Specifications

Auric Illuminator CD/DVD/SACD Enhancement Treatment

When the UPS truck pulled up with an inconspicuous box bearing a hilarious outside message on each side‹"WARNING! This box contains SAT (Space Alien Technology)"‹I knew that my recent habit, gassing myself with fumes of the sound enhancement liquid inside, had become addictive. Obsessive. Nuts. Audio-mania in extremis. The box's message could not be clearer.

When you see the whole of the message (a joke that I'll leave for your own discovery), you may begin to understand why our friends and wives look at us with squinty eyes. The box from Audience, bearing new disc treatment marker pens, was right on time to sustain my practice of sending off Auric-treated discs to listeners and, most important, to pressing plants.

The box also delivered a joke in the nick-of-time, along with an enhancement process worth every penny of the $40 that the full Auric Illuminator package costs.

Let me back track. The good news is this. I'm happy to report that my never ending search for large and small ways to improve recorded sound sometimes succeeds. Every so often, I come across a tweak that enhances sound playback and/or digital recording. There are many (far too many) claims to membership in the elusive "realm of sonic tweakdom." Some tweaks are useful. Few triumph utterly.

The UPS box brought me one that succeeds. The Auric Illuminator from speaker manufacturer, Audience, is a modest looking set of common objects: two plastic bottles with a non-toxic disc cleaning gel; cloths to clean the discs; and a black felt marker with kick-a-poo magic light absorption edging to be applied to your discs. Ordinary looking stuff. Extraordinary results. That's the good news. The bad news is that this stuff works so well, you can become addicted to its use. It will not blow your mind, but it will add significantly to your listening enjoyment.

I first came upon this highly effective treatment of digital discs at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas when I stumbled into the Audience showroom suite, at the Alexis Park, to find out how their complex but powerful speaker array system worked. It works very well. That's another report down the road. Before I departed the suite, my host, John McDonald, gave me an Auric Illuminator package.

In truth, I'd been sent over to the Audience suite not only to hear an unusual set of stacked speakers, but to check out their disc treatment process. Legendary sonic guru, Dave Magnan, had insisted that the stuff was good. After nine months of almost continuous use, I now see why Dave Magnan recommended it. Dave is seldom wrong. This tweak is the real deal.

There are other such disc treatment systems on the market. I have used some that are fine. They, too, succeed it "illuminating" digital information. They, too, dig out improved musical reproduction from the pits and burns thrown at a compact disc or DVD player's laser pick up. So far, the best of these is the Auric Illuminator.

I recommend it because, for so little money, I do not know anything that so greatly improves the sound quality of music in our still-evolving, as yet imperfect, world of digital encoding. Using this treatment process on your discs, you'll hear improved imaging, more coherent harmonic structures, and heightened dynamic musical power. Sometimes you can spend several thousand dollars on an amplifier upgrade and not gain such vivid improvements. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are built to receive analog information. 24-bits and DVD/SACD sonic improvements notwithstanding, your ears need all the comfort and refined audio resolution they can locate. The Auric Illuminator truly furthers the possibilities of that happy occurrence.