Hi Guys Andy from Cardas here:
Let me start this reply by saying while we thank the moderator for looking out for us, we certainly do not mind and would rather hear what everyone thinks uncensored. Our decision to be a sponsor on Headfi was not to gain some political status but was because we like to support groups we believe in. George and I have been in this business for most of our lives and we find this group refreshing and reminiscent to the formative years in HiFi when the developments in High End performance where at a feverish pace. We do not mind explaining ourselves and our thoughts. So keep the love letters coming, after all if we don't question each other we don't grow and learn.
Below is George Cardas's explanation of the Cardas Clarifier App:
"Seriously guys this is super simple.
Degaussing is used on everything from tape heads to ships to reduce or eliminate residual magnetism. Some ships have coils built into them for the purpose.
The gaussing of ferric materials is ubiquitous and has been know for thousands of years. (think compass's)
Here is some history:
In the old days, analogue tape recorders LOST RESOLUTION as their recording heads accumulated residual magnetism, recording engineers used small portable coils or wands to degauss the tape heads. The wands used a constant sine signal in the coil, the coil was placed on the tape head and slowly drawn away manually to attenuate the signal progressively.
Fluxbuster's used a sine signal in the coil of a phono cartridge that was slowly tapered off to degauss the cartridge pole piece.
Circa 1987 Cardas Sweeper LP , it was released . The record generates a signal in the coil that was slowly attenuated in amplitude and period(frequency) , with this LP you could now run the sweep thru your entire system thus degaussing your speakers. This record is still in production. (Circulation 30k+)
The Ayre "Irrational but Efficacious" CD is a very popular CD that incorporates our original sweep.. These sweepers soon made all other methods obsolete for stereo system degaussing.
This is an ancient technology but the real underlying pearl of wisdom is not what we are doing or how we are doing it BUT WHY!!!
There is an intrinsic problem with dynamic loudspeakers and this problem becomes larger and more profound as the speakers becomes smaller for reasons that I will not go into her, it suffices to say that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people that are regularly degauss much large speakers in their home systems with very good and repeatable results.
The original method of degaussing was to install electromagnetic coils into or around the ships, it was known simply as coiling.
In our system the coil is the one in the speaker itself -- a real advantage of the sweeper method is that the signal (and thus associated magnetic field) can be attenuated in both amplitude and time interval (frequency) !!
Degauser's work by alternating reversing the magnetic field in the semi-saturated metal pieces in the speakers magnetic circuit in smaller and smaller increments, moving them towards the magnetic zero point. -- In the Clarifier App I use a logarithmic attenuation of amplitude and time period (Frequency) this is noticeably superior to simply attenuating a sine because of material hysteresis.
anyway ...
This this a great app it will make a little of difference that some of you will appreciate and a few of you will find ALL OF THIS very enlightening HEY it cost a *ing dollar!! give it a try. You will learn something and have some fun, try it on your car stereo if you have a input port do you wife's IEM's she will love you.
----
OK here is an interesting disclaimer -- the real problem here is in the design of the drivers themselves. Like in conductors/cables fixing the geometry itself is the real step forward not band-aids like this -this app is a partial and temporary solution that has to be repeated from time to time. -one of my current projects is the design and production of a driver design that has no saturable material in the magnetic circuit.. preliminary results are very interesting. It's why you are all waiting for my IEM's ;) LOL
Peace and Harmony
George