Mitigating the Bubble


Today after many years of trials and tribulations I have mitigated a sonic aberration a horizontal phase anomaly in my center stage.  While the center image was always stable and outlined it seemed narrow and bubble like and I would need to shift my body angle to really lock in the image. This was obvious on many CDs and LPs .

I have many man made fixes that helped the situation but never a total cure. Some of these are now permanent fixtures on the ceiling in 2 different locations. I made my own acoustic panels filled with long hair sheep's wool and 3 Argent Room Lenses.  I have laminar flow lenses that focus and stabilize the image across the front stage. I have built and treated an acoustic fan that overcomes the  boundaries with in my room by reducing interference. I have loaded my speaker cabinets 3 times with new drivers and now an outboard crossover. This was after my Essence 30s speakers and my Dunlavy SC4s.  ..All my components are hard mounted and direct coupled to the floor...on rock solid racks and speaker stands, custom mono bloc amps each on their own stand. All of these devices and angles and positions made the image wider and more focused but I still had that little  bubble and shift before me. Always less annoying with each new device and tweak.

So, your probably saying to yourself hurry up and get to the end. The end finally arrived today after having applied a contact enhancer 7 days ago to just 6 RCA ends out of many connections in my system.  Today with a friend who has been here a hundred times sitting in the Chair playing the same music as usual he said there was a wider sweet spot. I despise that term but he said it and not me.What we both heard was a super stable center image that was a few feet wide and not just one. The bubble was gone. The head in the vise was gone.  Off came the straight jacket and helmet. What I have now in this space intime is a glorious fully extended soundstage with all the meat on the bones and the features of talking heads on a real live performance stage. 

I have probably used eight different contact enhancers over five decades but this one blows my mind. This product  Nano Flo is the ultimate in transparency. 

Tom 

 

theaudiotweak

If you treat the source component first and the glare is reduced or mitigated why would you question the result? Tom

Never experienced glare in my digital. Maybe you need a new digital source or something is broken?

@tommylion

Wow! You certainly misinterpreted my post. I’m a major fan of tweaks. Just look at my discussion history for the past 20 years. I’m looking forward to trying Q45T - or - Furutech Nano.

Whenever somebody mentions ’reduced digital glare’, it means that they still have it. The goal should be to treat the root cause, not mitigate the symptoms. Ever since I cleaned up my power and installed good cabling, I haven’t had digital glare in years.

I have no idea what the deal is with deludedaudiophile. IMO, his credibility is zero.

So I purchased my PS Audio Lamda transport from Peter Israelson who until recently was a tech, builder and designer for High Fidelity Cables makers of the 1260 and Q45 contact enhancer..Spoke with Peter today about glare digital and otherwise and he had the same experience as me. On some music we would both reach for the remote in anticipation of the glare that we knew was fast approaching and turn the volume down. With the application of Nano Flo there was no glare.

I can post all the mods and tweeks this transport has been thru.. New choke  power supply board with Nichicon Gold filter caps.with several film and foil bypass caps,.upgraded zener diodes, Vampire rca digital, new upgraded digital clock board, circuit boards mounted with brass standoffs and brass screws. CDM Pro9 transport and drawer treated with AVM coating, Star Sound CD Cirkulus tophat , cryo treated magnet instead of fuse, upgraded ac input..there is more likely.  Oh it sits in the center of a custom Sistrum Sp5 rack that has brass rods instead of the usual stainless steel. These rods are drilled and filled with the same material  mix I use in my cello endpins. The transport sounds best on the center shelf because of the increase in torsional rigidity. Found this out by moving the transport  from top shelf on down. More stable center image along with better bass when in the middle. The rack is mechanically grounded to the concrete floor  with 2.5 inch brass Audiopoints..The treated breaker box  is 8 feet from my system and has The Gate mounted inside.. The breaker box  is 35 feet from the ground mounted transformer outside. On the meter outside I treated it with the same mix of metals in paint that I applied to the interior breaker box whose metal door was removed because the music plays better when off.  That's all about that. Tom

steakster,

Sorry, the “you guys” in my post was aimed at deludedaudiophile, and others like him, not you.

I am sorry if a dose of reality is too much for you. I have never had anything I would call digital glare. Not in 2+ decades of owning half decent systems. Digital does not have "glare". It has perfect and flat frequency response (normally). If you have an issue, I would start looking at how your system is performing. Too bright, is not because of digital, it is because of a poor system including the room.

@deludedaudiophile that point 3 before yours almost looks like were have been expertly trolled.

 

This one:

So I purchased my PS Audio Lamda transport from Peter Israelson who until recently was a tech, builder and designer for High Fidelity Cables makers of the 1260 and Q45 contact enhancer..Spoke with Peter today about glare digital and otherwise and he had the same experience as me. On some music we would both reach for the remote in anticipation of the glare that we knew was fast approaching and turn the volume down. With the application of Nano Flo there was no glare.

I can post all the mods and tweeks this transport has been thru.. New choke  power supply board with Nichicon Gold filter caps.with several film and foil bypass caps,.upgraded zener diodes, Vampire rca digital, new upgraded digital clock board, circuit boards mounted with brass standoffs and brass screws. CDM Pro9 transport and drawer treated with AVM coating, Star Sound CD Cirkulus tophat , cryo treated magnet instead of fuse, upgraded ac input..there is more likely.  Oh it sits in the center of a custom Sistrum Sp5 rack that has brass rods instead of the usual stainless steel. These rods are drilled and filled with the same material  mix I use in my cello endpins. The transport sounds best on the center shelf because of the increase in torsional rigidity. Found this out by moving the transport  from top shelf on down. More stable center image along with better bass when in the middle. The rack is mechanically grounded to the concrete floor  with 2.5 inch brass Audiopoints..The treated breaker box  is 8 feet from my system and has The Gate mounted inside.. The breaker box  is 35 feet from the ground mounted transformer outside. On the meter outside I treated it with the same mix of metals in paint that I applied to the interior breaker box whose metal door was removed because the music plays better when off.  That's all about that. Tom

 

deludedaudiophile

I am sorry if a dose of reality is too much for you. I have never had anything I would call digital glare.

I don’t think anyone here struggles with the reality that you’ve never had an issue with digital glare. The person who has an issue with a "dose of reality" seems to be you, who apparently can’t accept that your experience isn’t universal.

@cleeds : our "friend" has learned to adapt with Audiogon forums. And rightly so, after being banned and resurfaced at least a dozen times. He has learned the lesson, after 13 tries. Now instead of saying "you are delusional" to audiophiles (which he certainly hates with passion), he says something like "I am sorry a dose of reality is too much for you". Just as offensive, insulting, and condescending, but polite enough not to be kicked out of forums.

@ozzy  I have been watching from the sidelines, trying and liking very much the NPS1250 and curious about the Q45t, when also the nano-flo came in the mix. If you get more testing done i will be grateful to hear your and others opinions, marc.

I don’t think anyone here struggles with the reality that you’ve never had an issue with digital glare. The person who has an issue with a "dose of reality" seems to be you, who apparently can’t accept that your experience isn’t universal.

Perhaps you need to consider that your logic is flawed. Human experience is not exactly universal, but close enough. Checks the calendars. It's 2022. If you are experiencing anything that you call glare related to "digital", then you either have really poor equipment, or your equipment is broken. If you think it has "glare" because your analog does not, then you need to understand what your analog system is doing to "soften" the sound. A good DAC in 2022, unless your system is broken, does nothing but output the analog exactly as intended. There is no glare.

Convincing yourself it is "glare" when it is not, is a surefire way to ensure you never find or fix the problem. Do you want to be an audiophile with a broken system blaming "digital" or do you want to get to the root cause? 

I know who you were in the past and you would harass one and all. So I am going to request Tammy track your IP address and compare it with a few other names. You are worthless for sure never a positive always a negative.Anyone wish to post the harassers previous names or send me a PM.  You are the root cause of glare..Tom

.Reduced glare? Why is there any at all? Probably should reconnoiter elsewhere in your system.

That's a tough one sometimes to track down, glare and hardness are both similar and interchangable I guess but I discovered at times it can be caused by a gain stage, when the volume is raised. Removing the gain stage alleviates it. I got lucky discovering specifically that setting my itube2 to unity gain preserved its benefits without added glare or hardness as the volume was turned up but every system is different, YMMV I suppose. Then I suppose there is the glare that's not too noticable until it's removed, which is what I think OP was referring to but that's just my take on his comments about it.

I have a hard time believing that one can tell the position of the breaker box door, by listening to music/

 

… The rack is mechanically grounded to the concrete floor  with 2.5 inch brass Audiopoints..The treated breaker box  is 8 feet from my system and has The Gate mounted inside.. The breaker box  is 35 feet from the ground mounted transformer outside. On the meter outside I treated it with the same mix of metals in paint that I applied to the interior breaker box whose metal door was removed because the music plays better when off.  That's all about that. Tom

I’ve never experienced digital glare either. Instead of smearing useless goop everywhere try REW and a measurement microphone. If you have glare it’s probably sibblance around 4khz, EQ until you have a decent FR and if that’s not possible get some decent speakers and treat the room. It sure isn’t the wires.

interior breaker box whose metal door was removed because the music plays better when off

You know that's a code violation. I would assume anywhere in the USA. Plus it's nuts.

@theaudiotweak :

I know who you were in the past and you would harass one and all. You are worthless for sure never a positive always a negative.

It’s not going to work. He will always come back, as he finds a way. As they say, three things are certain in life: 1) Death, 2) Taxes and 3) Deluded dude coming back to Audiogon over and over. Human equivalent of malware

 

Here is the list of his previous (all banned) usernames:

 

thynamesinnervoice

 

cindyment

 

snratio

 

yesiamjohn

 

sugabooger

 

dletch2

 

audio2design

 

dannad

 

roberttdid

 

headaudio123

 

audiozenology

 

atdavid

I should have said ferrous metal door was removed. And the music does go nuts.  Thanks for giving me the opportunity to correct my original post. And notice I didn't state which nonferrous materials I experimented with during listening tests, and which sounded best to the three of us in the group. Tom

thyname,

Thanks for the repost. I went back and found the original and sent it off to Tammy with my comments. Thanks so much. Tom

djones51

"If you have glare it’s probably sibblance around 4khz, EQ until you have a decent FR . . . "

Hmmm.

- Doesn’t understand the difference between glare vs sibilance.  Let alone spell it.

- EQ? Who needs those extra bits anyway?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

You EQ sibilance between 4,000 - 6000hz no idea what bits you're talking about. 

You're not going to get rid of it with goop on a freaking wire.

By all means continue with whatever program you're lost in.

You EQ sibilance between 4,000 - 6000hz no idea what bits you're talking about. 

You're not going to get rid of it with goop on a freaking wire.

By all means continue with whatever program you're lost in.

@djones51 - he also closed metal door of the breaker box to get rid of Sybil.

So something was wrong with one or more contacts and this contact enhancer solved the issue! Good to know, and I'm glad that worked so well for you. I've not tried contact enhancers yet but I can relate to your experience of having a seemingly intractable problem come down to a bad contact. 

@theaudiotweak 

Thank you for this NanoFlo thread.  I was concerned that rumors of HFC closing would have made their NPS1260 unobtainable.  Since then, seems that the Q45T supply is also limited. 

It would have been nice to see a NanoFlo vs Q45T sonic comparisons because maybe I'd pick up the Q45T if superior, however if subsequently the Q45T became unobtainable I'm not a fan of cleaning all my contacts before switching brands. 

I will be be removing nps 1260 in a day or so and applying Nano Flo to my DAC...I have Q45 sealed in a bottle..never tried it after the 1st application of Nano Flo. Hard to imagine or seek out a greater benefit of any connection type. Tom

I bought 10ml Graphene Contact Enhancer from Mad Scientist for $79

 

He has US distribution so, said it will come fast

I purchased a streamer 10 days ago my 1st experience.Pretty flat and a tad forward. Of course I will mod the hell out of this piece. The first easiest and staring me in the eyes was the 2 wireless antenna..Seeing an opportunity I whipped out my trusty Nano Flo and treated the antenna connections.

There was an immediate improvement in tone and texture and the body of the center image. I may have to keep this darn thing. Try the nps or Q45 on your wireless connections. Could be a suprise...Tom

 

NASA Man uses nps 1260 or Q45t..he should try it on his network connections. Tonight after TV time I will treat the rest of my 'puter stuff. Tom

If you haven’t already treated the AC plugs on the black boxes from our friend with Nano Flo, you should try it. Worked really well for me.

So this material is supposed to increase signal co-efficiency and conductance producing better sound quality?

Very curious. 

Yes Tommy Lion I treated those and the Stop Itz..My next pursuit is to make my recent streamer purchase sound as good as my cd transport..Wish me luck as I am wanting to juice up the power supply first.  Learn as I go. Tom

Today after 29 year of use I am having my 2 HVAC systems replaced.  The installer is easy going as I am treating connections at the time of hookup with Nano Flo. I will go back later and treat the furnace control and motor boards as they are indoors and easy to get to. Reason I am doing this is Chris from Nano Flo sent me a picture of his extension cord that is hooked to an AC unit that pulls 900 watts. He sent a thermal image of the connector at the wall which indicated 130 degrees pretreated and running at full tilt.  After treatment and some time the same connection measured in the mid  70 degree range..Tom

Since my previous post about the Graphene Contact Enhancer from Mad Scientist Audio ($79/10ml!) I started with just one coax cable. The improvement was immediate, so over the next couple days I treated all my contacts, including one fuse that I had access to. Fast forward to my cars brake light. Over the years I have had to replace the right side bulb about every 6 months. I spoke with my Saab mechanic yesterday who replaced it about 9 months ago, as it was showing up in my radio screen as needing to be replaced (in hindsight, don't know that he needed to replace either). He had no answer, so I opened the tail light assembly, the bulb looked fine, so I cleaned the 2 contacts and applied a thin coat of GCE, turned the engine on the annoying ’brake light failure’ notification was gone

I also treated all the tops of capacitors all the IC's tops and any transistor I could see to reach . I am convinced Nano Flo has a tunneling effect because of the improvement I heard soon after application on traditional non conductive portions of  materials..Tom

Now read this...


http://v2.stereotimes.com/post/nanoflo-superconductor-holographic-3d6-ac-cord-by-mike-girardi/

I am very happy to see not 1 but 2 reviews in the same online magazine.

I wish Chris much luck and success in bringing his technology to the fore front of nano technology.

Tom

 

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