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