Herbie's Mini Grunge Buster

Hi All, It's actually quite tough for me to just yet give a good evaluation on the mini Grunge Buster, as over the last week since I've gotten the Mat, I've also installed on my Cal Alpha DAC a pair of matched NOS Mullard CV4004 Tubes with the Herbie's PEEK Tube Dampers.

I've definitely gotten myself a much smoother, enjoyable sound out of the Alpha DAC since doing these changes, as before with the Phillips JAN 5751's it was virtually unlistenable in my system. Sounded just too hard, brittle, bright, and unbalanced.

I'll need more time with the Mat before I can give it an honest evaluation, but I suspect it does wat it supposed to, and I suspect one can assume that the mat will offer a subtle improvement. I certainly wouldn't expect the mat to transform my CAL DAC into a top of the line Mark Levinson DAC.

About Steve's Herbelin's service, yes I agree, he's absolutely top shelf in my book. The paperwork that came with my quickly recieved goods were all personally adressed to me, and service just doesn't get any better than this IMO. Mark

And I have an update. Steve e-mailed me and said that the box finally showed up. It took 7 days for the stupid Priority Mail package to finally get from NY to Texas. So much for a 2-3 day service.

Mark please keep us posted as you evaluate the mat further. I want to try it. I'll probably get it anyway, but for a next month I won't have my system, as my amp will be worked on. But I am expecting that the mat should work good on recodings with certain sonic signature. Not all the digital recordings are bright, but unfortunatelly good ones are rare, so I think the mat may come in handy.

I've responded before and thought I should comment further. I can testify that the mat works great and has the effects as advertised. I use it with my Levinson 31.5 and it made a clearly favorable audible difference.(Quieter background, a little more dynamic, smoother highs)The differences were not subtle and easily heard. It had much the same effects on a friend's Theta transport. I've even used two with my computer when copying CDs for archival purposes, (one on the orginal disc and one for the copy)the newly copied CD with Herbie's mat sounds quieter and more dynamic than without the mat. To my friends and I it sounds much better than his previous mat and we both prefer Herbie's mat to the CD Blacklite mat that many use.

Thanks Sgr for the update.

Thank you for your posts on the Grunge Buster. Based on your results, I bought one and find the same improvements. Has anyone compaired the Grunge Buster to either of the Marigo mats.