We need to know

show me the improvements in eye-height pattern, and i'll take it seriously.

heavens above, there are no eye-height pattern pics on their website.

What a surprise

Not.

"Just 1.2mm thick and CNC machined to tolerances within 0.0005", the mat absorbs mechanical vibration and enhances speed stability, revealing a more relaxed and airy presentation that you may have though possible from a digital source."

so its 1.2mm thick carbon... and so it weights sqrt(buggerall). Just how does it "enhance speed stability" compared to the angular momentum of the CD itself?

As for "revealing a more relaxed and airy presentation that you may have though possible from a digital source", I think I need a fresh box of kleenex for that.

Just saw that Tomtom Audio seems to recommend this tweak, but costing over $100 and with shipping charges too, many users have to test that it is really good. I thought that Naim used the puks exactly to minimize damping, and then we have to buy a mat to get more Ddamping, well sounds strange!

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:
show me the improvements in eye-height pattern, and i'll take it seriously.

LOL

I think they are claiming improvements detectable by auditory sense not visual sense.



Absorbs mechanical vibration – this sounds a good idea, in fact Naim mount transports on vibration reducing plates.

Enhances speed stability – Naim develop bespoke software for servo controllers, this implies pre written software is not optimal. It is quite feasible that modifying the moment of inertia of the disc will improve speed stability when used with pre written software.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jon honeyball:


"Just 1.2mm thick and CNC machined to tolerances within 0.0005", [QUOTE]

that isn't diddly. How about "machined within 3 microns, then I would be impressed. The CD will have a couple un-balancee and be out of planar surface parralell tolerance more than .0005"

rega1

I had one of these on a home trial recently.
My CDP didn't like it; 1st disk I put on my player displayed 'ERR' + wouldn't play.
I tried play again & it was OK, but I couldn't hear any difference.

The 2nd disc I put on ran very slowly.
I stopped it & started again & it played OK.
Again I couldn't hear any difference,
& I was becoming concerned it might be damaging my CDP so I gave up.

When I spoke to James at Tom Tom about my 'test' he thought there might be a manufacturing fault causing the problems.
I sent it back to James on 4th July,
& I'm waiting to hear his conclusions to the problems I encountered.

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
I had one of these on a home trial recently.
My CDP didn't like it; 1st disk I put on my player displayed 'ERR' + wouldn't play.
I tried play again & it was OK, but I couldn't hear any difference.

The 2nd disc I put on ran very slowly.
I stopped it & started again & it played OK.
Again I couldn't hear any difference,
& I was becoming concerned it might be damaging my CDP so I gave up.

When I spoke to James at Tom Tom about my 'test' he thought there might be a manufacturing fault causing the problems.
I sent it back to James on 4th July,
& I'm waiting to hear his conclusions to the problems I encountered.

My opinion is that even though it is carbon fiber, it is enough weight to disrupt the inertia and the ramp up for speed. I do not believe there is a VFD in a CD player, so it would cause problems. Why would you want to stack 2 discs on your player? 1.2mm for the thickness is a lot to add to the CDP mount. It is just asking for trouble. This will eventually damage something for sure. Eventually the puck may fly off due to trouble with magnetization or what if it doesn't center properly?

555- You have a REMARKABLE system that needs NO help from "the gadget" options. CD555 ..... pure music Sir. You get two graemlins for that.

rega1

quote:

Originally posted by fatcat:

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:
show me the improvements in eye-height pattern, and i'll take it seriously.

LOL

I think they are claiming improvements detectable by auditory sense not visual sense.

you *do* know what eye-height pattern is, and how it is related to cd player laser pickup signal?

It seems to me that putting 2 CDs on at once might have the same effect, if indeed there is one. But I'm a cynic.
Ken

Thanks a lot for replies.

quote:

Originally posted by rega1:

555- You have a REMARKABLE system that needs NO help from "the gadget" options. CD555 ..... pure music Sir. You get two graemlins for that.

rega1

This hits the nail firmly on the head. Naim have spent a lot of money ensuring the CD555 transport is well damped and stable. However, a £500 Rega player would probably benefit from improved damping and stability.

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:

you *do* know what eye-height pattern is, and how it is related to cd player laser pickup signal?

Jon

I have a basic knowledge of “eye patterns”, but I would have thought they where more relevant to server based digital players than integrated CD players.

I would be interested to learn how it is applied to CD players, is a test disc used, what is being compared and when.

quote:

Originally posted by KenM:
It seems to me that putting 2 CDs on at once might have the same effect, if indeed there is one. But I'm a cynic.
Ken

Ken

Just think how good the stabiliser will sound if it is treated with a Bedini clarifier

quote:

Originally posted by fatcat:

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:

you *do* know what eye-height pattern is, and how it is related to cd player laser pickup signal?

Jon

I have a basic knowledge of “eye patterns”, but I would have thought they where more relevant to server based digital players than integrated CD players.

I would be interested to learn how it is applied to CD players, is a test disc used, what is being compared and when.

I will assume that "eye height" is the distance at which the disc is engineered to sit from the laser mech? The carbon disc would go on top anyway, the laser cannot read through the carbon fiber. If that is what we are referring to in way of eye height? Maybe a rega CDP would, but I think it is a gimmick.

rega1

Hi rega1 - have a read of this - it explains a lot.

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
Hi rega1 - have a read of this - it explains a lot.

yes it does, as I said earlier!!! THANKS ROTF

quote:

JV: They certainly do affect the way the whole thing works. On our player, all of them without any exceptions at all... all the green pen things and stabilisers and bits and pieces that you put on the disc... all of those on our player seriously affect the sound quality adversely. And it's not subtle, it is clearly obvious. And there are other little gadgets which I believe are just coming on to the market which are little aperture controllers which go on top of the laser lens, which are supposed to deal with the scattering of the laser, and those also seriously affect the sound quality adversely.

Good explanation and a great link.

rega1

quote:

Originally posted by rega1:
Good explanation and a great link.

rega1

Good explanation

It’s the usual sales patter. Our product is better than the competitions.
We do this, that and the other. They do X, Y, Z


a great link

A revealing link.

JV emphasises the importance of reducing stray laser light and vibrations. His solution (tweak) is to paint the top of the CD player and redesign the transport/clamping mechanism.

In doing so he is actually confirming that “green pen things and stabilisers” DO IMPROVE SOUND QUALITY. Assuming they do what it says on the box, absorb stray laser light and stabilise.


With regards to the Boston Audio Graphite CD Stabiliser.

Would covering the top of a shiny CD with a piece of black non reflective material (graphite) reduce stray laser light.

Would clamping to the top of a CD a piece of vibration absorptive material (graphite) reduce vibrations.

I personally won’t be trying one in my CDSII, I suspect laser and vibration absorption was included in the purchase price

to answer your comments on behalf of the "stabilizer.

Would covering the top of a shiny CD with a piece of black non reflective material (graphite) reduce stray laser light.
1. No, it is a waste of material and would interfere with your player.

Why my comment....if laser light was an issue, a coating of "flat black" would be offered for burnable cd's and all cd's would come with standard black art work brand new. It would be an industry standard, and would have been implemented years ago when Sony invented the CD. It is the chassis that is the key to stop reflection.

Would clamping to the top of a CD a piece of vibration absorptive material (graphite) reduce vibrations.
2. No...

Why... The cd is not flat, the graphite piece no matter how close it is molded/ machined flat, would not be able to mimic the variation of flatness in the CD, thus not really helping anything as far as dampening at all.

Your cds2 is just fine without help, I agree, I am just dead set against this "addition" for dampening. I was a balancing engineer before I went into paint processing, and I just don't get it.

rega1

Hi John - 555,

The unit works fine on my demo CD 555 as it did before I sent it to you, however I have tried it on another CD 555 and it wasn't happy, it appears that the stabliser was designed to work with the standard type Naim puck designs and not for the unique puck on the CD 555 so on this basis it is not ideal for this player.

Cheers,
James

I am not sure I would recommend it for any Naim player, given the lengths to which we go to optimise all elements of the transport.