I just received a CD in the mail today, and was somewhat prepared for the nature of the CD "condition". The eBay ad had specified that the CD had been treated with the revolutionary "Auric Illuminator" process. An ugly (and rather sticky) blue ink-like material covering the inside CD blank area, as well as the inside and outside CD edges.

Being of somewhat skeptical disposition regarding a "process" that could enhance the audio purity emmanating from a CD, I decided to do a little web research on what exactly the "Auric Illuminator" is, and how it purported to enhance the CD listening experience.

At this point, I"ll make a long story short...a process that improves CD readability by "minimizing refraction within the CD boundary" and resulting in...here we go..."enhanced spatial perspective", "improved, wider soundstage", "enhanced musical instrument positioning".

I'll cut to the chase. Seems to me that my long and humble experience with EAC would dictate that the average extraction quality of a CD (particularly at high drive speed and with appropriate feedback regarding read errors) would dictate that CD data extraction is rather error free for the average well-kept audio CD.

Discounting the occasional C2 error, I fail to see how many leading "audiophiles" and audiophile web sources would find the "Auric Illuminator" process revolutionary. I wonder if they've even heard of ABX testing?

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/audienc...illuminator.htm

A reasonable exposure to Hydrogen Audio may very well be the one-stop solution to royalty and advertising buck-free common sense...

Thoughts?

Almost certainly they have heard of ABX and blind testing from sources such as Stereophile. I presume Auric Illuminator takes its cue from such magazines and its faithful readers. In general, the high-end magazines do not promote or advocate blind testing of products. I wonder if Stereophile or The Absolute Sound has ever done a piece on audio codecs? It would be amusing to see a review of perceptual codecs done after the fashion of one of their component reviews.



I'm all for passive persuasion, but active persuation (in the form of debate) usually ends in heated ad-hominem, and rarely budges the viewpoint of either side.

ff123

Now that I've had the time to extract the CD with both the "Auric Treatment", and the "half hour with the Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol and Q-Tip Auric removal treatment"...EAC reports 100% extraction with both scenarios after 3 attempts with both "formats". More picture posts welcome...

yea, sounds the the Magic Rings, colored choice too, or the cryogenic freezing of CDs to make em sound better or using the old toaster method. toast it nice and brown for best quality! LOL
a 0 is a 0 and a 1 is a 1, cant change that fact.

Yeah, this sort of thing is pretty funny.


*coughcough**hackhack**ahhhh....bullshitt!*

Perhaps if your CD player is sandwiched between two archaic and unshielded NMR machines this might pose a problem.
I can't think of anyone who does that though.

According to the review linked above, it also improves overall (video) DVD quality. of course the sound improved as well.

Now how can that be? I can fathom some improvement in jitter on audio CDs, but compressed video/audio data? The data has to be read into a buffer where it is decoded. At this stage the jitter from reading the disc has been removed. Now you have either correctly read (perhaps error corrected) 0s and 1s or not, in which case you will notice a bad block in the picture or a quirk in the audio. You can't take an mpeg2 or ac3 stream, polish the bits and get visual/audible improvements.

(I'm having deja vu.. wasn't this same product discussed some time ago? Didn't I make a comparable post back then? )
edit: Oh, yeah! My memory has served me right. Can we ever escape the cycle?

Someone probably cleaned the monitor.

Just for the record, "audiophiles" have always known that this "marker" crap was bullsh*t. Any self-respecting audiophile knows that for best CD sound you store your CD's in a pyramid shaped enclosure with garlic cloves hanging in the center. . . . or was that to make my razors last longer. I always get those two mixed up.

Dex

Quote: "My wife thought the transformation of Quidam was "pretty darn good."

Who can argue with that?

I haven't tried Auric Illuminator nor do I have any handy. Instead I tried an alternative experiment with materials available in my house. After spreading some peanut butter over a favourite CD of mine, i perceived a significant narrowing in the sound stage and a substantially diminished spatial perspective when playing the coated CD. Extrapolating these findings, I think we can conclude that the application of Auric Illuminator, whose optical properties I estimate to be directly opposite to that of peanut butter, would significantly widen the sound stage and enhance the spatial perspective. QED. Anyone else agree that my experimental methodology is pretty darn good?

That's nothing... I put a CD in my peanut butter sandwich the other day, and noticed a definite improvement -- extra crunchy became extra-extra-crunchy, and I was able to eat the sandwich much more slowly (for that extra foodophile touch). When I burped afterward, a piece of shiny rainbow foil flew out of my nose.

Then, after your CD or DVD collection had been "Auricly Illuminated", each disc should also be demagnetized.

http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/de...netization.html

And, of course, the Dual Beam Ultra Clarifier.

http://www.bedini.com/clarifier.htm

Pay particular attention to the visibly improved audio based on an actual plotted 10-second clip...

Oh, you beat me to it F1Sushi, I was just going to mention the Bedini Ultra Clarifier - I've seen this piece of junk in some older audio magazines. They're still selling it?

Well, not to be outdone, I highly recommend placing tuning dots and Shun Mook pucks around your room in a feng shui accepted pattern so that your music (and good fortune) will flow directly to your ears without any narrowing of the soundstage.

In all seriousness, people who use all these goofy methods to "improve" their stereos are in essence saying that even though they've spent many hundreds or thousands of dollars on equipment, they do not trust that the engineers who created this equipment knew what they were doing, and that a $5 tweak can somehow improve upon years of development and testing. It's absurd.

It's also insulting to those with functioning brains, who value proof rather than hype, verifiable data rather than marketing BS.

There should be an entire "Snake Oil" thread specifically for listing pseudoscientific products aimed at gullable stereo owners.

Next thing you know there will be some magical software that claims it demagnetizes/freezes/degausses/dejitters your MP3s for dynamically improved sound! Bleh.

I subscribed to AUDIO for decades and followed high-end audio for just as long. I also used to follow rec.audio.high-end for a while. Folks would write in about some $10,000 to $15,000 speakers they were "auditioning" and ask which should they buy. The answers were wild. My answers was always, "Buy the ones which sound best." You would think that folks with that kind of money to spend on speakers would have sense enough to pick the speakers with the best sound. But no, they wanted to see what other folks thought. The same with those ridiculous balsa wood dots, Shun Mook, and all the other crap sold to gullible fools.

In the EAC forum on Yahoo one guy told how he used to sell high-end audio. He would "ABX" two speakers, amps, or whatever to some fish. "Now, note the difference between 'A' and 'B'," he would say. Then he would l press the mute button, hold it for a second and then release it. Sure enough, the more expensive amp, speaker, whatever always "sounded" better to the fish. This forum, HA, has had folks who can instantly tell WAV from MP3, but who have not ABX'ed the files. The same guy who was a salesman was able to dupe some fish into detecting the difference betwenn WAV and MP3 files when it was just the same file over and over again. Imagination is a powerful sales tool. ABX can eliminate much of this foolishness. When a programmer we had a saying: "One test is worth a thousand opnions." B)

I'm outta here.

Don't forget, you also have to demagnetize your tapes for better quality!

Had a good chuckle at the "review" on the Bedini site


Obviously the proof is in the mirror!

I don't agree with you. It smells like lot of bullshit. IMHO.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Exellent !

Indeed.

This would certainly "improve" the blue tone's on a TV set, the only colour one would see. There will be no signal loss, hence there won't be a signal to loose."

We are proud to present to you this fine new piece of software. Just pop a CD in your burner* and let the software do its work. Using patented patterns of electro magnetic radiation all sources of bad sound will be eliminated within minutes! This lets the music unfold its richness into all dimensions, instantly revealing details you have never heard before. Crispness and clarity are improved as well as well as the low end, giving you the oomph you allways wanted. Unfortunately the effect wears off within 4 hours so it is best to run the procedure right before listening. We guarantee you instant satisfaction! (Unfortunately you can not use a CD burner on DVDs. The next version will feature support for DVD burners as well.)

NEW!!! NEW!!! NEW!!!
Fresh from our laboratories we give you ScreenCleen! A revolutionary software which uses your regular monitor** to project carefully crafted light patterns (patend pending) on your CD or DVD. Allthough not as effective as our leading product, this method still offers incredible results! However this technology will work on ANY optical medium of the present and the future! Download our demo*** which allows you to test this new and amazing technology and we guarantee you will not want to live without it. When you combine this tool with our leading enhancer (see above) the effect is even more spectacular and lasts up to 2 hours longer!

*Burners need to support adjustment of the Laser power and so called raw write. PLease check our website for a compatibility list.
**Only classic cathode ray tubes will work. From 100Hz vertical refresh rate and above. Current LCD technology does not allow for the fast switching times needed. Flat screen monitors provide 135% higher efficiency than regular monitors. See our special offer for a reference monitor guaranteed to work here
***The demo version will only treat the first 15 minutes of audio on a CD and only a limited amount of video, depending on the target.

wtf?

Hilarious stuff. Nothing excites me quite as much as human stupidity.

You know, I absolutely have to set up a website selling something like this - I bet the below mentioned links have made their respective owners enough beer money for many many moons.

I may be naive, but are they allowed to use those graphs?

All the rubbish about how much better people imagine the content looks and sounds after treatment is one thing; but to plot two graphs that are of completely different waveforms is another.

It's not a subjective, wishy washy, "well it might be right" kind of thing. It's objectively and scientifically wrong. The graphs are wrong.


Tell me - should I use one of these demagnetisers on my PC Hard Disc Drive to make my mp3s sound better?

Cheers,
David.

You see?! You see?! I knew something like this would come along. Thank you Gecko for releasing your wonderful product to the world. Where can I buy one? I want to see if it works synergystically with the Bedini Ultra Clarifier!

I agree - those two waveforms are clearly from different sources. This is just plain fraud with a capital F.

Where are the lawyers?

:x

Oh, definitely. Not only will your MP3s sound better, but your hard drive will suddenly have much more room to store additional files too! lol

As for the bogus graphs, this doesn't surprise me a bit. Snake Oil salesmen are banking on the fact that most people are ignorant, gullable, uninformed, or too lazy to research their claims. They're vultures preying on people's trust (and wallets).

James Randi (www.randi.org) did an expose recently on a company selling a piece of electronics, that when opened to see the circuit inside, it could be seen that many of the parts didn't work and some of the wiring wasn't even connected.

If a company's claims for a product (any product, not just audio tweaks) set off your "BS Detector" they may well be scam artists. Buyer beware!

Well, yes the data on your CD is represented in an analog fashion. Simplified, different levels of reflection represent 0s and 1s. When you would plot the measured reflected energy you would get a somewhat rounded, noisy and wobbly "square" wave which usually remains on a high or a low level. It is now the task of your CD drive electronics to interpret this signal and determine wether it is reading a 0 or a 1.

Even your PC is working analog on a very basic scale. 0s and 1s are represented by different voltages which fluctuate as well.

Thank you for having an open mind! It has become hard to find people like you these days. (Nah, I lie, actually I feel the amount of brainless dimwits.. errr.. open minded people isn't decreasing at all.) Well anyway, I will shortly be opening an online shop which will deliver worldwide. The starter kit will cost you a mere 2499.95€ ($2849.95); compare this to what other people need to invest to get amazing sound!

I urge you NOT to combine our product with the Bedini Ultra Clarifier! The Ultra Clarifier uses LASER technology which only cleans a very small portion of the spectrum. Our product uses a number of advanced electromagnetic wave emitting devices that cover the whole neccessary spectrum range. If you paired the Bedini device with ours, you would create an unbalance in the harmonic structure which would lead to edgy and harsh sound!

@ all you people criticizing the two waveforms: of course they look so different! They have to! How else can you explain the huge leap in quality? Of course it is objectively measurable! We license our technology to the biggest mastering studios in the world who use it as the last step in mastering adding more punch and air to the whole mix!

OK, enough of this. Chris Granger, you are of course NOT a "brainless dimwit"! I suppose the manufacturers know very well that their products don't work as advertised (to put it lightly).

And, of course, I musn't forget to mention the revolutionary CD Blacklight...

http://www.fullswing.com/audioprism/blacklight.html

Oh my goodness, it just keeps getting better. A glow-in-the-dark CD improver? Record labels should just manufacture their discs out of this "proprietary phosphorescence" (that's fancy schmancy talk for "that green glowy stuff") complete with AudioPrism's green marker covering the outer edge of the disc. Wouldn't that be marvellous! Bleh.

Oh, and Gecko, I agree completely that these manufacturers know full well that their products don't work. Five minutes of testing could prove that. Instead of spending time researching ways to improve audio quality, their goal is to come up with new and original schemes targetting the gullible tweakers and wishful thinkers, things that with the right marketing could seem like they might work.

"Hmm, we've done the green marker, stabilizer rings, what's next?"
"Well, how about a glow-in-the-dark disc? Nobody's done that yet, have they?"
"Great idea! Suckers, errr, I mean customers will love them!"

etc.

Oh, and only $2849.95? I'll take two!

Heh, if actually these green marker tricks had any effect worth mentioning, it would probably be a cinch for CD manufacturers to put green paint on every blank spot and charge a few bucks more. Them not doing it can be interpreted as a sign that there simply is no improvement.

PS: plz PM me your credit card number so I can bill you. Once the money is on my bank account, I'll even take the time to program something that flashes the burner LED.. err... I mean... We will send you our revolutionary software ASAP! If you order two we'll even send it to you twice!

Oh wow - who cares if it works or not - glow-in-the-dark CDs - how cool would that look on a vertical player at a party!!! ;-)

Though IIRC that green glow-in-the-dark stuff emits low-ish level (but certainly very measurable levels) of radiation. I can't help feeling that, if there is any effect, it's not going to be to help the working of my CD player in the long term!

Cheers,
David.

- <speculation mode>Both waveforms are from the same source. The upper graph is from the left channel and the lower ... </speculation mode>
- It is not from Mike Oldfields Portmouth. This music has a complety different kind of envelope.
- I don't found a piece of music with this or a similar shape. It must be a highly percussive solo piece. Note the deep notches between the peaks of the envelope.

Hey, I'm a Swede and I don't see what you guys are complaining about. I bought the Auric Illuminator and used it on a data cd - an old backup from 1996.

The results shocked me:
* My images became a lot sharper.
* My texts were better written.
* And moreover; the software were suddenly bug-free!

Cheers to the crowd of mass psychosis and the "I-refuse-to-admit-that-I-have-a-worse-equipment/hearing-than-my-neighbour"-people

This thread is insane. I was checking on the Bedini site (what a stupid name) and saw they even have a Quadri Beam version of the same crap for those who have more money to waste. And there're also the reviews. What I don't understand is how come all those audiophile magazines support these snake oil methods. I can see they probably benefit from that ignorance but isn't there one single reputable magazine that we can follow? I remember once taking seriously these RF stoppers because I had power cables running in the vicinity of my audio cables. Then when I googled and checked the reviews I saw so many complaints about them, they actually crippled the sound !

Sometimes even the scientific methods like bi-amping makes me think whether it provides any audible difference. I did not bi-amp but biwired my speakers because they came with biwireable posts and Infinity encouraged such sort of connection (also biwiring makes lots of sense to me). I am also a happy owner of Acoustic Research TDS-202 Sound Enhancer Device (Check this for more info) which I got for $25 and like its effect. I wish there was some reliable source that separate snake oil methods from actually working ones. I wouldn't mind spending $20 as an addition to my equipment for something that is really working...

Stereo Review was and perhaps still is an extremely reputable source - the BS quotient is almost zero, or was last time I picked up an issue. Heavy on measurements, light on florid metaphors.

I'm beginning to think the only solution is to buy things on sale or return, and to test them yourself.

However, this prevents you from taking advantage of the much cheaper prices over the internet compared to a local shop.


It's really tempting just to build the stuff yourself - but the one-off cost of components for some things can be more than the complete unit price in a shop! However, I'm sure building your own speakers and amps would be fun - must try it one day!

Cheers,
David.