Tweaks such as demagnetizers ionizers for lp's

Lew, your guess as to how the Furutech might function is what I've always assumed. Building an electro-magnetic field generator that fades to zero over a short, timed cycle would be easy of course, especially for $1,800. ;-)

From the object's POV, there's no way to distinguish between the distancing of a fixed-strength field (by the handheld POS) and the attenuation of a fixed-distance field (by the pancake maker). As in astrophysics: is that apparently dimming light source (aka, a "star") actually weakening or is it just moving away from me? Unless we measure Doppler effects we cannot know. For the object, the question of distancing vs. diminution has no meaning except to demonstrate relativity.

Dear Doug, You and Einstein. I knew it.

Hah! More like Qfwfq (Calvino's little protagonist in 'Cosmicomics').

"One day Paul and I were sittin' on a light beam..."

Those are nice and all but first start with as CLEAN an LP as possible. I recommend Disk Doctor and steam cleaning. Even if ou can't afford the Disk Doctor solution and brushes at least steam clean your vinyl using decent (Aquafina or battery) bottled water. You would be AMAZED at the sonic improvement that steam cleaning an LP has. OF course see Charlie Rehm (or posts/articles that he has written) if you do not know about properly steam cleaning LPs.

I agree, the difference made from steam cleaning is very audible.

Considering this handheld demagnetizer is both a magnetizer and a demagnetizer, I am wondering if you need to press the button to demag or just have it plugged in?

Want to try the music direct one on my CDs and LPs. Sounds like a pain to disconnect all the cables to zap them also but will give it a try if it works.

What about this one on eBay? Search for 360166354150 (item listing number).

Can you use non-powered magnetizers / demags with similar results to the powered ones or do they not keep up?

The Talisman demagnetizer from Walker Audio works very well for CDs and interconnects. It is a relatively small passive device and IIRC contains rare Earth magnets oriented in at least two planes. There is a great deal on Audiogon for a previously owned Talisman as we speak.