Machina Dynamica New Dark Matter CD and Blu Ray tray treatment?
This is a set of adhesive-backed thin plastic pieces that one attaches to one’s transport or player disc tray. The disk rests on them during non-spin mode, but presumably don’t touch the applied thin pieces during playback mode. The company says the new Dark Matter pieces reduces background scattered light from reaching the photodetector, thereby improving performance.
Anyone tried this product? Please specify transport or player if you have and your impressions.
Here’s another pop quiz. a) Given the speed of light and the small quarters inside a CD player compartment, what difference does it make if the light, regardless of wavelength is scattered or not ? The sensor detects the light at the same time whether scattered, reflected or direct.
b) Also black matter being black only means it absorbs the light we can see, just like other black things. That alone provides no evidence that either IR or UV wavelengths are absorbed. Even if it was proven to absorb IR, and other black things not, it would not seem to matter given point a).
BTW water absorbs IR frequencies. You might moisten some white matter, stick it in there, and put black matter to shame.
Not to mention that unless the compartment is totally sealed in material absorbing the laser frequencies, some nasty light might still get reflected!!!! Watch out!!
BTW, anyone know the actual EM frequency range that sensors used in CD players actually detect? That would be a good start to know what will be most effective in absorbing the light, not that it is likely to matter....
BTW rumor also has it windmills cause cancer. Go Figure!
mapman15,742 posts04-04-2019 8:48pmHere’s another pop quiz. a) Given the speed of light and the small quarters inside a CD player compartment, what difference does it make if the light, regardless of wavelength is scattered or not ? The sensor detects the light at the same time whether scattered, reflected or direct.
>>>>You’re no fun, Moops. You just answered your own question.
moopman b) Also black matter being black only means it absorbs the light we can see, just like other black things. That alone provides no evidence that either IR or UV wavelengths are absorbed. Even if it was proven to absorb IR, and other black things not, it would not seem to matter given point a).
moopman BTW, anyone know the actual EM frequency range that sensors used in CD players actually detect? That would be a good start to know what will be most effective in absorbing the light, not that it is likely to matter...
>>>>Yes. I do. Now, see if you can guess what frequency range the CD laser operates at.
Moops, did you forget to take your smart pill today? If the scattered light is always in the background then it can get into the photodetector at times when there is supposed to be no light detected, i.e., when the laser beam is over a “pit.” When the laser beam is over a “land” the full reflected signal is registered by the photodetector for that short period of time. Obviously, you don’t want any scattered light to get into the photodetector during periods when there should be no reflected signal. Follow?
"When the laser beam is over a “land” the full reflected signal is registered by the photodetector for that short period of time."
Are you certain about that claim, professor? What if it is only 1/3 of the reflected signal? What happens to the remainder 2/3 of the reflected signal?
There is a threshold for detection. Light signals less than 75% full reflected power will not be detected. This is very good news because it means we don’t have to completely eliminate the background scattered light, just reduce it sufficiently in intensity. Think if the inside of the transport compartment like a light bulb lit up by scattered light. You just want to turn the brightness down a bit.
To repeat an earlier post of mine, does it rely on surface plasmon resonances for light absorption through the utilization of specific nanoparticles tuned to absorb specific wavelengths or frequency ranges?
The facts that (1) there’s a threshold of detection for the photodector and that (2) the Red Book committee hired “coding experts” Reed and Solomon, a couple of older conservative types, to come up with some hairy far out error detection/correction codes leads me to believe the original designers knew of this design flaw - scattered background light - but chose to ignore it and cover it up. Another possibility is the reason for the detection threshold was because they knew the light wave cancellation when the laser beam was over a “pit” was not always absolute, that some light would be returned. Or, it’s possible they were just plain ignorant of the problem.
Probably 2 decades ago, someone made aftermarket lens caps to focus the laser which probably acted similarly to NDM. I used them on several player/transports
Someone said on a blog that red visible and IR wavelength light could be absorbed by vanadium dioxide impregnated films. Exposed camera film might work, as claimed by some.
My previous two products, Codename Turquoise and Dark Matter (Emerald Green Liquid that was also very hush hush) absorb visible red and invisible near infrared light, respectively. They have been replaced by New Dark Matter. I also sold a set of various color pens for coloring the CD, including the data side; that product has also been discontinued for obvious reasons.
pop quiz: Turquoise (Cyan) absorbs the visible color red. What color should be used for a Blu Ray player. Free NDM to first correct answer.
There is no doubt that changing the amount of light detected by the sensor can affect the sensor's output.
I'll leave it up to the tweakers so inclined to determine what works best for them. If Geoff's approach floats their boat, they might want to also consider a teleportation tweak or two, if still available!
Yellow will only absorb violet light. Complementary colors only apply to visible colors. That’s kind of the whole problem. There are no complementary colors for invisible light.
See if you can guess what will absorb both the visible violet scattered light and the invisible scattered light in that general vicinity.
Well, some combination of yellow mixed with an organic compound that absorbs UV light bandwidths. There are plenty of organic dyes that absorb in that region (UV). I used to work with them in Advanced Photochemistry Research as an undergraduate.
Phytochromes have nearly perfect absorption characteristics for absorbing both Violet/UV and Red/IR bandwidths. The lambda max is substantially greater in the Red/IR region than that in the Violet/UV region.
The violet / UV sensitive stuff is not phytochromes.
”Phytochromes are a class of photoreceptor in plants, bacteria and fungi use to detect light. They are sensitive to light in the red and far-red region of the visible spectrum and can be classed as either Type I, which are activated by far-red light, or Type II that are activated by red light.[2]
Reading comprehension is helpful; believing what one can Google is not helpful. Go look at a UV-Vis absorption spectrum for phytochromes. Then re-read my post.
A while ago Geoff was kind enough to send me some NDM for review. I was excited to get the product as this was the first review item I ever received from Geoff directly. Other product of his have been in some of the systems of some of my clients and I got to preview them there. I didn’t know who Geoff was when I previewed some of his goods before, so this time around was more meaningful.
First off I want to start by saying, I would have needed about 10 kits to do a full reviewing.
I think the main question on everyone’s mind is "does this work"? And from this empirical tester the answer is yes. Does the product work the way Geoff describes it working? I really don’t care. I deal with so many audiophile-ish descriptions that come from directly quoting wiki or other internet sites that for me actually doing for yourself makes things more practically acceptable and less fluff. I am hands and ears on and the rest of this stuff is being studied by professionals in labs with qualified testing equipment and years of experience, so they to me are the go to folks for the technical explanation side of things. Audiophiles sitting at their test benches are cute, but that’s about it when it comes to the real deal in tech talk.
My first exposure to Geoff was on the Stereophile forum where he and May Belt were tag team partners, and not tag partners for all things positive or agreed upon sadly. Up to that point I had never been in such a combative, at times even hostile, setting in this hobby. These two are the masters of audio talk jousting. Why some of you here even enter into battles with Geoff is a mystery to me. That tech-talk battling for me ended when I asked both May and Geoff about their test labs and listening systems. May Belt all out refused to talk about any system and Geoff said he hasn't had an in-room system for many years. This for me is an automatic disqualifier. If I have a studio project I'm asked to work on and I show up at the engineers place and it's an empty room, no studio, no artist, it's going to be a short recording session.
For me tech talk is accompanied by a lab. If I'm talking to Bob Hodas for example we have a testing computer lab, a system and reviewer taking notes, charts and pictures to document. If I'm in my studio, I have my live room, control room, playback reference room and mastering room. Practical application for me rules supreme. So I need you guys to understand that when Geoff uses LIGO as his main reference for isolation it doesn't go very far with me. LIGO studies vibratory structure and supports the opposite from isolation. So Geoff on my tech-tech grading scale is not exactly existent.
Up till now you're probably wondering if MG is about to bash NDM. If that were the case I would publish nothing at all. Bashing a product does no one any good. Geoff took the time to make and supply NDM for us to explore and that can't be faulted. Guys out there are making way overbuilt chassis and charging a fortune, why can't Geoff make less expensive tweaks? I'd much rather invest in NDM than boat anchor audio. Sorry if that offends, but making and selling ultimate buck amps that now can be easily out performed by amps costing pennies is close to being criminal. Tweaks offer a choice in sound preferences at a fraction of the cost and that's a good thing.
I see what you mean. Nevertheless NDM is superior to phytochrome and IR and UV dyes because it NDM absorbs at all (rpt all) visible and all invisible wavelengths.
@michaelgreenaudio- Mike, you should have just stopped at part one. You said it works and you don’t care how it works. Anything else past that (like your part two and three) is just a segue into you long windedly talking about yourself, what your about, and pretty much a thread hijacking.
From what I have discovered so far NDM is not a one size fits all tweak nor is it an exclusive tweak. At first I tried one CDP type to experiment with, so I could find a pattern of placement that worked best for me. I went from full size down to 1/8" slices before I found the most entertaining setting. On the down side NDM for me took away from the fullest of soundstaging, on the up side you're able to play with some soundstage tightening. If you're after a lower noise floor and willing to loose some of the stage side this is doable. It has a slightly similar sound to mu-metal transformer shielding. It's a quieter sound, a little too dark for me personally but I know many who like this type of sound, especially if they have unruly CD problems. It's a musical taste that bigger soundstagers may not be crazy about, but for the mid size stage guy who is finding CDs bright this is a possible go to.
I will be doing more on NDM if I get more but have run out of usable pieces. Running out of pieces I did go get some similar looking plastic and found the performance to be along the same line, so maybe Geoff will be offering several types for different types of performance wants.
Hi carp, thanks for your advice but I prefer doing my reporting my way. However I won’t make anymore comments unless the OP asks for them in the future on his thread.
However might I suggest that you've just limited the positive reporting on Geoff's product that I was just getting started on.
I never advise anyone on how to do their reporting. Something called a first amendment (to the extent moderated by the powers that be here) is in play..
Geoff, NDM is good...but not the panacea you claim. There will always be a better mouse trap, as your own empirical research-driven products demonstrate.
Mike-So I’m the bad guy? Like I have some kind of power over you or anyone to post here or not. Mike’s reputation precedes him. And that is to say little about the thread, but a lot about himself and what he does. And given the evidence of part two and three of his SEVERAL parts, that’s where it was heading.That is how I see it. I promise I shall not use my superpower of post prevention on Mike or anyone else. So, you’re all now safe from harm and free to post to your heart’s content.
@celander It won’t do much for a mediocre system or one with mistakes in it. I never said it would. It’s not a silver bullet. I never claimed it was a panacea. Please don’t put words in my mouth.
NDM is the first audio product to address this issue with the scattered light comprehensively. Hey, here’s an idea for you - try rubbing some plants on your CDs and see how that works out for you. 😁
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