Chris Vogel of the Space Coast Audio Society is excited. He believes he has developed a “dramatic improvement” for treating deleterious, devilish static—not only on compact discs, but in compact disc players and even integrated amplifiers.
(Suddenly,
I feel like J-10. What the?) Chris writes:
“There are a number of CD de-static gizmos out there that treat the CD with negative ions. Some are like a Zerostat, some are variations of a hand-held hair blow dryer with Tourmaline or an electronic based negative ion generator. I have been using an easily acquired ion blow-dryer from my favorite high-end store, Walmart. I won't reveal the price. It works great for treating CDs. But, things progress from there.
“Further improvements were made by using the ion blow-dryer on the CD tray along with the CD. Then further improvements were made by popping the top and ion treating the inside of the CD player with it. [
This makes perfect sense. I mean, it's like, if you like ketchup on your hotdog, why not put it on your pizza, too?—SM] And this is what brings me to what I am finding to be a most significant tweak. You can try it, and, I think you will like it. The improvements in CD sound are monumental; it is moved in a more musical direction in a fundamental way.
“You need to pop the top on the player. You need to acquire a negative ion generator, which could be made to sound very imposing in a technological way, but then too, it can be made into a simple task. You can acquire on eBay an Air Purifying Ionizer, some varieties plug into the cigarette lighter of a car, and are compact, thus making it easy to locate into the CD player. From this point, it is helpful if you are good in making adaptations. You need to power the Ionizer. If it's the car version, 12 VDC, the center pin of its connector is +. You can get small "wall wart" adapters that provide 12 VDC from various places like Radio Shack or surplus stores or Habitat for Humanity second-hand stores. You can get cigarette lighter extension cords from Radio Shack and other stores and you will improvise at some point in making all the connections from the wall-wart to the Ionizer. You will probably be using some black electrical tape, but it really won't be that hard. When you get the Ionizer powered up you can put the top loosely back on the CD player so as not to terribly pinch the wires and yet provide some containment for the negative ion cloud. (Or place a cloth over the player).
“The sonic improvement from top to bottom will amaze you. There will be a far richer harmonic structure. My findings are with a Cary Cinema 6 player and others.
“There are different types of negative ion generators and you may want to refine your pursuit when you decide to make this a permanent addition.”
Chris Vogel will be hosting a Space Coast Audio Society meeting this Sunday, during which he’ll demonstrate his findings. If you’re interested in learning more, you can contact Chris at
vgl@atlantic.net.
I’m sure that if I were to try anything like this, I’d have lots of melted plastic and a big frownie face. Have
you tried anything like this? How did it turn out?
