on Friday i will have a recording session in my room. a fairly well known (in the US and the Pacific Rim among audiophiles) hi-rez recording label will be recording an XRCD24 disc off my Rockport turntable. the original master tape has either been damaged or lost (it's a 60's European Classical recording) and so a pristene original Lp pressing will be used as source.

two different digital recording chains will be used. one recording engineer is traveling up from San Francisco and another is from a local mastering studio.

i am planning on using the tweak on this pristene Lp for the recording. i'll have two different pro audio guys plus the very critical head of this recording label in my room to hear the tweak. there will be no place to hide.....and i expect there will be plenty of test recordings to choose from. if the tweak is 'only between my ears' that will be determined with certainty.

i do not know what will happen and whether i will be able to identify the participants. eventually; assuming the disc reaches market.....there will be credit given my tt for being part of the process.

assuming these guys agree; i will share their opinions.

i think this event trumps blind testing for validating the tweak one way or another......and yes, i'll ask if they can master two XRCD24 discs....one with the Super Tweak....and one without. i know that is a long shot but why not ask.....

mikelavigne May 21, 2008 02:18

Hi Mikel,

Rives audio is currently building my dedicated room- level 1 since I m from Malaysia. I was looking at your design and if I m not mistaken you are using downlights with glass. Isnt there a better choice? TQ

audioblazer May 20, 2008 13:27

Andrew,

thanks for clearing that question up.

so 100 ions per cubic centimeter is fine if i want lovely hair.......but for music 6000 ions per centimeter is much better.

i don't pretend to understand the science of how the Tourmaline works or how to view the amount needed for optimal effect. that bit of info should help people figure out what to do (who want to forge ahead on their own). all i know is that the unit you built for me works great.

mikelavigne May 20, 2008 12:38

Gen's! Since it was my idea of creating such unit, let me jump in.
First, thanks indeed Mike for sharing your impression with audiogoners!
Now, about the hairdryers. One of the important factors is the special balls. They are generating up to 6000 ions per cubic centimeter. The best tourmo-hairdryer could give you 100CC max... yes, you can get some effect, but not much.

There are quite few tourmaline balls on the market, but they are all make sound different. The ones that I found are the best to my ears.
Best Regards, Andrew

kosandr May 20, 2008 05:40

Dan,

i sent you contact info. i look forward to getting together soon. we'll have some fun.

best regards,

mikelavigne May 20, 2008 04:14

Thanks Mike, it's been a few years since my visit, It would be great to see and hear your system now, as opposed to then. I know you have made changes, all for the better, so it would be a real pleasure to hear a system that bests what you had a while back.

Thanks again, best regards,

Dan

islandmandan May 20, 2008 01:22

Rhirsch, thank you for the info on Tourmaline Hair Dryers. i will be very interested to hear about your testing results. if you can point us to a source for these Tourmaline crystals that would also be appreciated.

mikelavigne May 19, 2008 13:44

Dan and Larry,

i think there will be a commercial Tourmaline Hair Dryer product from Brian Kyle at Xtreme Cables in the next week sometime. i have not yet tried it personally. as Rhirsch writes above, there are a few Tourmaline hair dryers out there which may work to some degree out of the box. i would think it would be fairly easy to modify a hair dryer diffuser to hold small Tourmaline balls.

the demag unit i use i do recommend, the Acoustic Revive RL-30 III, is not cheap at $2k list price....maybe you can find it cheaper.

Dan, since you are so close you are welcome to come down and listen to the tweak if you like.

mikelavigne May 19, 2008 13:40

hi Henry,

i would enjoy hearing what is going on in Europe on this subject....let us know.

mikelavigne May 19, 2008 13:32

If you were wondering why I was so tweaky about a hair dryer, it was because I used to be in the high-end salon business when I lived in Chicago years ago. Very tweaky business... $300 blow dryers and $1000+ shears were common. Still keep my hand it, my wife is now my only client.

rhirsch May 18, 2008 17:26

Hey Mike... I ordered my hair dryer last year from Germany after doing research re. Tourmaline based hair dryers when they became the rage several years ago. This one has the highest output of negative ions and is internally constructed with ceramic parts (not thermal plastic which was stated to be a detriment to the ionization process). It also produces heat via infra-red heating elements which again is theorized to maximize negative ion production. The diffuser has woven through it a 36" strand of pink and green Tourmaline small pebble-sized balls (my wife is a gem and mineral collector... mostly the large quartz formations, but has many strands collected over the years of various minerals and gemstones... 36" strands are typically how they are sold in this form). Not sure she'll let me keep them in the diffuser... may have to order my own.

I'll report back and will try to get some listeners together in the next couple of days.

rhirsch May 18, 2008 16:41

Rhirsch,

you are most welcome.

a word of caution; the degree of effect from an off-the-shelf Tourmaline hair dryer is marginal.....i've removed the diffuser full of Tourmaline balls and tried it. there is some positive affect but more like previous tweak levels, not this one. that said, i'd love to hear your reaction when you try it.

mikelavigne May 18, 2008 16:13

Whoa... I've had this tweak (or a version of) sitting around all this time. The Tourmaline based de-ionizing blow dryers are available at beauty supply stores and typically come with a diffuser. I have the UFO brand demagnitizer and will be trying it in combination with my de-ionizing blow dryer this evening.

Thanks Mike for sharing this with us!

rhirsch May 18, 2008 15:46

Hi Mike.....I hope you wouldn't mind answer my question......

By looking at the photo, I saw that you have added in 2 Rugs hanging at side wall beside the loudspeaker, I all along thought that your taper front side wall to the center front diffuser is all thick fiberglass panel that cover with fabric, which is already totally adsorptive......... or did I mistaken that? actually it's Gypsums/Sheetrock wall with fabric surface ?

Thank you!

joamonte May 18, 2008 13:57

.
Mike,
.
Thanks for sharing the process with us and for taking the time to explain in such detail.
.
I have had great results with record cleaning and other tweaks and certainly want to give this a try.

I would be happy to hear were I can pick up both pieces if you would be so kind.
.
Thanks / Best Regards,
.
Larry

cello May 18, 2008 13:41

Wow Mike, that's a very interesting account of your experience there. I can see your enthusiasm for this tweak. I heard something similar described to me in a commercially available product here in Europe, but had not come to experiment with it yet. No blow dryers involved though, but it involved demagnetizing and ionizing in some way. After your account here, I'll go back and ask some more about that over here and share my findings.

mtkhl567 May 18, 2008 07:38

additional thoughts on the 'tweak';

from the Acoustic Revive brochure on the RIO-5II--'Treating the discs with natural negative ions will increase laser transmission rate and eliminate static electricity".

i cannot really say whether the above statement is correct....maybe it's balderdash. OTOH i suspect it is correct or pretty close to how things work. if so; i'll bet that almost every digital disc tweak that have been tried are actually harnessing this same mechanisim.....just not quite as effectively as the Tourmaline hair dryer. many of the disc cleaning or treatment processes or even the burning new copies likely trigger less static and a more even level of charge across the disc.....which makes them sound better....for awhile.

this is just a SWAG....the 'why' is never that big a deal to me.

BTW, during the last three months i have not used any other disc tweaks. i cannot say whether cleaning discs improve the performance or not when used in addition to the 'Super' tweak.

mikelavigne May 18, 2008 04:56

Hi Mike,

This is Dan, from Whidbey, you had me over once, (thanks!) when you had the VR-9's. I also ran into you at RMAF '07. I don't think you need to worry about body armour, but feel free to self-medicate!

Sounds promising, I will be looking for a way to incorporate this tweak into my listening regimen.

Please keep me posted on when and where I can acquire these products, when they become available.

Thanks, and regards,

Dan

islandmandan May 18, 2008 04:40

Today I can finally speak about the ‘super’ tweak I had teased about a few weeks back. Before I get into that I want to say that for anyone who thought I was a horse’s ass for how I communicated that…..well…..in retrospect I agree with you. Those that know me personally may understand the emotional content of my approach to the hobby, in my excitement to share this wonderful discovery I did not step back and objectively assess how a ‘tease’ might be received. Anyway; I wish I would not have handled it the way I did, and I apologize.

For those who did not read my tease; this tweak makes huge improvements to system performance; lowering noise floor, improving dynamic contrasts, improving bass articulation, improving the sense of space and scale, and improving naturalness. The effect does vary from disc to disc from considerable to mind-blowing. This tweak is for Lps, Cds, SACD’s and DVD’s.

I’ve been trying tweaks since I got serious about this hobby 14 years ago. I’ve got all the different products that clean, treat, or ‘mess with’ discs. Most disc tweaks work to some degree…..but none have ever worked well enough to become essential….until now.

I will start by giving an overview of what I do to apply the tweak and how I think the tweak works. Please understand that everything I will explain is my interpretation of my observations and me re-hashing what has been told to me. I’m no techie or engineer and so please be gentle when judging my ability to reveal cause and effect. Next I will describe a bit about the history of how the thinking about this tweak evolved.

Basically; this tweak involves two processes. De-ionization and de-magnetizing of media……simultaneously. Since these processes are not permanent effects; time is an important element of how well and how long lasting the tweak works. From my observations; it seems that de-ionizing accounts for approx 75% of the effect and de-mag about 25%. I apply the tweak by placing the disc (Lp, Cd, or SACD) onto my Acoustic Revive RL-30 Demagnetizer and then blowing hot air with a hair dryer onto the disc while the demag process is happening.

I apply the process to both sides of any disc; for an Lp I apply the process first to the side I won’t be listening to and second to the side I will play. The effect is only strong for 15 to 30 minutes so I always reapply the process when I change sides. For a Cd or SACD I do the label side first and then the read side. This takes about 25 seconds per side for any disc. So a total of 60 seconds start to finish. For digital I hear 100% of the effect all the way thru most discs. For Lp or digital disc if the disc is stopped and started a few times the effect diminishes. It’s ideal to place the disc immediately on the tt or transport…..and immediately play.

The hair dryer is one that uses Tourmaline to provide negative ions to equalize the charge on the surface of media disc. Then there are Tourmaline balls encased in a diffuser attached to the barrel of the hair dryer. Hot air blown thru the diffuser releases negative ions from the Tourmaline onto the media.

I have been using this tweak for almost 100% of my listening for the last three months…...doing before and after comparisons regularly. I’ve done 15 to 20 blind observations…..with 100% correct choices. I’ve had 5 separate visitors to my room who have all had similar reactions as myself.

This tweak evolved from a discussion between my local friend and now President of our local audio club, Andrew Kosobutsky…..and Brian Kyle of Xtreme Cables in California. They were discussing a contact treatment product which Brian sells and somehow the discussion evolved to the Acoustic Revive RIO-5II, which treats digital media with negative ions with ‘natural ore Tourmaline’. Brian was making some Lp sized sleeves out of Tourmaline cloth to see if that would have a positive effect on Lps. You would need to blow hot air from a hair dryer onto the cloth sleeves to get the Tourmaline cloth to release the negative ions onto the Lp.

Brian had heavy Tourmaline cloth and lighter Tourmaline cloth and asked Andrew if he could do some listening to both and give him his impressions. Andrew agreed and Brian sent him the sleeves.

Andrew already owned the Acoustic Revive RL-30 III large disc demagnetizer which he used for his Lps. After demag’ing the Lps he would try the Tourmaline sleeves. Then he tried both processes simultaneously and discovered a huge improvement…..this was the break-thru moment. It turned out that the effects of both processes when done at the same time were more than additive.

A week later Andrew called and came over to demonstrate the tweak in my room. I was highly skeptical but it blew me away. I asked Andrew if I could get a set of sleeves to try and after checking with Brian, two sleeves were sent to Andrew for me. I agreed not to tell anyone about how this worked. Andrew knew I had lots of visitors but I agreed not to explain it to anyone.

For the next few weeks I enjoyed the best music reproduction performance I had ever heard form any system. I listened to everything again….for the first week I listened to everything twice….first without and then with. 40% of the time it was much better, 30% of the time it was amazingly better, and 30% of the time I could not believe what I was hearing. After that mostly I just did the tweak…..i was convinced.

Andrew was not satisfied. He was convinced that the effect of the Tourmaline could be much greater by using more of the Tourmaline than the sleeves or even the Acoustic Revive RIO. He found some Tourmaline balls in China and had them shipped to him. He then purchased a Tourmaline hair dryer and installed these tourmaline balls in the diffuser of the hair dryer. He experimented with a few different ways to have the balls in the diffuser. He brought over his first effort and it was clearly much better than the sleeves. Then a week later he brought over the version I am now using. Much better, and very nicely put together.

Andrew had shared his simultaneous demag idea and tourmaline ball direction with Brian and Brian has developed his own tourmaline hair dryer product (which I have not yet seen or tried).

Demagnetizing a disc is nothing new. There are numerous products already out there that people already have or can be purchased. I am not in a position to say which is best; but I know the Acoustic Revive ML-30 III works great and accommodates all types of discs. As far as I know all the demag products I’ve seen allow for using the hair dryer to de-ionize.

There may be hundreds of ways to de-ionize discs; I’m only familiar with the Tourmaline sleeve/hair dryer approach, the hair dryer with tourmaline balls in the diffuser approach and the Acoustic Revive RIO-5II. Personally I have not tried the RIO and you can’t demag simultaneously with the RIO. Brian Kyle will be selling a Tourmaline Hair dryer with Tourmaline balls in the diffuser but Andrew is not doing a commercial product.

Considering all the techie horsepower in our hobby; I would guess that almost every audiophile either could do this himself or knows someone who can.

One last thing about the Tourmaline hair dryer with tourmaline balls in the diffuser….it’s scary what it can do by itself. Blow it on an untreated Lp already on a tt and you get much of the effect….blow it on cables and the bass improves and the soundstage expands. I think we are only scratching the surface of what this process can do to improve performance. I wonder if digital transports might not incorporate demag and de-ionizing in some way to sustain the effect permanently.

I do not know if the effect of this tweak will be the same in every system. I suspect that the higher the resolution, the lower the noise floor, and the better the acoustics of a system are…..the greater and more consistent the result will be. I think one issue will be that this tweak will make many systems…..sources, preamps, cables, amps, speakers, rooms…..more enjoyable. Upgrades might not seem as needed when things sound so good. The focus might become a bit more on finding new music and not so much on gear. I know that sounds quite over the top but that is how it has effected my viewpoint.

I am wearing my body armor and will take all my meds…..i’ll have my Lagavulin handy. There is likely to be much understandable skepticism initially until people have a chance to hear it for themselves. If there is anyone in the Seattle area who would care to hear it…..or someone visiting Portland next week for VSAC who has the time for a side trip to the Seattle area (2 ½ hour one way drive to my home from VSAC)…...they are welcome.

mikelavigne May 18, 2008 02:45

French Fries,

no problemo, any and all music recs are good.....and the bandwidth is free. i am making a list of your recs and will be pursueing them, thank you.

i remember now that Peter's quad recording was digital 24/96.....i first heard that back in 97-99 sometime at a local HiFi store, Definitive Audio.

mikelavigne May 18, 2008 00:15

hey i am really sorry for the diarrhea of the laptop, but i heard a really good alblum the other day thanks to parlocha- gonzalo rubalcaba- AVATAR on blue note- he's an amazing pianist, so check it out (everyone). take care, all.

french_fries May 17, 2008 14:50

as far as i can determine peter m. had advanced from the ML-5 to a NAGRA-D2
to make multichannel tapes. i heard a recording of a local orchestra playing through a reference system at his store, and went right up to the speakers to listen, because the sound was so authentic, so real (aside from the usual cd-style recordings with a mix-down, processing, etc.) yeah it was nice- a first-generation recording in 24/96. that's why i suggested you might consider get "something" you could record on as well. a basic set-up would include a mackie-mixer, basic, but having fairly good mic preamps built in. later on you want to upgrade to pro-tools (LOL).

french_fries May 16, 2008 14:56

French fries,

i will be posting some new pictures of my reel to reel decks. my updated and repaired Studer A-820 should arrive sometime soon to join my ATR-102 and Technics RS-1500.

about 2 months ago i 'almost' traded the A-820 for an ML-5.....the ML-5 is exactly what you describe as Peter McGrath's Studer/Levinson A80. I have heard Peter's quad analog tapes a few times; but he must have used something different to record them because the ML-5 is 2-channel.

mikelavigne May 13, 2008 16:55

hey, i'm just trying to touch on a few "different" areas along with equipment purchases. such as a table radio that sounds truly unreal on vibraphone recordings, or magnetic tape, live recordings done at home, some cool web sites and some good music to check out. Tito Puente is a remarkable musician, and takes american jazz and re-does it without taking anything away from it. so you don't have to worry that he is going to trivialize coltrane or ellington because he could have played with them if he'd wanted to (and probably wish he'd had the chance). but 4 months ago i would have said "duh?" if someone had told me about him, and what i now have heard myself on many recordings. hey, btw, how about some pictures of your reel-to-reels? i got to see Peter McGrath's personal STUDER/LEVINSON A80 a few times back several years ago. imagine a tape deck with hand-selected electronics to go with a state-of-the-art transport... i have had a tape deck ever since the 7th grade thanks to my father who brought home a Concord 220. after i wore that out i got a panasonic stereo deck, then a teac, then a bigger teac, etc. now i have a collection of five.
but none of them are as nice as the two you have. i'm such a cheapscate! also, because of space limitations, i didn't choose to get a 5-manual wurlitzer organ either (but imagine how good it would sound in a medium-sized cathedral!). have you ever attended an organ recital? i've been to the national cathedral, westminister abbey, even the cambridge university church, but damnit! no one was playing at the time!!

french_fries May 13, 2008 16:22

"How does it sound? Simply the best system I've ever heard. Incredibly life-like. Closing my eyes, I did not have to imagine the performers in front of me, they WERE in front of me. I heard a Johnny Hodges' solo that will stay with me the rest of my life. Thanks again Mike."

That's awesome!

kublakhan May 13, 2008 09:10