How I tamed digital glare.


For months I have been trying to eliminate digital glare in the my system, which showed up most noticably in the upper middle frequency vocal range, especially female vocals. I tamed some by replacing the stock fuse in my dac with HifiTuning Supreme Cu on the sage advice of Chris Van Haus of VH Audio, resulting in a significant improvement in tonal density, detail and clarity. So far, so good. Today I lightly dusted the laser lens in my CEC transport with a microfiber cloth and was astonished to discover a substantial improvement! And the laser lens and drive compartment appeared clean to begin with (in a smoke free environment). I tried cleaning contacts, swapping power cords and interconnects, rolling the tube in my MHDT dac, and so forth, but this simple protocol was more effective than any of those experiments. I suppose results may vary as every system is unique, but for me this simple tweak was revelatory: greater clarity and a signifcant reducton of hash. Wish I had thought of tt in the beginning; it would have saved me considerable time and frustration.
pmboyd
@high-amp
I only use a single one. All of my gears are connected to a single line through a ZeroSurge 10 outlet plus a six outlet power cord. The Defender is in the six outlet extension. I tried to add an AC ipurifier but returned it as it didn’t add anything to the equation. I guess you can try multiple and remove one at a time to see if you lose any benefit. Nothing to lose as you can always return them.
I've been dealing with "Digital Glare" since 1985 and tried Green Markers, Disc Mats, Armor All you name it. I have owned more Disc players and DAC than I can or want to remember.  The following is what's worked the best for Me: Ripping all my Disc to a computer and using iTunes and it's digital Equalizer, then into a DAC.  2nd and near as good as the eq is my Esoteric DV-50 with it's up sampling and filter features.  That said, some folks get there shorts knotted just thinking about Eq's, I used too but a wise old Man told me, It's your music listen to it any darn way you want, you paid for it.
Ironically Green Pens are marginally effective due to the fact that green absorbs visible red light whereas the CD laser light is mostly invisible infrared light and appears red only as a safety feature.
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