Does Digital Try Too Hard?

1) CD demagnetization is essential

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make the claim that whatever a demagnetizer does to a CD is fixing a fundamental problem of the CD medium. Every time I demag, I am happily surprised and think to myself, “this is what CDs are supposed to sound like.” I’ve made demagging part of my pre-listening ritual. It drastically knocks down digital glare.

2) Schumann resonator placement matters

I had one of my Schumann resonators on top of my speaker. I moved it directly on top of my CD player. Some frequencies were much improved. Others weren’t. The best location was closer to my CD player but not too close. It actually increased digital glare by behind too close. 

3) Battery powering the front end is a great idea

I have finally got my entire front end on battery power and the digital glare is virtually non-existent! Most analog sound that’s ever come out of my system. Dynamics don’t collapse like many people say. Of course I’m using large batteries which appears to be essential when using battery power supplies. I’ve got each component on its own battery and power supply. The takeaway here is that one should provide the cleanest power possible to their front end gear and when they think it’s as clean as it gets, make it cleaner. Moving my front end gear to dedicated battery power supplies has been the most impressive upgrade and now I’m wondering why it wasn’t the first audio project I did. Clean power is that essential.