CD vs. SACD vs. DVD-Audio vs Vinyl vs...

Yes and No. I followed the development of a competitive automotive product "331" that specifically competes against Armor All. It was formulated by a chemical engineer eliminating all of the dehydrating chemicals used in Armor All. The president of this company is a tennis buddy of mine and he showed me test comparisons on various rubber compounds from tires to, hoses and small flex parts. Several hundred samples made up the tests. Each test had at least three new rubber samples of untreated, Armor All treated, and 331 treated all taken through an aging process. Armor All treated samples exhibited most aging and dehydration results much worst than the untreated samples. Simply put, it shortens rubber life. 331 slightly extended life while still creating much of the beautifying effects that Armor All produces when first applied. However, since 331 didn't win the first impression appearance tests it remains a very poor seller. Since that really why most people buy Armor All. This proved to be a sad investment cycle for my tennis buddy. Being in the market first, and producing the most pronounced visual immediate improvement wins the game, not something that is really better for the rubber. Again, you may feel that you are getting improvement, but seeing what I have seen leads me to conclude NEVER put Armor All on rubber, not even my tires on my M5. Like I said, my opinion is that the natural flexibility and memory life span of that rubber used in cartridges will exceed the normal audiophile's interest in the cartridge. I have about 10-15 cartridges going all the way back to Shure, Supex, Decca, Grado, Denon, Spectral, Clearaudio, Cardas, Koetsu on forward. I haven't experienced the problem you're describing. Your opinion is yours. I chosen a different process to use based on seeing some information and my own intuition. I am happy for you that you are seeing good results. Just as a follow up though, I'll look through a microscope at the rubber condition on some of my stored old cartridges when I get around to that. Gerrym5

Amazing response there Gerrym. Who would have thought anyone would have such personal experience regarding a maintenance product like Armor All. I won't use it again. Funny, I used to have some hand painted leather cushions on a 50s' chair. Occasionally I would put Armor All on to shine it a bit. Over the years it did show signs of drying. I don't know if this was due to my youthful lack of furniture maintenance expertise or the Armor All, but now I have my suspicions. Carl, I will eventually check out a state of the art high end vinyl rig in order to be a better participant, but I will remain a digital user and be happy that there are those of you unwilling to settle for anything but the best sound available, keeping some magazine writers on their toes and not letting big companies get away with too much hype.

Another source of information for those of you interested, MUSE has web site started now- may want to check it out, there's a review of Muse product along with a interview with Muse Designer as well. www.MuseElectronics.com

Gerry, I apologize for seeming like such an unevolved human to you here. As you say, your opinion and your experience are yours. (And do you even wash the M5 yourself, I doubt you do.) Saying things like "Armor All aged the rubber worse than no treatment at all", just sounds extremely silly to me, and defies logic and the experience of me and a multitude of other happy users of the product. I've used it for 14 years on plastics and rubber, and it always eliminated the aging process altogether. Zero. I feel that having a friend that had a competing product has surely scewed your objectivity here. Of course their testing would be designed to make their product seem superior. Whether or not the 331 actually was better in the long run, I don't know. You stating that it DID is not verifiable proof that it did, nor is it proof that Armor All ages rubber more quickly than using no treatment at all. IMHO, that's like saying "the sky isn't blue". TO BMPNYC: If you used Armor All on leather, that's a stupid thing to do! There are plenty of specialized leather oil treatments on the market that you should have known to use. And, I am not a proponet of solely listening to vinyl, I just feel that vinyl is where everyone's primary investment should be right now. I enjoy CD's on my CD50, and feel that it's as good or better than the best digital frontend Gerry or Albert has every owned or tried, period! And it's at least as good as the best non-upsampled red book source you've heard in the studio or in your buddie's homes, too. Better in many ways, because it doesn't go through a linestage, and doesn't control volume by harming the digital domain. It controls it with the best attenuators in the world. If Wadia made an upsampling all-in-one-player (CD/DVD-A) with their terrific slow roll off digital filter (and kept it from rolling off the top octave), and sold it for under $5000, they'd really have something!

Carl, I wouldn't call spraying a dash of Armor All on a cushion stupid. At the time I wasn't certain it was leather and thought it was probably vinyl, besides at 20 years old when a girl was coming over any minute I would use just about anything to clean up a bit when rushing. I would love to buy a decent CD player now, but I feel that I can live with my Sony DVD-S7700 and my CDP-CA9 ES until multi- format SACD,DVD-A players become available. Do you think that Vibra Pods would help a bit? Have you heard Harmonic Technology cables?