Is this for real?

I also have the XLO disc and it has been stored without any use for the last few years. After seeing this thread I sought it out and put the system through the test tones, etc. After using the so-called demagnetizing sweeps I put on a CD and low and behold the highs were clear and precise. I recently thought I might need an EQ to fine tune them and bring them out more but now I don't think I do. Sounds really improved. It will stay out front and in regular use. I was sceptical also and just forgot I had it. Thanks for the post.

Is an engineer out there somewhere who could explain just how a test tone can "demagnatize" copper? If the explaination is feasable I would be a believer.

The disc I have suggests that there is a build-up of residual magnetism within cables, circuit boards and copper wiring. That magnetism may also be present in spades, other connectors or solder for that matter; who knows? Sam Tellig, in a review of the Densen disc, suggested that excellent results were obtained with single ended tube gear, possibly as a result of demagnetizing the transformers. I don't know how it works and I don't really care. There will be a thousand engineers tell me that a power cord can't make a difference and I know that to be false. The fact is that the sweep tone tends to "clean things up" for lack of a better description. It is particularly noticeable, as Ljij suggests above, when it has not been used for some time. The effects are more subtle when using the sweep tone regularly (the disc I have suggests after every 30 hours of play-I use it about once a week), but they are indeed there. I don't need an engineer for that, and at $20 or so, this is not an outrageously expensive tweak. If it doesn't work for you, you're out $20. Bob Bundus alluded to this in a tweak thread a couple of weeks ago: if you don't have experience with something, why ridicule it? Obviously, from the way this thread has moved on, it is working for some people.

Is "demagnetize" the word this/these company(ies) really uses? And they're good for speakers? I could be wrong, but isn't it the electric signal from the amplifier what turns your speaker's voice coil into a constantly-varying-in-charge electromagnet that then, based on the way magnets attract and repel on like and opposing charges, moves back and forth within the fixed constant charged field of the loudspeakers permanent magent (Neodymium, Ferritin, etc.) that in turn moves the whole speaker cone--since the voice coil is attached to the speaker cone. Wrap a bunch of wire around a nail, hook each lead up to a battery, and it'll pick up metal shavings and whatever else that is metal. That's how I'm kind of reasoning it--same things? (The voice coil is wrapped around the voice coil former isn't it?) I don't see how it could work for speakers. If it does what it claims it seems it could demagnetize your speaker's magnets (and ruin your speakers!). Two ways to get rid of a magnets charge is to bang'em or heat'em up. So you could slap the top of all your components once a day and stomp on your speaker cables to fix the problem (I don't recommend it). I'm skeptical: I have a hard time believing they do what they claim.

"Demagnetize" is the word used on the disc I own and the word used in the review that Sam Tellig used in a December/97 Stereophile article relating to what the Densen disc did. I'm not really the technical type, so if "demagnetize" is incorrect terminology, to me that's just semantics; the important thing is that it works.