[setmenu]

I spotted this little marvel whilst looking through the September issue of
HiFi World magazine.
This 200ml bottle of secret ingredient containing liquid cost £75...

The magazines little review states it makes as much difference as changing
a good quality IC to and 'expensive' high end one.
Where the music really opens up, the sound stage becomes wider deeper and
the sound becomes [naturally] more....FLUID!

Check out the Phonosophie website [accessories] for more wonders!


http://www.phonosophie.co.uk/

Obviously these kind of products do touch on somewhat contentious issues often
discussed before.
I suppose the thing that caught me about the product review mentioned was
the matter of fact way that a bottle of magic fluid [containing that popular ingredient oil 'S']
was just described as doing what it said on the label without
any question as to what how why or whether it was actually doing anything
at all! [I realize this is not an entirely rare thing for hifi mags]
£75 is a lot for what may well just be a bottle of cleaning fluid.

Myself I have used a CD fluid surface treatment in the past, one called 'lazerguide'
and I do remember thinking it did improve things.
Though it did not cost much.
The product claim was that the fluid improved the light transmission properties
of the cd by reducing surface scattering effects of the disk by filling any minute imperfections.
The disk certainly felt silky after application an did not have any greasy residue.
If my memory serves, I felt the effect on the sound to be a subtle increase in body and
solidity to the sound, a more organic or natural midrange.
Even if the effect was in my mind the fluid did make it easier to keep the disk
clean as nothing much stuck to it.
Maybe it was something containing silicone oil?

Anyhow my instinct to shout bollocks! when faced with £75 bottle of magic
tends to be greater these days.

.

 

[Wmcmanus]

That is an expensive one, but my instincts now tell me that it's best not to shout anything until I've tried it, whatever it might be (i.e, a disc treatment, a cable, a CD trimmer, various isolation devices, and on and on). The audio hobby has given me more eye openers than I can recount, but one of them has been that these liquid disc treatment solutions really do make a difference to the sound. How much of a difference and whether you like it or not are seperate issues.

I've tried OpTrix, Auric Illuminator, Walker's Audio Vivid, and a couple more that I can't think of right now. Just as different skin lotions have an impact on the surface smoothness of skin, all of the liquid disc treatments each have an impact on the sonics of CD's, some of which are very hard to detect, and even when you do detect the differences, it's often hard to decide whether you like what they do for the sound. In my case, Walker's Audio Vivid was the clear winner, with Auric Illiminator a distant second, although I still prefer it to not treating a disc. OpTrix is an example of a liquid treatment that does very little, if anything, to the sound, and is by far the least effective of the three, IMO. YMMV.

 

[setmenu]

I agree, the reasonable person in me says give everything the benefit of the doubt until I try for myself.
As I mention I have used disk treatments myself,but they did at least attempt
to explain what it was the product did and why.
This particular product is supposed to be applied to both sides of the disk and the 'effect' takes time to appear.
This 'blanket' treatment suggests that the product is not necessarily meant
to be an optical enchantment.

Any ideas how else the magic potion would effect the cd, antistatic?

Anyhow,I guess we all have our BS thresholds, Myself I enjoy messing with cables [love nice shiny silver, hehe] and use boutique components strategically placed in my diy stuff.
But the engineer in me tends to choke when I feel I am presented with voodoo.



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