dampening

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Kill-Pres-Bush said:
Has anyone here had success with dampening their CD players?
I believe I have had success with using blu-tack and dynamat..
I did a search - but these forums contain very few references to dampening/damping.
I do nothing for my CD:s
Execept I keep them in the refridgerator,
so they are cold.
This stops/reduce the elctronic activity
in the plastic.
Reslult is a very cold and neutral sound
with less electronic noise between 16000-27500 Hertz

I notice this has most good effect on classical chamber music recordings, and unplugged popmusic.

Other than this I have not tested any CD-tweaks
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe this thread that I started to learn more is some
good reading for this subject:

Vibration Isolators - Air, Magnets or other materials

/halo
 
Kill-Pres-Bush said:
Has anyone here had success with dampening their CD players?

I believe I have had success with using blu-tack and dynamat..

I did a search - but these forums contain very few references to dampening/damping.

Yes, I have had great success with several pices of audio gear, the most successful being a radio tuner and a (quite good Audiolab) CD transport which is based on the Phillips CDM-12 transport.

I have used many forms of proprietary damping materials like Microsorb, Deflex, Sorbothane, Bluetack, and bitumen based sheets as used in the auto trade, and lead sheets used in roofing buildings.

With the CD transport, I found that where there is an inbuilt transformer, it is vital to ensure that the transformer is very well isolated from the chassis, and out of all the materials tried, Deflex was the most effective here.
With a central bolt mounted torroid, you can carefully back-off the nut (change this to a self locking type like an aeronut or nylock) and you can literally 'tune' the sound for the best improvement during listening tests.

Watch out, though, if you ever need to carry the unit about or send it anywhere by carrier, as, in my case, the nut is so fixed that it merely sits on top of the tranny, and doesn't hardly comress the underlying Deflex support pad at all. For carriage, I would need to tighten this up a bit to stop the heavy transformer moving about!

Some years ago I read that a similar experimenter felt that he had gone too far with damping a CD and that, consequently, the sound had lost some of its life and sparkle.

My own experiences are quite different, however, and I have found that the more damping applied, the better, and my CD now weighs a ton, but it sounds very good and clean.

In my opinion, any form of unwanted vibration is a bad thing and only leads to a deterioration in sound quality, but for some people in some circumstances I accept that they might prefer to hear the effects of vibration in a similar way to the euphonious colouration caused by say 2nd harmonic distortion. However, my pursuit has always been to have the most accurate sound possible and all vibration must go!

The results are very worthwhile, and I strongly encourage you try it. Provided you don't do any physical damage to anything while you are carrying out the mods, you have nothing to lose, and the materials are not terrifically expensive, especially lead sheet and Bluetack etc.

Apart from speakers and cartridges which produce their sound as a result of vibration, of course, (and musucal instruments) no other forms of vibration I can readily think of can possibly assist with reproducing accurate sound, so even if you dampen some 'harmless' vibrations it cannot make things worse, and every piece of audio gear I have worked on and damped, has benefitted from the exercise.

God luck!
 
Hey Bobken

I have already experimented on my 6 year old Marantz CD36 (I think it's identical to a Phillips 723). I tightened down the transport with bigger screws; I applied blu tack all over the chassis, transformer, and selected sensible areas of the transport and PCB. The results were remarkable; the CDP really did become much clearer and more precise.

I finally knackered the player when I tried to change op-amps; a long length of copper track rose up and peeled off; which was a great shame since it had really started to shine just with the dampening mods alone.

I have just recently bought a Denon DCD-835 (which is a much better player that recieved some excellent reviews). This time I shall apply Maplins Brown Bread (exactly like Dynamat) OR Dynamat OR Akasa and/or blu-tack... I shall be much more liberal this time. I am again hoping for good results.

I usually do my music tweakings with the aid of special magic herbs...:angel:
 
great forum

I have finished a balanced line stage (pass) and his SOZ.
Now i am trying to 'reinvent' the cd player.
I followed an idea of someone who used a cd rom (creative blast) but as i have many cd roms already at home (I recycle things from 'friends') i took apart the first one i could grab out of my colonial trunk " a Sony" .

I am wondering though if the cd rom is going to perform as good as a commercial one, I am llistening to all your ideas in order to reduce any 'noise' it may create when not following 'politically correct guidelines.

shoot!

Jean-Pierre
 
cowanrg said:
i recently learned that dynomat has an insanely high markup value. what sells for like $50 at my store i can get for around $11. as soon as i get my player back, im going to dynomat the whole inside, its supposed to make some nice sonic improvements.

If I lived in the States I would buy http://www.fatmat.com/

I realised that Dynamat was over-priced. At the end of the day it is just a fairly dense rubber (probably neoprene) with an aluminium foil sheet covering and some adhesive...

In the UK we pay more than 60% more for Dynamat than you. So count yourself lucky.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
Stryder said:
]Has anyone here had success with dampening their CD players?

Just a little nomenclature here.

Dampening is the act of getting something wet. I don't think you really want to pour water on your CD player :D

Damping the chassis & various other parts of almost any electronics can have a beneficial effect if applied in the right places.

dave
 
"Dampening is the act of getting something wet."

Thanks Dave, I was going to say the same.

"Damping the chassis & various other parts of almost any electronics can have a beneficial effect if applied in the right places. "

In addition to the loss characteristics of the damping used, the elements used add a further sonic characteristic.
Lead is a wonderful mechanical damping material, but adds a leaden tone.
Blue-tack sounds horrible ime.

Eric.
 
Re: Re: dampening

planet10 said:


Just a little nomenclature here.

Dampening is the act of getting something wet. I don't think you really want to pour water on your CD player :D

Damping the chassis & various other parts of almost any electronics can have a beneficial effect if applied in the right places.

dave

I believe you have it the wrong way round

A search on google reveals that both forms have the same meaning according to many on-line dictionaires.
 
http://www.bartleby.com/65/le/lead.html

Because it has excellent vibration-dampening characteristics

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=dampening

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Main Entry: damp·en
Pronunciation: 'dam-p&n
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): damp·ened; damp·en·ing /'damp-ni[ng], 'dam-p&-/
Date: 1547
transitive senses
1 : to check or diminish the activity or vigor of : DEADEN <the heat dampened our spirits>
2 : to make damp <the shower barely dampened the ground>
3 : DAMP 1c
intransitive senses
1 : to become damp
2 : to become deadened or depressed
- damp·en·er /-n&r/ noun

http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/d/d0018100.html

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=damp*1+0

http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin/wn?cmd=wn&word=dampening#Overview of noun dampening
 
Re: "Dampening is the act of getting something wet."

mrfeedback said:
Thanks Dave, I was going to say the same.

"Damping the chassis & various other parts of almost any electronics can have a beneficial effect if applied in the right places. "

In addition to the loss characteristics of the damping used, the elements used add a further sonic characteristic.
Lead is a wonderful mechanical damping material, but adds a leaden tone.
Blue-tack sounds horrible ime.

Eric.

You really believe that you can sense the charecteristics of the damping/dampeneing medium? I am not sure that I can buy this claim...

BTW this site is excellent. I am amazed at what some people have built. I have a Masters in engineering - so I shall make an attempt at something good myself.. I shall use this site for inspiration.
 
I believe dampening of vibration & resonances
in chassis is not nessesary in digital machines
like CDs.
The real benefit is in TurnTables and such.
Michrophones in recording situation.

A digital have only two states of information 0 and 1.
A vibration will not change that.
Neither will the clock signal be affected
to an audiable degree.
-----------------------------------------------------
So dampen and protect my TurnTable from
outside Vibrations and Soundwaves, YES.

Any more dampening than what is already present
on my CD-player , NO
-------------------------------------------------------
But who is gonna stop you from doing what
you think alters your impression of sound? :confused: :confused:

:D I know I can NOT do it. :D

/halo - has limited effect on other persons
 
Hi Halojoy,

I would be interested to know what has given rise to your clearly-stated beliefs over not damping CD players.

Have you tried out what I have done and found it not to be beneficial?
If not, is it very helpful to anyone else to express such unfounded beliefs?

Regrettably, I cannot give you any explanation for what does actually happen here, but that doesn't trouble me at all.

The improvements are not at all illusory, in spite of your beliefs, and if you have a CD player with a single bolted down torroidal transformer, why don't you just try and loosen off the central retaining nut as I suggested, and see what happens?

It shouldn't take more than a few minutes at the most, is completely reversible, and will cost you nothing!

This is not quite the same thing as adding damping to different areas of the player, but the effect is the same in that it reduces the transformer's inherent vibrations from affecting the entire electronic circuitry and the laser etc, in one quite simple step.

Having done that, you might just be surprised, and decide that, no matter how unlikely it may seem from simple theories about 1's & 0's etc., it would be worth trying out some damping in the CD player to deal with some of the other vibrations which *do* have a negative affect on a CD player's performance.

I would be very interested to hear further from you on this subject if and when you have some worthwhile feedback, based on practical experience, to add to this thread.

Regards,
 
I agree with Bob. Controlling vibrations in a CD player is very important, as important as with a TT.

This is what I had to use to voice a player to my taste.;)

Sand box on a bottom, an epoxy based platform, 3 spikes supporting a granite/blown rubber sandwich and acrylic blocks directly under the player. Each of those components had influence on a sound.
 

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Peter Daniel said:
I agree with Bob. Controlling vibrations in a CD player is very important, as important as with a TT.

This is what I had to use to voice a player to my taste.;)

Sand box on a bottom, an epoxy based platform, 3 spikes supporting a granite/blown rubber sandwich and acrylic blocks directly under the player. Each of those components had influence on a sound.

Hi Peter, whilst I know from many hours of patient trials that what I said was true (however unlikely it may seem), I am pleased someone so well-respected on the board has expressed a similar view.

Clearly, there are a great many doubters who have never taken the trouble to try these things out for themselves, and in expressing such negative opinions, they don't help with my sincere efforts to encourage others to 'have a go' for themselves.

Incidentally, and for what it is worth, having scanned the Forum as a guest for some months now, I have realised that my experiences have so far entirely coincided with those of your own which you have expressed on many matters.

It is one helluva coincidence that two people from opposite sides of the Atlantic appear to have discovered the same phenomena as we appear to have done, or could it just be that as result of our open-minded approach and diligent efforts, we have simply got some of these things right?

No doubt the sceptics who are too lazy to carry out their own investigations will say that we are deluding ourselves, but if they knew how difficult it is in identifying these problems, and even more difficult in overcoming them, they might just have the wit to think again.

I greatly admire the engineering in your DIY equipment, and your standards of construction make someone like myself, who is a similar perfectionist, rather envious.

Just because it is home-made, our audio equipment does not have to look shoddy, and you are a shining example for us all to follow!

Regards,
 
What should be the logical explaination?

If your experiences are true,
then there is an explaination.

I do not believe in magic.
"I ain't Supersticious" an old song recorded by Stevie Wonder.

The day I get the logical described to me (I am old fashion enough
to still trust in the law of Cause and effect)
That day I will start using dampening of digital machines.
To get better "1" and "0".

So until I get a proper explaination:
Sorry guys - I will not try to do
what I find logical unnessesary.
-----------------------------------------------

So why do I belive in GOD, who noone has seen ever,
at least with valid documentation. :confused: :confused:

Well, what can I say?
I guess I believe in magic, anyway - Just a little bit ....

/halo
 
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