DEMAG your vinyl / LP's!!

themagicmanmdt · Post by **themagicmanmdt** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 12:09 am

yes, yes! amazing!

just wanted to broadcast how much of a wonderful difference this is.

i recently picked up a bulk demag/degausser on eBay for clean erasure of some 'house' reels of tape that get tossed around for folks who don't wanna buy a multitrack reel. cool w/ me.

the old Scully sometimes has an issue with erasure depth. plus, sometimes I get used reels 'round here, and they're on 1" 12 track... not 1" 8....

ALAS

so, records build static, right?

and, even outside of obvious static (dust, etc), minor interactions could cause some interesting effects to a diamond needle gliding across vinyl/plastic, right?

so, one after another, I listened to a track, then demagged/degaussed it, then listened again.

it was, almost, akin to a remaster on most LP's. more dynamic punch, extended frequencies, more 'solid' imagery, wider stereo field. it is a very sizable step towards 'holography'. (i'm just using an AT 120 cartridge here, nothing crazy.)

- 'songs of leonard cohen' original press got five degrees deeper;

- 'bookends' sundazed reissue all of a sudden had extra wide imagery on tracks like 'punky's dilemma' - the toy piano started jumping through the speakers!

and more.

so, if anyone is getting hired for grabbing some samples from LP's, or reissuing/restoring material from wax, or just archiving something...

DEMAG EM!

<3

m

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:32 am

Wait, what? Degaussing removes a magnetic field, not a static electric one. Are you saying that vinyl and wax can be magnetized??

analogika · Post by **analogika** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:48 am

My snake oil detectors are drooling all over the floor.

De-magnetizing the needle coil - yep. But de-magnetizing a non-magnetic substance?

tjcasey1 · Post by **tjcasey1** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 1:58 am

Take it from a Physics guy - magnetic fields only interact with iron (and a few other metals very weakly, if I remember correctly - or maybe I'm thinking of semiconductors), not carbon-based compounds.

Now, if you records were somehow covered with iron dust, then yeah, you'd hear a huge difference.

I think you're just listening more attentively.

(Truthfully, I thought this thread was a joke, so I read it.)

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:10 am

I recall back in my vinyl daze (and I hadda {still have in storage} cuppla thou), I had a commercial product what was red, looked like a raygun, for just that purpose.

It worked a treat to remove static electricity - an obvious difference was after pointing the thing (hadda little wire sticking out of the end) and squeezing the long-sweep trigger, you could literally blow off most of the dust on a record.

I think it was called an "Anti-Static Gun".

I also used it to remove static cling on wool pants!

EDIT:
See here.

BTW, the charge static charge is apparently to do with the dust itself.

And another cool thing was, in the dark, you could see the gun shoot a spark.

Finally, I think I paid about US$25 for 'em, the last back in the mid-80's.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 6:26 am

tjcasey1 wrote:Take it from a Physics guy - magnetic fields only interact with iron (and a few other metals very weakly, if I remember correctly - or maybe I'm thinking of semiconductors)

Nickel and Cobalt and some rare earth elements are also strongly ferromagnetic. Also, some non-ferromagnetic elements become ferromagnetic when combined in compounds with other non-ferromagnetic or ferromagnetic elements.

Of course none of that has anything to do with vinyl records! I like vvv's anti-static gun idea.

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 5:42 pm

Those anti-static guns are nifty, and anti-static brushes are common. But that's a different game from demagnetizing plastic...

floid · Post by **floid** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 5:56 am

Strictly speculation from a guy more into Pynchon than Physics. But a d-mag is an electromagnet. Electricity and magnetism are expressions of the same force. Is it possible static dispersal is an unintended side effect that produces the desired result?

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:02 am

floid wrote:Strictly speculation from a guy more into Pynchon than Physics. But a d-mag is an electromagnet. Electricity and magnetism are expressions of the same force. Is it possible static dispersal is an unintended side effect that produces the desired result?

I think that's reasonable.

On the other hand, this is just over the top:

"it was, almost, akin to a remaster on most LP's. more dynamic punch, extended frequencies, more 'solid' imagery, wider stereo field. it is a very sizable step towards 'holography'."

Which is why I think we're in Radio Shack EQ territory here.

analogika · Post by **analogika** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:16 am

5 degrees of satire, baby.

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:20 am

I dunno about demagging vinyl, however my Han d mag applied to cassettes vastly improves the sound.

floid · Post by **floid** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 9:08 am

Leonard Cohen records tend to have plenty of depth as-is. Even with scratched surfaces.

I'm Painting Again · Post by **I'm Painting Again** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 3:27 pm

I just did a google search and was shocked to discover the Radio Shack EQ thing was going well into 2012..OMGWTFBBQ!!

Was it dwlb or james who started that?

hilarious..

static electricity actually can create a magnetic field..

when it's in motion..

If a magnetizer can even out the unevenly charged ions before the turntable it would work to an extent similarly to the anti-static gun

as far as approaching holographic sound..

well

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 11:01 pm

Sheep in Punk Clothing wrote:I just did a google search and was shocked to discover the Radio Shack EQ thing was going well into 2012..OMGWTFBBQ!!

Was it dwlb or james who started that?

I wish I could take credit. But I can't.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:55 am

It still gets mentioned, that EQ.

Now, mine?

It has a little holster on the side ...

... for the D-stat gun.

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DEMAG your vinyl / LP's!!

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