[[email protected]]

Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

[[email protected]]

On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.

Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

[Peter Wieck]

On Jul 19, 10:06*am, wrote:

Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

Amen.

Note additionally that Barry has a sense of humor that is both dry and
irreverent.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.

Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

Anyone got a link?

--
-S
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. -- David Hume, "On Miracles"
(1748)

[[email protected]]

On Jul 20, 2:50 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.
Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

The original was posted back in 1990: that may have
been before the reorganization of the rec.audio hierarchy,
and many news archive servers may not have it. Check out
any of them that have archived plain ol' rec.audio or, before
that. net.audio.

I have the original posting around somewhere. along with
Jim Johnston's April Fool's joke about using a green pen
on the edge of CD's, posted around the same time.

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
On Jul 20, 2:50 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.
Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

The original was posted back in 1990: that may have
been before the reorganization of the rec.audio hierarchy,
and many news archive servers may not have it. Check out
any of them that have archived plain ol' rec.audio or, before
that. net.audio.

I have the original posting around somewhere. along with
Jim Johnston's April Fool's joke about using a green pen
on the edge of CD's, posted around the same time.

I'd love to see both of those. GOogle's archive just isn't
up to snuff.

--
-S
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. -- David Hume, "On Miracles"
(1748)

[---MIKE---]

Back in the 80s there was a publication (CD Review?) but out by Wayne
Green. He advertised a green pen called "Balonium" for about $3.

---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44° 15' N - Elevation 1580')

[Codifus]

Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.

Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

Anyone got a link?

I googled "CD Optical Impedance Matching Fluid"
and found this Stereophile article;

http://stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

They tried a product called CD spotlight by Audio Prism and were
surprised to find that it did make a difference.

They then backed it up with a technical explanation as to why the
difference was probably there. I am very much inclined to believe it.

I also believe in bi-wiring. I've tried it and I'm never going back. Now
when I see a speaker with only one pair of speaker terminals, I tend to
look down on it. Before I tried biwiring, I didn't really care. This
notion some believe that bi-wiring was invented to sell more speaker
cable is total bull. The perfect analogy is how many people also believe
that the US carmakers were in cahoots with the oil companies to produce
big giant gas guzzling SUVs. Well, here we are. Oil is at $140/barrel
and all US carmakers are on life support while all the oil companies are
enjoying the biggest profits of any company ever. Staggering could
better describe their profit margin.

I also have Densen's DeMagic CD. Again, many people say its effect is
bogus. I've tried it and definitely noticed a difference. The effect was
most apparent only the 1st time I used it, though. After that, I've used
it every couple of months and haven't noticed a change. Perhaps I
haven't given my electronics enough time to get magnetically out of
alignment. It's preventive maintenance, then.

I do not subscribe to Monster Cables belief in speaker wire. While I
would believe that speaker wire makes a difference, the difference is
incredibly small. Monster Cable is a perfect example of
way-over-engineering. I'll just buy any run of the mill 12 gauge speaker
cable and appreciate that difference.

So, what does that make me, and Audiophool or an Audiophile?

CD

[Steven Sullivan]

Codifus wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.

Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

Anyone got a link?

I googled "CD Optical Impedance Matching Fluid"
and found this Stereophile article;

http://stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

They tried a product called CD spotlight by Audio Prism and were
surprised to find that it did make a difference.

They then backed it up with a technical explanation as to why the
difference was probably there. I am very much inclined to believe it.

It's CD *Stoplight*, and Harley's 'technical explanation' for the
supposedly audible effect, is nonsense.

I also believe in bi-wiring. I've tried it and I'm
never going back.

Another 'tweak' with essentialy no basis for audible difference.

I also have Densen's DeMagic CD. Again, many people say its effect is
bogus. I've tried it and definitely noticed a difference. The effect was
most apparent only the 1st time I used it, though. After that, I've used
it every couple of months and haven't noticed a change. Perhaps I
haven't given my electronics enough time to get magnetically out of
alignment. It's preventive maintenance, then.

It's more likely sighted bias.

So, what does that make me, and Audiophool or an Audiophile?

No comment.

--
-S
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. -- David Hume, "On Miracles"
(1748)

[Sonnova]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:58:28 -0700, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Codifus wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.

Note especially that it was published on April 1st.

So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

Anyone got a link?

I googled "CD Optical Impedance Matching Fluid"
and found this Stereophile article;

http://stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

They tried a product called CD spotlight by Audio Prism and were
surprised to find that it did make a difference.

They then backed it up with a technical explanation as to why the
difference was probably there. I am very much inclined to believe it.

It's CD *Stoplight*, and Harley's 'technical explanation' for the
supposedly audible effect, is nonsense.

Also known as "THE green pen". In a double blind test using multiple copies
of a number of CDs where one was treated and one wasn't, the consensus was
that there was no discernible difference between "treated" and non-treated
copies of the same CD.

I also believe in bi-wiring. I've tried it and I'm
never going back.

Another 'tweak' with essentialy no basis for audible difference.

Amen.

I also have Densen's DeMagic CD. Again, many people say its effect is
bogus. I've tried it and definitely noticed a difference. The effect was
most apparent only the 1st time I used it, though. After that, I've used
it every couple of months and haven't noticed a change. Perhaps I
haven't given my electronics enough time to get magnetically out of
alignment. It's preventive maintenance, then.

It's more likely sighted bias.

So, what does that make me, and Audiophool or an Audiophile?

No comment.

[Codifus]

Steven Sullivan wrote:
Codifus wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!
Do a web search for "Barry Ornitz" and "CD Optical Impedance
Matching Fluid" to find the origin of this substance.
Note especially that it was published on April 1st.
So far no luck finding these together on google groups or google web.

Anyone got a link?

I googled "CD Optical Impedance Matching Fluid"
and found this Stereophile article;

http://stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

They tried a product called CD spotlight by Audio Prism and were
surprised to find that it did make a difference.

They then backed it up with a technical explanation as to why the
difference was probably there. I am very much inclined to believe it.

It's CD *Stoplight*, and Harley's 'technical explanation' for the
supposedly audible effect, is nonsense.

I also believe in bi-wiring. I've tried it and I'm
never going back.

Another 'tweak' with essentialy no basis for audible difference.

I also have Densen's DeMagic CD. Again, many people say its effect is
bogus. I've tried it and definitely noticed a difference. The effect was
most apparent only the 1st time I used it, though. After that, I've used
it every couple of months and haven't noticed a change. Perhaps I
haven't given my electronics enough time to get magnetically out of
alignment. It's preventive maintenance, then.

It's more likely sighted bias.

So, what does that make me, and Audiophool or an Audiophile?

No comment.

For all the other things I mentioned, it is quite difficult for me to
prove that they do indeed make a difference. The difference is there but
is quite subtle.

Now, for the Densen Demagic CD, it is very very easy to prove that it
works. This is how you do it:

Requirements? A pair on NON magnetically shield speakers.
Expose those speakers to a strong magnetic field like your CRT based TV
and I guess any high powered electric motor, like a vacuum cleaner. When
I say expose, I mean to place those speakers very near these
magnetically strong devices while they are on of course.

Now, place the speakers right next to each other and playback any source
in mono.

With the speakers right next to each other, when you listen to that mono
source you should get a strong sense of the image being midway between
the speakers.

Because the speakers have been exposed to a strong magentic field, they
probably don't have a strong image, if any at all. The sound is all
there but you can't localize it with your eyes closed. It seems to be
everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Next step: playback the densen demagic CD at the loudest volume you can
tolerate. You probably want to leave the room while its playing for its
duration of 3 minutes.

Now, do the mono test again. You should now have a very strong image of
the sound coming from midway between the speakers.

And there you have it.

CD

[Codifus]

Steven Sullivan wrote:
Codifus wrote:
I also have Densen's DeMagic CD. Again, many people say its effect is
bogus. I've tried it and definitely noticed a difference. The effect was
most apparent only the 1st time I used it, though. After that, I've used
it every couple of months and haven't noticed a change. Perhaps I
haven't given my electronics enough time to get magnetically out of
alignment. It's preventive maintenance, then.

It's more likely sighted bias.


How does sighted bias explain that I noticed the effect the 1st time but
not any other time? All those times I played the Densen CD my sight was
good and the Densen CD looked the same

That's a rather quick and hasty dismissal, don't ya think?

CD

[Arny Krueger]

"Codifus" wrote in message


I Goggled "CD Optical Impedance Matching Fluid"
and found this Stereophile article;

http://Stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

They tried a product called CD spotlight by Audio Prism
and were surprised to find that it did make a difference.

Two words: sighted evaluations.

They then backed it up with a technical explanation as to
why the difference was probably there.

Actually, the cited article starts out with a statement of acute reviewer
bias:

"The promise of "perfect sound forever," successfully foisted on an
unwitting public by the Compact Disc's promoters, at first seemed to put an
end to the audiophile's inexorable need to tweak a playback system's front
end at the point of information retrieval. First, the binary nature (ones
and zeros) of digital audio would apparently preclude variations in playback
sound quality due to imperfections in the recording medium. "

It is a well-known and generally-agreed upon fact that the binary nature
(ones and zeros) of digital audio *does* preclude variations in playback
sound quality due to imperfections in the playback of the media, in
well-engineered playback equipment. By 1990 when the article was written. CD
players that reliably performed at or near the theoretical limits of the CD
format were widely available for less than $150.

Key words: "foisted on".

dictionary.reference.com/search?q=foist&r=66

Foist

1. to force upon or impose fraudulently or unjustifiably (usually fol. by on
or upon): to foist inferior merchandise on a customer.

So the reviewer starts out his supposedly unbiased review by saying that
well-known scientific facts are actually frauds.

There does seem to be a fraud at hand, but its not the well-known scientific
facts. ;-)

I am very much inclined to believe it.

I'm very much inclined to disbelieve authors who make controversial claims
like this without some pretty solid evidence to back them up. The rest of
the article is full of assertions and evidence of a nature that is
well-known to be totally unreliable.

I also believe in bi-wiring. I've tried it and I'm never
going back. Now when I see a speaker with only one pair
of speaker terminals, I tend to look down on it.

The absolutely minimal difference that bi-wiring provides has been proven
both mathematically and by clearly demonstrated means of a variety of both
electronic tests and listening tests. The test that tells the story to me
best involves measuring the voltage across the speaker terminals for the
same loudspeaker system, wired normally, and bi-wired. There are
differences, but they are vanishingly small.

Before I tried biwiring, I didn't really care. This notion some
believe that bi-wiring was invented to sell more speaker
cable is total bull.

Actually, there is quite a bit of scientific evidence to support the
conclusion that bi-wiring mainly provides a financial benefit to the people
who sell it. However, the benefit is not restricted to just selling more
cable. Mislead consumers will also choose speakers with added terminals that
cost next to nothing to add, over speakers that are well-engineered and lack
superfluous hardware.

The perfect analogy is how many
people also believe that the US carmakers were in cahoots
with the oil companies to produce big giant gas guzzling
SUVs.

I live in the Detroit area, worked as an automotive engineer, and still have
a ton of inside connections. The analogy between the two theories presented
above is indeed perfect because both theories are bogus. The car companies
needed no conspiracy with the oil companies to induce them to produce SUVs.
They just wanted to sell vehicles. SUVs fit through a number of legal
loopholes and allowed the car companies to sell mechanically crude truck
chassis that the Asian producers were not producing, for a premium over far
more sophisticated car chassis. As consumers started demanding SUVs that
handled well and weren't so prone to flip over, and as the Asian producers
entered the market, the US car companies were forced to produce increasingly
more mechanically sophisticated and therefore more expensive chassis. But
they were still following their vision and mission, which is to sell more
vehicles.

Well, here we are. Oil is at $140/barrel and all US
carmakers are on life support while all the oil companies
are enjoying the biggest profits of any company ever.
Staggering could better describe their profit margin.

Way OT, but what we are seeing now is probably a short-term blip. The supply
of oil is over the short term relatively inflexible. Over a period of say 5
years, the oil supply can be upgraded significantly if natural forces are
allowed to work themselves out. Demand for energy increased sharply as
formerly-technologically impoverished Asian countries shed many of the
inefficiencies of their outdated political systems. The beauty of
energy-inefficient products like SUVs is that it is relatively easy to
return to the use of far more energy-efficient transportation of a number
of different kinds including the far more fuel-efficient passenger cars that
are still in mass production, and have also been undergoing technological
development.

I also have Densen's DeMagic CD. Again, many people say
its effect is bogus.

In fact, products like this can't work. The thesis of the Harley Stereophile
article above is that these media treatments reduce jitter. In 1990, there
was a lot of hysteria over jitter, and frankly some of it was warranted
because the high end market had embarked on an adventure involving the
gratuitous use of external DACs, and like the early SUVs, many early
external DACs were pretty crude and not well-engineered. Ironically, the
people who stuck with CD players with internal DACs continued to enjoy the
good jitter performance of even the first-generation CD players.

A CD player *must* contend with relatively massive amounts of jitter to work
at all acceptably. Minor eccentricities of CDs being played are a fact of
life. Due to the miniscule dimensions of the pits on the CD surface, the CD
player must do some pretty impressive things in order to produce any music
at all. One of the things the CD player must do is constantly and rapidly
adjust the location of the laser pickup so that it tracks the spiral of tiny
pits which is also wobbling back and forth. The CD player must have an
internal buffer and precision clock to even out the inconsistencies in the
timing of data received from the laser pickup in order to work at all.

I've tried it and definitely noticed a difference.

Two words: sighted evaluation.

The simple fact that so many people will so enthusiastically report events
that physically can't possibly happen is more criticism of sighted
evaluations than 1,000 ABX enthusiasts could possibly flood a newsgroup
with.

[Edmund[_2_]]

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:22:12 +0000, Codifus wrote:

Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:42 pm, wrote:


I googled "CD Optical Impedance Matching Fluid"
and found this Stereophile article;

http://stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/

They tried a product called CD spotlight by Audio Prism and were
surprised to find that it did make a difference.

They then backed it up with a technical explanation as to why the
difference was probably there. I am very much inclined to believe it.

This is really really funny!
My $ 40 DVD ReWriter copies a CD with 150 times the CD speed,
after that When I do a file compare between the original disk
and the copy, they are identical!!
I wonder why a $10.000 CD payer could not nearly read as good
at a speed which is 150 times slower!
OK, it is ONLY a 50 speed or so, whatever :-)

Edmund

[jwvm]

On Jul 18, 8:42*pm, wrote:
Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. *Has anyone tried this? *The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. *What other disk treatments are
available? *What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would *believe I heard some
improvement!!!!

Its snake oil. "Magic" treatments like this cannot have a significant
impact on sound given the binary nature of digital data on good media.
CDs have error correction that should result in perfect reproduction
in media that is not overly dirty or damaged. Even with uncorrectable
errors, data hiding is usually effective in preventing obvious sound
degradation. If this fails, the results are painfully obvious with
very choppy playback or no sound at all. It is usually possible to
clean or repair CDs that cause these sorts of problems, but there is
no need to use such overpriced gimmicks.

[Sonnova]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:42:10 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the Ultrabit Disk
Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The price is outrageous for a two
ounce bottle of stuff ($65) plus $8.00 shipping. It can't cost the guy
more than a buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available? What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70 for a small
bottle of disk teatment, I at least would believe I heard some
improvement!!!!


Its been pretty much established that the only thins that can affect CD sound
from the disc is a system that introduces lots of jitter or a system that
drops so many bits that the error-correction is always in interpolation. Then
of course there's physical damage to the disc itself, but that's another
discussion. So unless this liquid can address either jitter or bit errors,
it's impossible for it to do anything. And even if it did address on or the
other (or both) of these conditions (unlikely), I suspect that it's audible
result would diminish as one used better and better CD players. I say this
because excessive jitter and high bit error rates are usually associated with
cheap players.

At one time, I was convinced that that silly green pen improved CD sound but
a D-B test proved conclusively that it did NOTHING.

I suspect that Mr, Harley has been, once again, tripped-up by his own
methodology and prejudices.

[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message


Robert Hartley, Absolute Sound, gave rave reviews to the
Ultrabit Disk Treatment. Has anyone tried this? The
price is outrageous for a two ounce bottle of stuff ($65)
plus $8.00 shipping.

Hmm, is this an ad for it?

http://www.tweekgeek.com/_e/Digital_..._treatment.htm

Is this the Enjoythemusic.com review of it?

http://www.thehornshoppe.com/ultrabit_platinumPDF.pdf

Is this the manufacturer's white paper justifying it?

http://www.thehornshoppe.com/SOMEREFLECTIONSADZ.doc

It can't cost the guy more than a
buck to produce it. What other disk treatments are
available?

Supposedly, the developer of Ultrabit also developed Finyl for Vinyl LPs.
and Finyl the Digital Solution.

What I am thinking is that if I paid over $70
for a small bottle of disk teatment, I at least would
believe I heard some improvement!!!!

As you know, that's how snake oil works. People have to justify their
investment, so they perceive an irrelevant benefit.