Tweakers' Asylum: REVIEW: Audience Auric Illuminator Accessory by Hyperion

A full review of the Audience Auric Illuminator is impossible without discussing what ails "perfect music forever". Analog fans should know it very well. The typical good 16bit/44kHz digital recording in ceedee format (meaning it doesn't sound bright, harsh, brittle, glary, grainy or downright in your face as bad ceedees do) still robs venues of air and space. It robs vocalists of saliva and flesh. Tonal color is still relatively monotonous. Scale is still miniaturized. Dynamic levels are still stepped and discontinuous. Energy levels, still anorexic. Harmonic envelopes of musical instruments, vague and homogenous. And the deficiency list goes on and on. Despite the "claimed" high resolution and dynamic range of 16 bit digital, in reality it sounds ironically dull, mechanical and undynamic compared to LP. We were told that cd is so revealing of the master tape's limitations that's why it sounds as it does and we are to accept its truthful (and usually awful) sound. What poppycock â€¦ any competent pair of ears should by now know the trick - ceedee's stark clarity comes from incomplete harmonic/unharmonic overtones and compressed dynamic resolution. (and possibly phase and timing distortion) This results into "naked" bodyless vocals, brittle steely guitars, wimpy pianos, cardboard cut-out imaging, 2-D soundstage, and usually asyncopated timing that sound fake and unconvincing.

No wonder ceedee tweaks have proliferated with success all through these years. Now, Audience has produced Auric Illuminator to try help make living with 16 bit digital more of a less painful experience.

The Auric Illuminator (henceforth called AI) comes in a small white box that seems several sizes too big for cd optical treatment. Opening the box shows the reason, as the package comes with a big cache of lint-free cloth.There are two small bottles of light blue gel and a big black pen with Auric Illuminator gold label. The pen appears to be from Paper Mate. The Auric Illuminator label slowly disappear after repeated use of the pen.

All my cds were already treated by Audioprism Stoplight (d green pen). I love the stuff even though the improvements are pretty subtle so I know that cd tweaks can be worthwhile. All are regularly cleaned with Essilor MX100 lens cleaning cloth (so the effect of the AI, should it be just a good cleaning/surfactant agent should be minimal) All are rubbed with a Curtis anti-static cloth before playback so again, if the AI's "thing" is just to reduce/remove static, then there should have been minimal improvements at best.

Since all my cds have Stoplight already and I am too lazy to remove em, I just painted the black over the green. Before I put on the gel treatment, I listened to the effect of the black marker first.

With the black ink, everything sounded slightly clearer already, especially the midrange. The highs are airier and more extended. But some warmth and richness disappeared. Bass is tighter and deeper, but less weighty and rounded. This was consistent on several discs. Then I put the gel treatment and buffed it after the gel has dried.

I was definitely pleased with the visual results. This treatment makes all discs look newer than new. There is deep gloss shine (not shallow glary gloss) that makes ceedees very pleasing to behold. It reminds me of sparkling vinyl that just went thru a VPI cleaning machine. Slight scratches on the playing side seem a lot less obvious. The ceedees feel smoother and softer to the touch and are more resistant to fingerprints and dust accumulation too.

But what about the sound?

The most obvious difference is that everything sounded smoother. There was simply more air and ambiance. Harmonic/unharmonic overtones are definitely more complete. Images are clearer and more solid and more dimensional. (something not typically associated with sounding smoother!) Bass is deeper and more controlled. The soundstage increases in size and recedes slightly behind the speakers. (but overall depth is only slightly improved) The scale of instruments change - to their appropriate sizes: guitars become smaller, pianos bigger etc, er in the direction of (but not quite) LP sense of scale. However there is merely subtle improvement in image layering. Transients are cleaner and faster. Treble sounds that used to be localized to the tweeters (in case of bad cds) now appear where they are supposed to be.

In terms of timbre, handclaps (something 16 bit digital is really bad at) suddenly sound fleshy and meaty and less like metallic raindrops. Woodblocks sound soft and wooden and less like brittle tin cans. Pianos suddenly become dense and more rock solid. Everything sounds more natural and less mechanical.

Using the 3 "C" criteria - I found out that dynamic contrast, temporal contrast and tonal contrast are all improved. Low level sounds that are not heard before (like small bells, subtle triangle strikes, etc) are now easily audible despite being in the background of much louder signals. The most intriguing thing is that these are extra info that I havent heard from ANY cd front end ever, regardless of price and make. This means that all discs possibly have info that is not accessible to all cd lens/reading mechanisms if not treated with the gel. This is very good news, this means the AI is not a tone control but really result to genuine improvements in resolution - as Audience claims. This catapults the AI into exalted "required cd tweak" category!

In a sense, the AI gives cd listeners a bit of the good qualities of LP playback. However, despite help from AI, cd will not be mistaken for LP, and still light years away from Live. But it's a good few quantum leaps into that direction. The best recipients of the AI not surprisingly, are audiophile grade cds that have analog masters. They are the most improved; sounding even closer to analog and live more than ever. But even Naxos DDD stuff sound a whole lot better. Mediocre pop cds are made more listenable and enjoyable but they remain mediocre. And bad cds remain bad sounding. In fact the truly ear-byting of the bunch become even worse sonically but may offer some new musical insights however so I treat mine with AI as well. And so should you - if you want to hear every byte of music from a ceedee.

REVIEW: Audience Auric Illuminator Accessory Review by Hyperion at Audio Asylum