CD mats do they work ?

[dontsleep33]

Maxx-

I've listened to music on full dc power and battery packs.No ac involved.
Does it sound better than "dirty" ac? I suppose it could if the line was bad enough but in my house there is no difference in sound quality between dc and ac sound.

[Maxxwire]

dontsleep- That's exactly it!  The specific things that work and don'twork as well in your Audio System , my Audio System and Joe's  AudioSystem will vary, but the underlying  principals are still constantand the one and only way to find out if something works or not for yourequipment is to try it. The only true mistake you can make is to rule outupgrades that might have worked had they been implemented.

I must admit that my stint as a professional Musician was over 30 yearsago and I am far on the other side of that hill from you, but I stillhave that Musician's ear that you and Joe have and I had to put it tothe extreme test when I Resonance Tuned my Audio System. I had so many weaklinks that it took me over 4 years to finally be able to hear somesignificant improvements, but it turned out to be the biggest 'bang forthe buck' series of upgrades I did. The transparency of the AudioSystem started soaring when I began combining Rigid Coupling like BDR Cones...



along with methods of Decoupling...



Placing this Townshend Seismic Sink with its well dampened Pneumatic Decoupling which is effective down to 1 hz on a set of BDR Cones under my Hybrid Tube Preamp was the single most startling and substantial sonic upgrsde that I have ever heard in all of the 600+  upgrades I have done and it cost <$100!

I'll level with you and acknowledge that when I explain Resonance Tuning to my 30 year old son who is a graduate of the USC School of Architecture his eyes roll back in his head so I completely familiar with your scepticism. What I do find odd though is that my son can explain to me in engineering terms exactly why they Mass Loaded the Taipei 101, but he fails to understand the benefit of Mass Loading Audio equipment.  

Resonance Tuning is so complicated and so difficult to get just exactly right that its really not something that you would want to spend your youth doing. Perhaps when you grow old as I have you might take some time to see if old Maxx was right about the effectiveness of Resonance Tuning.

That said, I will leave you with you one very solid piece of advise and that is to diligently protect your hearing. The only way I have been able to maintain the acuity of my Musician's ear is to wear 30 dB noise reduction earplugs each and every time I leave home because they are the most important piece of equipment and they can't be upgraded. Its a sonic jungle out there!

~Maxx~

[dontsleep33]

Maxx-
When someone can successfully ABX these tweaks and be truthful of the results then I will believe it's possible.Until then it's like a conversation about weather God is real or not.Neither side can prove or disprove it unless God meets the both of us together

[maverick11359]

G'day guys,
               
          dontsleep33 I had to have a laugh not at you but at the situation topic,,,,your half a world away and have exactly the same point of veiw as many of my fellow Aussies had a couple of years back,don't misunderstand me either ,everyone has a right to their own opinion and has the right to voice it, that's the great part of these forums and that's why where all close mates at Agora.  

           I joined our local Aussie forum a couple of years ago and I was basically shot to pieces for my tweeking ideas,so in the end I didn't hang around they weren't ready for change.The trouble with some of my fellow audiophile country men is that they don't like change or what seems to be out there ideas, unless (LOL)  its written in black and white ,proof read, tested for 10 years ,and it comes with a beer and beer coaster to kick back and relax with.(LOL)

            I respect the way you've stated your opinion and hope that you understand like Maxx and Joe  mine is generally 180degrees the opposite to yours in direction . As a 34 year experienced Electricain and 49 year young Aussie ,I decided a long time ago it dosn't cost anything to except most peoples ideas and listen to everyones opinions ....it's simple' I  just test them for myself before I incorperate them or dismiss them.....

            If you get a chance to look back through this DIY forum you'll also see like Maxx and Joe from my posts I have tweeked my system with many steps over the years ,building my own Power cords,Power conditioners,Interconnect cables,External crossovers and the list goes on and on , I'm happy to say even selling some along the way on ebay.com to make a small profit,,,so importantly to me IMHO my system  has all the advantages of highend tweeks at a buget cost .
            
           My point being you don't have to spend a fortune to get fantastic results ,that's the fun side of the hobby , experimenting when it doesn't hurt the hip pocket.

           To get back to the topic at hand ,I've had a little fun writing an email to MARIGO AUDIO  , I don't mind you having aread if you want I'm waiting for a responce:-


Subject :-please convince me your CD mat works


  

Hi' ,
             I am a true believer in Hearing is believing, I've completely tweeked my mid range Denon /Rotel/SonyES system with power conditioners , resonnance cones,silver interconnects and power leads,  purecopper speaker cables, rebuilt my crossovers with mundorf caps/ metal oxide resistors and finished with room accoustic treatments and everyone of them has made a huge substantial improvement ,that could be heard ...

          Having said all that you can see I'm very open minded and love tweeks,so just yesterday I tried my friends (with Passlabs/Jmlabs system) SID CD mat in my  Denon 3910 SACD player and dissapointingly it appeared to do absolutely nothing...........I wanted to hear a difference so my wife did a blind A-B test on me and tested with the SID mat in and out on the same 30seconds piece of music ,,,,result  
(I said the mat was in when it wasn't )," 3 times i got it wrong".I couldn't tell

       So my question, How does your mat out perform the SID ,How can I now convince my wife that a $200 dollar CD mat  will outperform the SID CD mat that obviously to her accomplished nothing.

     How do I convince my wife to allow me to buy your Mat.

       Richard.


     

[Maxxwire]

On 2008-06-14 02:28, dontsleep33 wrote:
Maxx-
Neither side can prove or disprove it unless God meets the both of us together:-p

You must have missed my point among all of the 1,000's of Posts I've made on this subject and that is that I am not trying to convince you or anyone else of anything, but rather transparently as possible documenting the results of the detailed experiments that I have done on my Audio System over the last 8 years. The fact that Joe, Maverick and 10,000's of other knowledgeable Audiophiles from around the world agree with the resuts I painstakingly reported over 100's and 100's of hours at the keyboard is not just some unexplainable coincidence of global proportion.

I wish you well with your ABX feuled flatlander approach to Audio, but its sad to see such a bright young man with a good ear and Musical talent put on the blinders, ignore all truth from derived by any criteria except his own for no better reason than the results of most highly effective upgrades simply can't be ABX'd and settle into such a hopelessly boring rut with the rest of the subjectivist ABX'ers who's self righteous dogmatic opinion has been banned on every reputable Audio discussion board that I know of. What an unfortunate turn of events for you to turn from your days as a promising Purist Subjectivist ways to the widely banned objectivist Brotherhood of the ABX Machine.

~Maxx~


-----------------
A Satisfied Sony Fan Since 1974!

[dontsleep33]

Maxx-
Where is this ABX brotherhood and how can I sign up? lol. Just kidding.

Anyhow,maverick11359,jttar and Maxx,Thank you for your suggestions and viewpoints.Even if we disagree about tweaks we still all love music and like it to sound good so we're not too far away from each other after all.

[Maxxwire]

dontsleep- I hope that your ABX adventure pans out and brings the kind of true sonic realism to your Audio System that you are seeking. It is refreshing to know that you are still so open minded when it comes to other Audiophiles' approach to fine tuning their Audio Systems. I'm very glad that you reincarnated your presence here at Agoraquest and I'm looking forward to hearing about the interesting discoveries that your chosen path leads you to. We don't all have to agree on methodology as long as we each reach our own respective goals in Audio reproduction.

~Maxx~

[tcgalo]

On 2008-06-14 03:27, maverick11359 wrote:
G'day guys,
               
          
Hi' ,
             I am a true believer in Hearing is believing, I've completely tweeked my mid range Denon /Rotel/SonyES system with power conditioners , resonnance cones,silver interconnects and power leads,  purecopper speaker cables, rebuilt my crossovers with mundorf caps/ metal oxide resistors and finished with room accoustic treatments and everyone of them has made a huge substantial improvement ,that could be heard ...

          Having said all that you can see I'm very open minded and love tweeks,so just yesterday I tried my friends (with Passlabs/Jmlabs system) SID CD mat in my  Denon 3910 SACD player and dissapointingly it appeared to do absolutely nothing...........I wanted to hear a difference so my wife did a blind A-B test on me and tested with the SID mat in and out on the same 30seconds piece of music ,,,,result  
(I said the mat was in when it wasn't )," 3 times i got it wrong".I couldn't tell

       So my question, How does your mat out perform the SID ,How can I now convince my wife that a $200 dollar CD mat  will outperform the SID CD mat that obviously to her accomplished nothing.

     How do I convince my wife to allow me to buy your Mat.

       Richard.


     

That is such a good letter you wrote to Marigo or whatever his name is....try to get a sample from him and see if it works...and then give us a feedback. I like tweaks, but tweaks that have something to do with the media itself...in this case CD or laser tracking in this case, laser absorption....I stay away from....

Now, Back To The Mat Subject

The reason I stay away from that tweak is because I made my own mat....with green for the so called absorption and tried it... I could not tell a difference when the thing was in or out and I just got rid of it...

That thing claiming that the cut-outs in the mat are cut out to enhance audio is absolutely ridiculous....exactly, how is a cut-out in the mat suppose to change the laser reading....or make it better so that it picks up details that were not there?

Anyway, I think a difference in sound comes from the output stage...and this Marigo guy is making a lot of money selling a 200.00 mat that suppossedly improves audio quality...

I would rather spend the 200.00 on dampening/dispersion of the room treatment than on snake oil...cause to me, that is exactly what the mat is...

Is the audiophile market so corrupt that we try everything that anyone comes out with claiming to improve audio quality? No one would ever know the perfect system in this World as there is always a tweak to take it to the next level...Honestly, WHEN IS IT ENOUGH!!!!!

[dontsleep33]

On 2008-06-14 22:45, tcgalo wrote:

No one would ever know the perfect system in this World as there is always a tweak to take it to the next level...Honestly, WHEN IS IT ENOUGH!!!!!

You got it.

[jttar]

On 2008-06-14 11:34, dontsleep33 wrote:

Anyhow,maverick11359,jttar and Maxx,Thank you for your suggestions and viewpoints.Even if we disagree about tweaks we still all love music and like it to sound good so we're not too far away from each other after all.

dontsleep,

That is one of the nice points of Agoraquest. Instead of flaming each other because we don't agree, we respect  each others opinions and are not offended. You are absolutely correct that our common love is music and we share in that.

Still, stay open minded and give some of the almost free tweaks listed in the part of the forum a try. Even if for nothing more then to know that they did or didn't make a difference in your system.

Joe