cleeds, I do apologize if I seemed to come down on your earlier post. It does make sense that if you remove the stylus assembly from an MM cartridge, it should be safe to use the Sumiko Fluxbuster on an MM.
MC, I don’t know why you keep bringing up the XLO CD. I thought the topic had to do with demagnetizing phono cartridges, or not. Personally, I don’t buy the notion that audio systems as a whole need to be demagnetized (as with a CD), but I am also not going to argue with those who maintain they can hear an effect of doing that, using a CD. Each to his own. As to the rest of what you say above, I cannot get my arms around your actual message. If Synergistic Research, AKA Ted Denney, ever actually did anything that has not been done before (except for marketing with questionable claims), I will be surprised. This includes biasing the shield. Not new at all. I have 20-year-old AC cords that do that, made by Mapleshade. They are good sounding cords, but I have never ever heard a particle of difference with vs without the bias current applied to the shield. Audioquest had cables with that feature many years ago, just to name one more company. And whoever said the dielectric (teflon, air) was unimportant? Certainly not I. The dielectric definitely seems to make a difference in SQ based on my subjective tests. And there is good theory to explain why the dielectric may make a difference in SQ; it’s not a mystery that requires us to suspend disbelief.
You wrote, "Pure copper and silver are not magnetic and do not become magnetized. Nothing however is absolutely pure. Any metallic impurities in the wire can become magnetized, and that is what we are targeting."Nearly all audiophile cables are made of copper or silver or silver-plated copper. Any respectable cable maker claims to use "five-9s" or "six-9s" pure copper or silver. This means, if true, that any magnetizable metals in the brew must be no more than 1 part per 100,000 or 1 part per 1,000,000, at most, depending upon the chance that Fe, Ni, or Co (the 3 base metals that are magnetizable) co-purify with copper or silver. I guess you can always cling to your "something else is happening" hypothesis, but I can’t get excited based on those ratios.
The reason a cartridge coil can become magnetized is because often the core is made of Fe, Ni, or Co or mixtures of those 3 metals. It’s the core that develops or can develop a weak permanent field.
Then there was this inexplicable part of your post:
I’m curious whether anyone here has been using the devices that deliberately expose the audio signal to a powerful magnetic field;
Yes, and you must have missed it lewm because its exactly what I said in my post above:
The other method I use regularly is the Radio Shack Bulk Tape Eraser. Essentially just a really big powerful demagnetizer. Same as demagnetizing tape heads, you bring it close then take it slowly away. Use this on all the cables right up to the tone arm.
I guess you just misunderstood me; I was referring to the commercial products that incorporate magnets into ICs, power cords, and etc. (see also below). Which reference I then dug up, and Dover already commented on it. I was not talking about de-magnetizers or de-magnetization. By the way, I think most who do believe in demag for a cartridge have warned against using a bulk tape eraser for that purpose. Others should check that out before doing so.
My beef with the "High Fidelity Cables" (the ones that incorporate magnets) is as follows: What they do is pass the cable through a hollow tubular magnet. The most elaborate of those magnets seem to be about a foot long, based on photos. Please tell me why those dumb electrons are going to remain in the center of the conductor, even assuming that is desirable or does good for SQ (which I don’t assume), for one split second after the signal passes out from the magnet structure? Nature is all about equilibrium, and I would guess that any effects of the magnet are lost once the signal is no longer in the field.
