Cartridge "demagging"

bman
I just got a VDH Black Beauty about 4 months ago. I've had Audioquest cart demagger and Gryphon system dmagger for years. I stopped demaggin the cartridge. Van den Hul explains why you shouldn't and a lot more on his web site, most of which is over my liberal arts educated head. Cartridges are enough black art without me second guessing someone with the experience of Mr. VDH.

Jeffb28451

We've heard significant improvements after playing the frequency sweeps on the Cardas test LP. They are meant to demag a system, and it seems unlikely to THIS liberal arts educated head that playing a frequency sweep could do any harm. Of course I also don't understand how playing a frequency sweep would demagnify anything, but I'll not second guess someone with the experience of Mr. Cardas!

In the interest of full disclosure, a friend of mine tried the Cardas sweeps on his sytem and heard no difference. Maybe I majored in voodoo?

a)risk to destroy
b)if not destroyed, still no difference could be heard.
c)cartridge should normally be magnetized wether it's MM or MC.

Geez, next to vinyl vs. the "D" word and Tubes vs. SS, the Mag vs. De-mag topic seems to split audiophiles like few others. You hear all kinds of comments pro and con. To make matters even more confusing, I've heard cogent, convincing arguments from both sides of the issue from people whose opinions I respect highly.

I've never tried de-magging any of mine for fear of the a) on Marakanetz' list above. With my budget, I can't afford to ruin anything. Like Doug, I've tried the Cardas sweep record and found that there was no difference after using same. Now, I am not sure if it is because my cartridge was not yet at a stage where it needed treatment, there were other issues at play, or if it is just an ineffective product for my cartridge. But, it seems to have worked for Doug and he has a good ear for his system.

Some highly esteemed members here swear by the demagnetizers like the Aesthetix Benz, etc. while others swear they can ruin the cartridge or will cause you to require more and more frequent use. Kinda like the older rechargeable batteries.

Color me confused.

No more confused than we are David. Both Paul and I clearly heard the improvements, yet you (and Joe) heard nothing. You've got way more experience than we do and I'm pretty sure you're not deaf, but you'd have to be deaf not to hear what we did. Presumably there are system-specific events going on.

It's by no means clear that de-magnification is what actually took place. I wonder if some other process didn't occur. Paul probably understands copper-based alloys at the molecular level as well as all but a handful of people in the country, but he has no theory for why playing that disk would necessarily de-magnify any trace elements in a copper coil.

It's not even clear that the improvements we heard were due to any change in our cartridge. The signal from the LP passes through another set of coils, in our speakers, not to mention all the components in between. Any one or more of them could have been affected.

I'm stickin' with juju, at least it was good juju.

Hi Bikeman: I own the 90X and the Sumiko fluxbuster. First than all: why do you want to use the fluxbuster with the 90X? Is there something wrong with it quality sound reproduction ?. How many hours of use has the 90 X?. Please let me know about all these issues.
Now, in the time, I use the fluxbuster in severals cartridges an as a fact I only hear a difference in the sound ( high frecuency ) with a Koetsu Onyx Gold. I can't hear any differences in no other cartridge and I can tell you that if this fluxbuster don't help it not do any harm at all.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul,
Just for your data points, our Shelter 901 had about 500-600 hours on it when we played the Cardas LP. It had started sounding a bit muffled, lifeless, lacking in dynamics. You know how the bass on the 901 sounds in cold weather if VTF is a bit too low? This was similar but all frequencies.

The Cardas LP's de-mag sweep woke everything up like a slap of after-shave on a sleepy face. We didn't change anything else, so it was either that record or magic beans! ;)

I've never tried it on another cartridge. Do you think it would do anything for a 20 year old ADC XLM?!

Dear Doug: I can remember that I try the Fluxbuster on my
Astrion and I don't hear any changes.
You can try in your XLM and " see " what happen. I have no experience with the Cardas record and I don't know if it is for MC and MM cartridges. I tell you this because in the Fluxbuster when you use it with and MM/MI cartridges you have to do it with out the cantilever/stylus mechanism.
Regards and always enjoy the music.
Raul.