Hi Don,
Unless I may have made a mistake in the name, but this is the fluid that has been applied to some of the component circuitry by David, and other people that is being referred to as the Blue goo. It is a very expensive material that is applied in a liquid form that hardens and is supposed to lessen vibration and I believe to act as a dampening material.
Rich
FIM Super Analog Series? Dimfer gave me a copy of Le Fille and I've had a good listen to the Linda Rondstat. If these two CDs are any indication, it must be a great series. I had no idea the AVM dropped read errors. I just figured the extra weight helped. Winston should make his guys wear masks to avoid blue booger syndrome.
FIM Super Analog Series? Dimfer gave me a copy of Le Fille and I've had a good listen to the Linda Rondstat. If these two CDs are any indication, it must be a great series. I had no idea the AVM dropped read errors. I just figured the extra weight helped. Winston should make his guys wear masks to avoid blue booger syndrome.
Yeah. I was initially skeptical as well, but also tried other things as well that added weight - stuck sheets of paper, plastic, silicon, carbon fiber, etc. The only thing that consistently reduced the read errors was the AVM. Every little bit helps at the levels that we are working at. You have to remember that the Red Book standard is 220 block read errors per second averaged. We are down to below 10 for Winston's UDCs.
I haven't tried to measure the use of AVM on devices, but we coated blank CDR's with it. It reduced block read errors consistently from 7 to 10 down to 5 to 9.
Here's how a AVM is being applied:
View attachment 2066
That's interesting because some time ago, Bob Ludwig told me the quality of the CD-Rs he was using to send for pressing was not what they were when CD-Rs were first released. He was apalled by the number of reading errors on the newest discs.
Interesting, thanks Gary. I have a vague memory about material being applied that reduced reflections (light scattering) on CDs and that improved the error rate. It worsened the wobble (speed variation), but that did not seem to impact the error rate either way. I wonder if that is what is going on? I cannot recall what was used before (it was in the 80's), but it was also a glue-type material. BTW, 10 errors/block seems awfully good to begin with! Isn't the standard something like ten times that? I don't really remember, just that it seemed fairly high'ish.
Yes, 10 BLER/sec is awfully good. The Red Book allows for up to 220, many audiophile CDs are in the range of 35 to 100. BUT you have to remember that these are the correctable C1 errors. So, there will be 1,000,000 scientific types out there who will tell you that I am crazy to tell you that I can hear a difference when the BLER goes down.
In the range of 35 to 100 errors, the wobble doesn't seem to affect the error rate. So, while the AVM coating doesn't help with dynamic balance of the spinning disc, it somehow (we don't know how) reduces the BLER. Since we clear the AVM off the edge of the disc with the Autodesk disc cutter, I don't think that it reduced light scattering either...... and the FIM discs are made with a much thicker of silver/gold so transparency of the reflective coating isn't an issue either.
IMO the FIM UDs sound better, but I can't explain why.
You're not crazy, Gary, but the odds are pretty high that you're hearing what you expect to hear.
Tim
Are Laser pick ups susceptible to errors from varying distance from laser to reflective surface? CDs are light and stiff. If they are not secured securely could they chatter? Damping and weighting a disc could conceivably keep chatter in the vertical plane down. Chatter could also cause changes in the read angles right?
Errors in themselves are not the problem. Remember, in the reading of data from the disk this is all happening in the world of digital, where providing nothing is grossly wrong , everything IS perfect. Would a copy of Excel read of a crappy, badly out of balance old disk behave differently from that stored on an absolutely pristine, perfectly manicured brand new one? No, it would be 100% identical as far as the computer was concerned, and so would the music from the CD be "correct", so long as it remains in digital form!Are Laser pick ups susceptible to errors from varying distance from laser to reflective surface? CDs are light and stiff. If they are not secured securely could they chatter? Damping and weighting a disc could conceivably keep chatter in the vertical plane down. Chatter could also cause changes in the read angles right?
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