the demagnetized disc.

Even if something challenges my more "engineering" mindset, I also trust what I am hearing as well. As time has gone by in this hobby, I have learned to go back and forth from my engineering knowledge and openness to something new that I can hear. Some things are undeniable and even if they don't make "sense" the proof lies in the listening and being open to new experiences. I feel more comfortable with that now as opposed to earlier in my audio pursuit

Before this post gets too long (I know too late for that), I think this unit is going to stay at my place and be put to good use. This unit is very expensive, but the results are worth it for me. I would have bought it at retail knowing what I know now, even if it is painful to spend so much on a GASP "Demagnetizer". I feel people need to hear this effect and see what this is all about FIRST hand. Not reviews, not forums, not hearsay. Experience it one on one. I would even look into the cheaper Furutech Demagnetizers and other Demag units. Just experience it...

Finally, YES, this stuff WORKS! I'll post back if I have any new revelations.

 

Nice review of your experience. I found the same using an inexpensive tape head demagnetizer on LPs and CDs. I must confess that like your friend I got lazy and haven’t done much demagnetizing for a long while. I’ll have to get it out tomorrow and give it a go once more.

 

When I demag records, I find they sound less attractive.

 

I won’t be surprised if I come across a a record where it does that for me as well. So far, very happy with it! Could be system and setup dependent etc. so many variables here that the only thing that makes sense is trying it in your own setup and have your own personal experience. Best thing is to report why you hear, I feel it is definitely worth experimenting with.

 

Are you able to do a before and after needledrop?

 

I could be wrong but I thought that was a magnet joke

 

Needledrop, please.

 

What you're proposing is not observability in any scientific sense. Scientific proof to support an observation occurs not from the initial observation itself, but rather from a process of stripping away all extraneous influences and inadvertent biases to see or hear what remains. Often, in the process of objectively determining what caused the original observation, one thing or another that is stripped away during the duplication or experimentation effort also takes the observation with it.

 

Lots of people believe in lots of things. The article is a goofy litany of baseless propositions that are entirely absent any foundation of fact or rationality for pursuit. In the end, the writer quotes one of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter characters. It is impossible to take such audio articles seriously. The article essentially reveals that the author knows nothing about the subject but posits anyway that something might be happening.

His anecdote about hallway listening skips conveniently over the obvious and simplest explanation that once something is heard, an almost immediate subsequent re-hearing often seems more detailed. The well established reason is simply that the second hearing no longer emerges from a background while your attention is wholly or partially elsewhere.

Instead though, the author tries to engage his readers in an amateur dissertation that amounts to pseudo-science and obvious bias. Of course, on that basis, I have no doubt that a number of readers subsequently purchased LP or CD demagers. For the magazine, QED.

 

Yeah, right! And the Coriolis effect upon the the turntables in the southern hemisphere makes the sound more punchy.

 

Here's a test for people with these CD/LP demagnetizers: put an audio or video tape on it, and then hit the button to demagnetize it. If the tape was not completely erased, then your device didn't really do much.

Or better yet, put your credit card on it, and see if it still works afterwards.

 

It doesn't work on CDs, at least I couldn't hear a difference.

 

Nobody ever suggested that demagnetizer products aren't actually demagnetizers, only that they quite naturally cannot do anything beneficial to materials that aren't magnetic or magnetized in the first place.

 

Wasn’t there evidence that some cds did benefit from demag on some systems? It was the paint on the cd that had a tiny charge. Cds without paint were not improved with the demag. Wasn’t this covered here in the forums?