Description: Brand New Furutech DSTAT new in the box! Descriptions The deStat is a small rectangular hand-held box about 7 7/8"H x 3 5/8"Wx 2 1/4"D that runs on four AA batteries. According to the owner's manual, you should get about an hour per set of batteries. Doesn’t sound like much? Well, at only ten seconds a treatment, you get 360 shots with the deStat before you need to replace the batteries. That’s a fair amount of listening. The manual also notes that you should give the deStat at least a minute or two of rest between uses. It has vent openings front and rear for an internal fan that blows air on the disc of choice to clear any stray dust particles away while emitting positive and negative ions to eliminate static electricity. This is all controlled by a large red push-button located on the side. You hold the deStat about four inches above the disc -- LP, CD, SACD, whatever -- push that big red button, wait the required ten seconds and you’re ready to go. The question you must be asking yourself is why eliminating static is so important. Think about it for a minute: We’re talking about electronic gear that is attempting to either read the pits on a digital disc or the grooves on a record. Any electrical interference in this sensitive area is bound to affect the sound you hear. After all, anything sonically lost in the front-end can never be recovered later on, no matter how good the rest of your equipment is. By eliminating static charges from the surface of your discs before you begin to play them, you increase the chances of getting a cleaner, clearer read of the vital information right from the start. With LPs this is doubly important, as static can not only create problems for the cartridge but also attract dust to the surface of the record, which is already prone to static attraction. And if you live in a dry area of the world, your problems with static only multiply. Let’s begin with the accessory that you will use on a regular basis -- the deStat. I tried it with every conceivable form of media -- from CD to SACD to DVD (both DVD-A and DVD-V) to LP. Did it do anything positive? In a word, yes. Was it a night-and-day difference? No, but it was an improvement that was easy to hear if I took the trouble to listen closely. The first disc I tried the deStat with was the Allison Krauss SACD Now That I’ve Found You – Collection [Rounder 11661-0325-6]. This is a well-recorded compilation of some of Ms. Krauss’s early recordings. The SACD is one of the best-sounding recordings in my collection. The instruments are clearly rendered and precisely located. Krauss's voice is ethereal. Yet after a quick ten-second zap with the deStat the disc opened up even more, allowing me to hear more of the recording's personality. I heard a slightly better sense of not just Allison Krauss’s singing but how that angelic voice was formed -- from inhale to its projection into the soundstage. There was also a slightly better sense of space around voices along with a clearer rendition of the instruments. Moving to CD, I was treated to much the same results. I picked two discs for testing: Soul Farm’s Scream of the Crop [Desert Rock Records 26-6] and Jay Boy Adams' The Shoe Box [Rockin’ Heart Records 7057 2006]. On both discs the bass went deeper with better definition after deStating. Vocals, as with the SACD, were better defined -- especially any harmony vocals. I could more clearly make out who was singing and where he or she stood in relation to the lead vocalist. I heard more of the small inflections of both voices and instruments, which made each sound more realistic. On DVDs I both heard and saw an improvement. I pulled the new Cream At Royal Albert Hall [Rhino R2 970421] from my shelves, zapped it with the deStat, slipped into the Oppo DVD player and sent the signal to my Olivea HDTV. In its native form this is a great DVD of one of the most-anticipated reunions to come down the pike in a long time. Yet, after the deStat treatment, I was treated to an even clearer picture and crisper sonics. Edge definition was sharper, and color was more truly represented. Plus I got all of the sonic benefits I’d heard with SACD and CD. I saw the same improvements in Gettysburg [Warner Brothers T 6139] as well. Colors were more vibrant, cannon and musket fire cracked that much more sharply. Voices, even those in the background, were much clearer. No matter how I sliced it, the deStat made a small but definite improvement with all of my digital media. But, to me, the real test would come when I tried it with an LP, as that is still, to my ears, the medium that best represents what music really sounds like and the form of software for which eliminating static charges was supposed to be the most beneficial. Until now I’ve never had cause to doubt that I was hearing the best my analog rig could produce. So to say I was a bit skeptical as to the deStat's benefits would be a gross understatement. Well it didn’t take more than the first song of the first LP to hear that it wasn’t only digital that the deStat could work its mojo on. With Ben Webster at the Renaissance [Analogue Productions AJP 011], suddenly Webster’s tenor sax sounded more like it was right in my room -- there was that kind of immediacy. Webster’s breath as it flowed through and around the reed in the mouthpiece was replayed with a startling sense of verisimilitude that made me melt in my chair. I was also treated to cleaner, clearer, more extended highs than I’d previously heard with this album. I spent the better part of one Sunday afternoon pulling out albums to deStat. With Dire Straits' self-titled album [Warner Brothers BSK 3266] once again things were made cleaner and clearer. I’ve not heard this album sound better. The same held true on David Oistrakh’s Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4 [EMI C 069-02324]. It wasn’t that I was hearing albums anew, more that I was now hearing more of what each LP had embedded in its grooves. Another side benefit of using the deStat was the impression that my albums gained a decibel or two of volume. But why? Perhaps because of what wasn’t now present -- an extraneous raising of the noise floor caused by static electricity. It’s something that, until it’s gone, you’ll never know you’re listening to. You’re so used to hearing it that you listen around it. But once its absence is heard it’s hard to go back. I now consider the deStat a mandatory accessory for any self-respecting audiophile who wants to extract the best from his music. It brought improvements to both digital and analog media in equal proportions. I plan to keep it around my house so I never have to wonder what I might be missing with any kind of disc I spin.
Price: 237.49 USD
Location: Saint Albans, Vermont
End Time: 2024-08-29T15:19:35.000Z
Shipping Cost: 25 USD
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