[Review] Getting animated

Sorry but that is complete rubbish. If anything, his past experience gives him more credibility.

 

So
Hear a difference - what a fantastic bit of kit.
Hear no difference - you've an agenda/cloth ears/heard it in the wrong environment.

Been hear so many times before.

 

No, subtle (but definite) improvement.

Not fantastic, no.

 

A question to those who hear an effect: is the effect consistent across sources, i.e. does it 'work' with vinyl, CD and radio equally well?

Tony.

 

tonyL, adding tones to your list of naysayers doesn't exactly add any weight, this is the guy who says he cant hear any difference in cables in his system.

sure Petes routine isnt exactly scientific, maybe he should write up a protocol for testing the unit. along the lines of.


warm up hifi good and proper.
place and turn on box.,
leave room for ten minutes.
come back listen and enjoy.
turn off.
listen again.


i'd be happy to find out that it's a mains conditioner of some sort, i'd be willing to believe that it's an ultrasonic resonator of some sort that affects our perception of sound if not the generation or propagation of those soundwaves themselves. and as such likely not measurable by hifi gear.

if it doesn't heat up, doesn't beam a frequency, doesn't vibrate, doesnt filter mains, then i'd agree with you, it's bollocks and i'd be prepared to beleive that i allowed myself to perceive a difference that in reality did not exist. in fact i'd be the first to chnage his mind that what i heard was impossible, but if the best anyone can do is say that what i heard was improbable then i'll continue to believe i heard it.


i'd say this would be a great itemto bring to the diy show, maybe we could rig a small room specifically for it.

 

Interesting question.......but one I can't really answer; I'm only set up for cdp just now.

 

And well controlled listening tests agree with him.

 

Let's discuss more important matters, this is getting boring.

Melorib, why do you have a matching washing machine and tumble drier in your listening room and what powder do you recommend?

Always wondered

 

I have no reason whatsoever to doubt his findings. I have tried a great many cables over the years, some make a difference, some do not. FWIW I have seldom found the difference to be related to price, though the ones that sound the most different to one another tend to measure differently, i.e. there is a hard scientific explanation. I have for instance been able to detect the difference between say NAC A5 and Kimber 8TC with 100% accuracy in a randomised blind dem environment. This is hardly surprising as they measure entirely differently too.

It is perfectly logical to conclude that the cables Tones heard did not measure sufficiently differently for the differences to be audible.

Tony.

 

I plan too .....if theres a suitable room to run a demo ....its that draft problem again.

tv / guitar / radio /spoken word.......all are effected.

 

I use the dust that gathered inside your skull, instead of brains...

 

That's it, if you can't win an argument, resort to personal insults.

Come on guys, let's be nice to each other for a change.

 

In regards to the comment that tones can't hear a difference between cables ...that I made and he has repeated ...

my point was he was using exotic cables to start with .......errrr if you can't hear the effect of cables why have you gone to the trouble and considerable expense of installing exotic cables ?....I'm comfortable with his lack of cable distinguishing ability .....though if you can't hear a cable change your not going to hear the animator, as the effects are of a similar magnitude, if you have an effect at the low end of the range. The top of the scale effects are similar to a major component change.....imo

A word on double blind tests......everyone I've been involved with has been meaningless. In that the methodology was flawed or the process was so artificial the listeners were ill at ease and very poor results gained. strangely the same test was carried out on a group of friends in a relaxed atmosphere with high degree of success.... Thats not to say ddb test are bad ...they just tend to throw the baby out with the bath water or mask the effect there looking for. There is a parallel here seen in some types of science ...the hard you actually look for a result the more likely it is you will miss it or it will not occur. I'm thinking of the car with the intermittent minor fault ....I had a Nova SR a few years back that at certain times ran unevenly ....it went back six times in two months, to the garage before they just changed the carb....the fault was a pin hole in the diaphragm ...why this fault did not present on the tests ...only on normal driving no one could say, but fault there was. This is just one example ....I'm certain everyone has had similar experiences its just a case of recognizing the fact.

 

Only answering at his level...

 

A test of the Room- and Audio-Animators

Executive Summary: I tried it. It didn't work. To those who heard it work, I think you've been sold a pup. If you're happy that you haven't, I respect your right to enjoy it.

Read further at your own risk. WARNING, there's rather a lot of it (it's great what you can do on a daily train journey between Zürich and Basel)…

Sometime during last week, I found that the local agent for the Phonosophie stuff is in Oensingen, a village on what was the old Basel-Bern main road before the Autobahn and the tunnel through the Jura. Our village is on that same road, so that made me decide that I had to try one. So I drove over there on Saturday (pretty drive – on a good day (which it wasn't), you get a great view of the Alps as you crest the Jura and swoop and loop down the other side, especially if you do the Passwang road, beloved by all the local motorcyclists.

The shop was a surprise – mainly AV, selling the big flat TVs the Swiss love, and the main electronics brand is Onkyo, although it does also stock the full range of Phonosophie equipment (which looks quite reasonable). But then that reflects the Swiss general lack of interest in two-channel stereo. However, in the window was the Room Animator, plus one of Herr Gläss's infamous “lathesâ€Â. Clearly Herr Baschung, the shop owner, believes in tweaks. He was typical of Swiss hi-fi dealers, very friendly and welcoming, and couldn't take enough trouble to explain – insofar as he could (see further hereinunder…).

First of all, I found that there was an entire family of products, the Room-Animator – this thing, costing a heart-stopping CHF1198 (about £492)



then theAudio-Animator, a curious gold baton:



costing a minor coronary-inducing CHF648 (about £266)

Within the last few weeks has come a Cable Animator (not yet on the website), which is adapted to be clipped to a cable to do – whatever it's supposed to do. This has the form of an aluminium cylinder, about 5 cm long and 1 cm diam. Finally, there is coming a power board for your hi-fi. All of these work on the same principle.

Which is what? Here the confusion starts - nowhere is this stated. The literature that comes with the Room-Animator states in large capitals

DER ARTKUSTIK RAUM AUDIO ANIMATOR IST KEIN “ESOTERIK†PRODUKE SONDERN ARBEITET NACH REIN PHYSICALISCHEN GESETZMÄSSIGKEITEN

(The Artkustik Room Audio Animator is not an “esoteric†product, but one that works according to pure physical regularities).

The use of the word “Gesetzmässigkeit†(regularity) seems odd (Markus?) – it is not the usual German word for physical law. On the English language website, however, Phonosophie does use “lawsâ€Â, even though what's written is nonsense (electrons only move in matter during chemical reactions and when passing an electrical current – the whole physical universe relies on electrons otherwise staying exactly where they are). Moreover, I'm glad to see that the thing doesn't contain unnatural matter, including (naturally) a naturally-occurring blue LED:

The Room Animator works purely according to the laws of Physics (the ordered movement of electrons in matter) and depends on the use of natural matter. It contains only naturally-occurring materials.

Whenever we listen to the music from a HiFi system, we need air in our room to transmit the sound. The more evenly arranged is the “sound conductivity†of the air, the better the acoustic behaviour of the room.

In practice this means: increased dynamics, high resolution, more detail and improved spatial definition, a more accurate bass rendition, and a more live feel to the musical rendition.

The piece on the Audio-Animator is bigger, and even more nonsensical:

The performance shows more energy, no matter how loud you listen. Also reveals more width in the sound stage, which is no longer restricted in scale.

The bass has more swing and more rhythm ...the brushed hi-hats seem to be more subtle.

Hands on piano sound
Guitar strings are enunciated, have more context...

Seems to take on increased air and precision.

In total an easier, airier, lighter and smoother sound has been attained.
Hörerlebnis / Marco Kolks

Music pulses with animation, is livelier and fresher…

The triangle in Liszts first piano concerto (Katchen, Decca) attained almost 3D room qualities, the piano stood out with a more contoured sound.

… allowed the individual instruments of the string section to be show themselves much more clearly.
hifi & records / Ludwig Flich
The ARTKUSTIK AUDIO ANIMATOR is used to reduce material stress. Using the regularities of physics. It transfers the structural order of crystals to each object, in its proximity. Regardless of which material it is made of plastic, wood or metal.
All that needs to done is to pass the AUDIO ANIMATOR just over the surface of both sides of the CD.

The same applies to records, tone arms and system components.

Its even worth leaving the AUDIO ANIMATOR on top of the CD player the whole time.

Cables and speakers can also benefit from `treatment'.


The word “Quarz†(quartz) proudly features on the Audio-Animator. Quartz, crystalline silicon dioxide, is the most common of minerals – sand is mainly fine quartz. Bigger SiO2 crystals are much desired for their aesthetic appeal and also by New Age believers for their alleged healing ability – here's a piece from Wikipedia that describes it well:

The contemporary usage of the term New Age was popularised by the American mass media during the late 1980s, to describe the alternative spiritual subculture, including activities all the way from meditation, channelling, reincarnation, crystals, psychic experience, to holistic health or environmentalism, or belief in anomalous phenomena, or for others “unsolved mysteries†such as UFOs, Earth mysteries and crop circles.
…

Many people with a New Age perspective also adopt complementary and alternative medicine. Some rely on New Age treatments exclusively, while others use them in combination with conventional medicine. This approach is regarded as completely compatible with New age belief in the unity of mind, body, spirit, and the emphasis on things of a natural origin. Some noteworthy New Age techniques are , Ayurveda, homeopathy, rebirthing, reparenting, Past life regression, Primal therapy, neurolinguistic programming, the Feldenkrais method, iridology, auras, and the use of crystals in healing therapy

So, it sounds as if this stuff is the extension of New Age to hi-fi. Herr Baschung described to me that the use of the Audio-Animator caused the materials to “relaxâ€Â. I was very proud of myself that I didn't burst out laughing in his face. Your tonearm should ideally be infinitely rigid – do you want it to relax in any way? Ditto the grooves in your record – I had this mental image of the PVC relaxing so much that it all sags into the grooves, filling them up. It ties in with the advice given to the user of the device. To paraphrase the original German:

There are several parameters why an effect isn't immediately evident: one is tense and doesn't follow the music [Are you listening, Ivor?] When you are inwardly calm and the equipment and music carrier are to some extent decorous[don't look at me, I didn't write it!] and stable, a comfortable atmosphere occurs and the positive effect of the Room-Animator is clearly perceptible .

You are even told to test it with a “melodic piece of musicâ€Â! The message appears to be that both you and the material, be it the record/CD, the equipment or, in the case of the Room-Animator, the atmosphere itself, must not be “tenseâ€Â, but relaxed. You are invited to buy the analogy that, as you hear better when you are relaxed, so your equipment/recordings/atmosphere perform better in this state. This is total piffle, but then the accessories end of the hi-fi industry runs on total piffle.

One of the oddest suggestions seems to indicate some sort of electromagnetic effect. You listen to a piece of music. You then pause the music, ring a number on your mobile telephone and set the phone on the Room-Animator (without covering the LED), leaving it there for 5-10 seconds. You then turn off the phone and unplug the Room-Animator and play the music. According to the literature, most of the positive “effect†will have been destroyed. At this point, I was watching nervously for the arrival of the three witches from “Macbethâ€Â...

New Age believers believe in strange individual electromagnetic fields, auras and whatnot. So, putting it all together, it seems to me that what we have here is New Age applied to hi-fi. As I said elsewhere, it's reminiscent of Peter Brock's infamous “energy polariserâ€Â, fitted to his modified Holdens and claiming to make the car run quieter and more economically.

Anyway, Herr Baschung, apparently never before having been confronted with someone with chemistry/materials science background and a lifetime spent in working in professional science, was very keen that I test them. He begged me to take the Audio-Animator as well! So I did.

The Room-Animator is a sealed flat cylinder of brushed aluminium, about 120mm diam. and 35mm high. There is a single blue LED in the centre of the upper face and a power input for the 6V power supply in the side. It's quite heavy, and there is the sound of a smallish amount of light granular material (such as sand) moving inside when it's shaken.

The Audio-Animator is a 140mm long, 38mm diam gold-coloured cylinder with silver-coloured end caps. It is quite heavy and when shaken it makes the same moving granules sound (only more so – one could imagine oneself doing the samba around the room shaking a couple). The mode of operation is that you pass this over whatever you want to enhance - recorded medium prior to playing, tonearm/cartridge, speakers.

Both devices come in nice little wooden boxes with sliding lids. Along with them came reviews of both products in a little black book, both paeans of praise written by a Marco Kolks, apparently a writer for a German magazine called Hörerlebnis, and apparently determined to prove that German hi-fi journalists are not to be outdone in sheer unadulterated nuttiness by their British and US counterparts (see above).

When I got home, I fired up the ESL57s as I usually do, ready for a Saturday evening's listening, and at the same time I turned on the Room-Animator according to instructions, in a place where the beam from the blue LED could reach the ceiling. I then left it for about 4 hours while I went about my usual Saturday afternoon activity of molesting innocent pieces of wood in the garage. So, back for the test, using my standard test disc, the marvellous Pinnock recording of Handel's “Water Musicâ€Â, the CD and LP of which I've owned for over 20 years and every nuance of which performance I know. It sounded great. I unplugged the Room-Animator. It sounded just as great. In fact, it sounded just the same. No nuances that I could even use as the basis for an imagination that something had changed. It was just the same.

I tried the mobile phone trick. Also no change.

I then tried waving the Audio-Animator over the CD in the tray (feeling very grateful that the wife was in the garden and the younger ladies were out and about). And it made precisely no difference.

The advice on the instructions is “if you don't hear a difference, try again.†I guess you are expected to wear yourself into acquiescence, possibly aided by the fact that you'd spent a bomb on this thing.

So, the only conclusion to which I can come is that this is yet another example of snake oil. I'm sure that Herr Phonosophie believes in it and that it's the real deal (well, I hope he does…), but I'm not.

My personal belief is that this Phonosophie stuff is pure New Age and therefore total hooey. However, I respect you folk who heard a difference, and if it enhances your listening pleasure to use such devices, go for it. However, this is one expensive difference. At that price I'd demand the orchestra to magically appear before me in person.

And so, let's all stand and sing The Phonosophie Song:

Blue, blue, my light is blue
Cost me a bomb, but what could I do?
Red, red, my account's dead
But better sound, what more need be said?

Ray, ray, forget naysay-
Ers, diff'rence great, indeed night and day,
Quartz, quartz, it takes the warts
And all from music, cannot be rort

How it works, we have not a clue
But work it does, we have heard and it's true.

Beam, beam, it makes eyes gleam
Blue LED, kit sounds like a dream
Sound, sound, that, pound for pound
Makes for an upgrade really profound

Those who say, it can't go this way
Don't want to hear what's plain as day.

Green, green, and quite obscene
With envy are those sceptic has-beens
Black, black, s'not goin' back
When it's switched off, apparent's the lack.

It's heard by all, not just in the head
Even my wife, who is both deaf and dead.

Blue, blue, next comes a new
Gold magic wand and cable ones too
Grey, grey, I'll hear all day,
New Age of sound, don't care what folk say!

Mind you, my personal song would be:

Well ma baby caught me list'nin',
To a weird blue light today,
Well ma baby caught me list'nin',
To a weird blue light today,
So she tossed both it an' me out
An' as I landed, heard her say.

Chorus:
See ya later, Animator,
It's so vile, such a pile
Of a fluid whose creator
Was a legless long reptile.
There's no way ah'm gonna share life
With a crazy audiophile!

So ah begged her for forgiveness
An' ah said ah'd seen the light
So ah begged her for forgiveness
An' ah said ah'd seen the light
An' she said, “Ah'll forgive this time
Long as the light yo' saw was white!â€Â

Chorus:

Donna what ah'm gonna do now
With all these crystals that I got
Donna what ah'm gonna do now
With all these crystals that I got
An' they don' seem to be healin'
Where ah landed on mah bot!

Chorus:

 

Great piece Tones. Thank you. But to get to the nub of the matter, why don't you leave your 57s on all the time?!

 

I just wanted to say that, regardless of whether people have/want/like/dislike the animator.. Tones your songs are ALWAYS a highlight of zerogain IMHO - they bring some welcome humour to this sometime-dry topic of hifi.

Thanks for your efforts of trying these things, and giving your opinions.

 

The second song is great The first one sounds a bit forced.

 

everyone's a critic huh

 

It all seems very dubious doesn't it Tones?

I have spent some time thinking about the materials the baton type thing is made of and come to the conclusion that what appears to be a purely passive device like that claimed to be able to alter it's surroundings is pushing the limits just too far. At the price being asked for it, it is indeed a joke.

The room exciting device pretty much prompts the same response from me excepting the price which is outrageous for such a simple device, no matter what it's mysterious contents are alleged to be.

Ordinarily, I would happily ignore these products equally as much as I currently ignore most of the crackpot devices being marketed, but when someone who I have no reason to doubt comes along and says there was an effect witnessed by others too, then my curiosity is awoken. Not a desire to buy one I hasten to add.

Your songwriting is as crisp and potent as ever too