CD mats do they work ?

[Maxxwire]

Maverick- Have you ever had the chance to audition a standalone Audiophile Grade Digital Transport?

~Maxx~

[maverick11359]

On 2008-06-18 19:37, Maxxwire wrote:
Maverick- Have you ever had the chance to audition a standalone Audiophile Grade Digital Transport?

~Maxx~

No Maxx,
            I've  never auditioned an audiophile grade transport ,only seen  not  heard..


Mav'
  

[Maxxwire]

The highly effective Mats you've been discussing are a Transport Tweak and since you are interested in upgrading this aspect of your Digital Front End I just wondered if you had ever considered upgrading to the many benefits of using an Audiophile Grade Stable Platter Transport.

~Maxx~


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

[maverick11359]

G'day Maxx,
           I thought you were talking about a stand alone transport ....But are you talking about replacing the transport in my Denon 3910 with a particular type of  audiophile transport  called a  Stable Platter Transport.

          I know some time back (a couple of years )I emailed one of the Denon 3910 main tweekers in the States asking about improvements and he stated to ship the transport out of the Denon to him for an upgrade...So obviously their's improvements to be had .

 Mav

[Maxxwire]

Maverick- I wasn't suggesting that you put a new Transport mechanism in your Denon 3910 because from all accounts it is a very fine player as is.

The reason I brought up standalone Transports was just to point out that if a Mat could have such a huge sonic impact then think what difference a standalone Transport with a Stable Platter mechanism would make. I auditioned a Counterpoint 11a once which had a Pioneer Stable Platter and it delivered an extremely low jitter Digital bitstream which was not at all in need of additional jitter reduction and sounded great running straight into a standalone DAC.

~Maxx~

[mykyll2727]

Mav_I have no experience with CD mats, but I came across a website several months ago that caused me to experiment. It's audiotweaks.com. I've heard about the green marker tweak for CDs but like many considered it voodoodust. They suggested that a black marker would work just as well. I remembered my "skepticism" with regard to resonance tuning. Skeptic is so kind. I was a true non-believer. Well as you know now I'm one of it's strongest advocates. Every piece in my system has received some sort of RT. I've proven it's effects to others. I don't claim to understand it fully, all I know is it works.

 Well I as I thought about this I decided to give a CD tweak a try. All I did was their black marker tweak on a CD-R I'd made. I've never gone the full route. Well it worked. So I decided to try it on some CDs I have that I wouldn't be destroyed if something went wrong. Again it worked. This made me begin to realise how many CDs I have with black labels. I had always thought that it was purely cosmetics. Maybe it is, then again maybe not. I have no idea. Any way I became concerned that maybe I was deluding myself. So I decided to try it on a friend without telling him what I was doing. I won't waste time time explaining what I did to keep him in the dark but he noticed it too. I've tried the experiment on a total of seven other people and six noticed the difference. Check it out and let me know what you think. If it works for you, then maybe there is something behind the idea of a CD mat, whether or not a mat actually works. Just burn two CD-Rs, tweak one and not the other and see what you think.


 PS my one of a kind Mav 3.1 is still working like a charm._Your friend, Mykl

[maverick11359]

G'day myky,
                 Good to hear the Mav 3.1 is still functioning,and your still obviously enjoying the hobbie ...I take it the tweek with the black marker is the same as the green marker pen tweek where you colour the outer edge of the cd .I tried the green a while back and couldn't pick a difference but i'll have to give the black pen a try.. I havn't tried the expensive cd matts but my friend and neighbour let me try his green mat(cost $50US) that he swares by and i found no difference with that also.

 Mav'
      

[Maxxwire]

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

I've heard many very respected Audiophiles claim that CD edge beveling is the ultimate CD Tweak...

Here is what Larry Philips had to say in his Soundstage review of the Audiodesksysteme Gläss CD Sound Improver...


My favorite vocalist these days is the late Eva Cassidy, and her Live at Blues Alley [Blix Street 10046:48e65a18] has been receiving a lot of airtime around the house. Once I’d beveled the CD’s edge, I found her voice to be more delineated and palpable against the ambience of the Blues Alley venue. Her acoustic guitar actually sounded like a hollow wooden body resonating with every pluck of a string -- it sounded real. At the beginning of "Autumn Leaves," a bit of feedback through her microphone adds to the magical sense of being there. The lathed disc was much better at revealing this magic throughout the album. No longer did I have the sense of listening in on the proceedings -- I was there with all the other patrons of the club, reveling in Cassidy’s brilliance.


In conclusion . . .


The Audiodesksysteme Gläss CD Sound Improver worked very well with all of the CDs I treated with it, and with some, the improvement was startling. Regardless of the degree or nature of the improvement wrought in any single recording, there was a consistent and substantial reduction of digital glare. The net result was more music.


Some may think $699 a lot of money to spend on a tweak, compared to many other CD treatments currently available. However, I anticipate that the CD Sound Improver will serve its owner many years, and make its cost per disc virtually negligible.

Maverick- Unlike Power Delivery Upgrades which have offered consistent audible improvements each step of the way I have never been able to get any noticeable improvement from CD Tweaks. I have noticed great improvements in sound quality from something as simple as rewiring and upgrading RCA Sockets, but whatever improvement the CD Tweaks had they managed to have escaped me. I'm not saying they can't work because many keen eared Audio enthusiasts swear by them, but it will be quite a while before I will pay $700 for this Holy Grail of effective CD Tweaks especially since Sony has just introduced BLUE LASER CD'S!


~Maxx~

[mykyll2727]

 In the list of tweaks they had for CDs edge beveling was one of them. I found that with the black marker edging along with blacking out the center hole worked. Never tried any of the others.

 Hadn't heard about blue laser Cds before. The translation leaves alittle to be desired so I wasn't a 100% clear. Are these BL discs going to be playable on red laser players, or will you need Blu Ray players? 

[Maxxwire]

According to Engadget  "Sony's back with a new format by the name Blu-spec CD. It takes advantage of (you guessed it) Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology to press new high-quality discs while somehow maintaining compatibility with regular ol' red-laser CD players."

Wouldn't it be great if some top flight mastering houses like MFSL started using these new ultra high quality discs that we could all play on our existing Digital front ends!!!  

~Maxx~


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

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