Even if the ink on a CD contains some small amount of magnetic materials I am still not sure why it would matter. The interface between the player and the disk is a laser. Is there any practical examples of a magnet effecting a light? I can't think of anything. We also can't forget that the digital stream isn't trying to differentiate among millions of nearly identical results, there are two possible outcomes. The A/D conversion and the rest of the analog signal path is a different story. |
I did a little quick research and it appears that CD players use photon lasers. Photons have no charge and therefore would not be effected by a magnetic field.
Can someone explain what the mechanism is for magnetic ink to influence the playback of a CD in a negative way, or at all? I would guess the ink explaination came up as a response to people first becoming skeptical of the product as it was first advertised. |
Pseudo science at best misapplying concepts in such a way that it sounds good to the consumer. |
The type of marketing takes me back to the F-150 commercials when Mike Rowe first became involved with the "new" truck. It must have been about 2004 since that is when I purchased a Tundra after driving all of the half ton trucks. The commercial claimed that the F-150 has the most low end torque in class and the seat of my pants told me otherwise. I recorded the commercial and paused it to read the fine print. The actual fact was that the F-150 had the highest percentage of peak torque at 800 rpm. I just laughed when I read it. By law they have to make factual claims, but it is very easy to mislead.
I don't think there are any regulations for advertising in audio so... |
Magazine reviewers are biased to be positive if they want to continue doing reviews.
There is a lot of science to support the idea that your assumption that it works will allow you to convince yourself that it works. Call it placebo or something else. There comes a point where it is no longer possible to hear the difference even if it were there. There is a lot of scientifically measurable aspects of audio equipment that cannot be heard by the listener. I highly doubt this effect has ever been measured and likely is undetectable. |
Jea48 - Here's a little order of magnitude experiment for you to do. Find a way to isolate a CD player from your system such that you have no physical connection with it from your listening position. Then have someone pick the CD player up and move it around while you're listening and see if you can tell when the CD player is stationary and when it is being moved. Obviously, the goal isn't to make the CD player skip or identify connection issues from the cables being moved. You should use a long digital connection to isolate the disk to laser interface from the A/D conversion. If you listen for a reasonable period of time and have no way of telling if the person is in control of the CD player has "left the building" or not you will not be able to tell the difference if you're being completely honest with yourself. You must be able to tell when the CD player is picked up and set back down. Take note of the times and compare your notes after the fact with the other person.
Moving the CD player around will, in my opinion, have a much more significant effect on playback than the magnetic ink on the disk will have. If you can't hear the more significant one, then you cannot hear the less significant one. |
I have compared $7 hardware store speaker cable to a pair of $2,000 Nordost, I think, on a very nice system. I did hear a tiny difference that I would say was an improvement, but I didn't think it was worth the extra $1,993 dollars it would take to upgrade. My new $600 tube amplifier made a much more significant improvement than a cable ever could.
If I am ignorant on this topic in your opinion, that's perfectly ok with me. Enjoy listening to your system. |
As a final thought, are you concerned with the magnetic field your speakers put out impacting the playback of your CD player? A lot of speakers are shielded so maybe yours are? This would be a perfect example of a much stronger magnetic field that it is very likely in a reasonably close proximity to your CD player. |
Specifically, I remember one particular person that left the industry and provided their thought afterwords. I thought I saw it on audiogon, at least the link. If I get time I will try to dig it up.
Generally, I have never read a truly negative review in an audio magazine which leads one to assume that they will praise anything that is put in front of them. Admittedly, I so t read a lot of reviews so maybe my sampling isn't representative. |
Zd542 - The article is titled Ethics and the Audiophile Press and was written by Roger Skoff. You can Google it. |
I repent if that is the article I am remembering. It is actually showing the opposite. It seems familiar so I was just admit to being wrong with having a specific example. This doesn't change my opinion of the thread subject though. |
I use Blue Jeans Cables because from my research on what aspects of cable design impact spin quality the most. My conclusion was that the gage of the cable reducing the resistance so I have 10 awg cables. Did I hear a difference? Not definitively, but they are well made affordable cables that make swapping my speakers from my receiver to my tube amplifier a quick process.
When it comes to bias, simply listening for a change is enough to hear a change. If it is a tweak then any change is likely to be interpreted as positive because that is the suggested outcome. This is true for a lot more than just audio... |
