[Review] Getting animated

Pete -

 

true.

 

Ok..... negatives

you have to keep doors and windows shut ....yesterday with the central heating on in ed's flat ....it got quite warm.

The unit needs several minute in a large size room to achieve "what ever it does"

several people have commented that the ambiance of there room haved changed.....Uncle ants partner thought the room had become cosy[enclosed] and I thought she had a point.

As to sound effects that are negative ....there have been none at all, it either works with an increasing scale of positive effects or not at all. At Iain's it had an odd effect that I can't easily describe sort of going in and out of focus on a camera. After looking round the room for a cause it became apparent the effect was being disrupted by a ioniser ,once the ioniser had been switched off Iain said .....

"It definately does something positive. Images more clear, bass fuller and clearer. Very nice, but I would like to try it again to be really sure.

Also a reduction in glare. akin to a very big and expensive valve amp or even cupping your ears!"

. So far there have been two systems that were hardly effected DavidF's and a friend [who's not a forum poster] . I'm certain that dave will indicate the effect it had in his room.. but it was one of the least effected so far, even so it was apparent that there was something happening when the unit was switched off and on.



As to none working tweaks .......I repeat

there is no reason to try things that don't work or work occasionally ........from personal experience I know what will and what might effect a system when I see it. Ie theres no point in listening to say lathed disc if the person is already using them .....or extolling the virtues of an equipment stand if there using one.

examples of tweaks I don't do ......anything to do with cryogenics as I've not heard a convincing demonstration....or demagnetizing cd's [I have heard it work but not consistently]...
so I think there's the answer....I only demonstrate things that are consistently repeatable.

 

quote;

"I'm certain that dave will indicate the effect it had in his room.. "

...check out paras 103+105 (bottom of) pete?

 

I visited JackOTrades, yesterday I built him an arm cable for his NAS Morch combo, he expressed an interests in having a listen to the blue light etc.
His gear also includes a MF 30.2[?] cdp and am MF nuvista amp M3 [?] top of the range jobie running sonus fabers. This is a spectacularly good sounding system in the mid and upper freq's...but had to have a sub to fill in the low end. For me this didn't quite gell

Once we had the finalised arm cable in place ..he'd been running a test cable for several weeks. We set about listening to those tweaky items that certain people claim have no effect ...ie the cd flux, cd lathe, and of course the blue light.

Again I shall only say that we could clearly hear the effect each had.....I'm again hoping that jackotrades will provide more details on what he heard.

We also carried out the smoke test ....setting up the joss stick close to the unit . We let the joss stick burn with the unit off for about 5 mins to observe the dispersion of the smoke.
The smoke driffted across the room at an angle of 30 degrees across the listening position, breaking up around 6-8 inches from the burning tip. Switching the unit on we noticed that after 3 minutes the smoke stoped drifting across the room and tended to be more vertical 80-90 degrees. The distance from the burning tip to the breakup point increased to 10-15 inches. Over the next 10 minutes this increase till the smoke reached over a 30 inches above the burning tip We then repeated this ..placing the joss stick on the coffee table about six feet from the blue light. The effects were identical over the next 10 minutes as before....at which point his partner entered the room and the smoke collapsed back to the "off" form . Once the door was closed and with his partner in the room it took about 60 seconds for the smoke to re establish its 30" vertical column before it dispersed.

It was clear to use that the laminar and turbulent flow of the smoke was being affected by the unit being on or off.

So far this is the only test I have found where you can see the results ...If anyone has any sensible suggestions I would be interested to hear them.

The final experiment was to set some of DavidF ball bearing isolators beneath the nas plinth .....the effect was to increase the bass to the point the sub needed to be turned down ..the treble had more life and resoultion of the tt was improved. Though there were obvious aspects that need further experimentation as placment was not perfect .....further detail on the zerocost isolation thread.

 

And this has what, precisely, to do with audio?

-- Ian

 

Are you serious? .....if you have read the whole thread you will know.

The question asked by a number of poster ..what other effects does this have, can you make any effects visible etc

I'm certain that you realise the sound you hear is traveling through air ....therefore as the blue light claims to affect the air, if you can see a change in its form you may learn a little more about whats going on ....

how can you see air ? well you need to make air visible ...how can you make air visible ? you can suspend fine particles in the air ie smoke .....much in the same way smoke is used in wind tunnels

Therefore if the air is being effected it must by inference efect the smoke/fine particles suspended in it.

Are you with me ?

 

So why not test what effect it has on audio frequencies rather than whether it does something to smoke clouds? Phonosophie are making specific claims about what it does to sound, after all.

And what exactly has this test taught you about how it works? Write on both sides of the paper if necessary.

-- Ian

 

I've just got the retail price from Japan of 350-400Euros
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/rr77/rr77_01.html

 

Bob, discount entirely what they spin you in the marketing, they may have no viable explanation.

and no one is going to launch a product based on "trust us we don't know how it works but it does"...

at this price point scientific mumbo jumbo is a pre-requisite of any marketing...


if the unit was £100 i'd jump at one, as i know it does something from experience, but at that price it's too rich for my tastes.

 

Evidence

There are those two things on either side of your head for testing the difference in sound. What evidence do you have that anyone who hears a difference in sound is actually imagining the difference and not merely detecting a real physical phenonemon?

 

Oh please, this is ABC stuff.

Pete is making extrapolations from smoke clouds to audible effects. It's not unreasonable to ask him to demonstrate them.

-- Ian

 

Hello all,

As you probably read above, Zanash paid me a visit yesterday and we spent a few very enjoyable hours putting my new cables in place, trying them out and then trying some other interesting things out (no, I am not talking about the cake or the aspargus water... :newbie: ).

Zanash came over to install the two cables I got from him: a pair of silver 5mm speaker cables and an AuAg arm lead for my Morch. Together they lifted the performance of my system very significantly. The sound is now much more open and much more natural. You can see the review in a separate thread I published a little while ago.

(BTW, thanks for the kind words about my system, Zanash. Indeed, the Signums are not the last word in bass extension and the sub is as well integrated as I have had patience to do... one can spend the rest of one's life tweaking those knobs... and I rather listen to some music! but I am sure will fiddle with that a bit more at some point... )

As I had been using a similar lead and a similar pair of speaker cables (loaned for testing), the new ones did not cause a major surprise. Nevertheless, the newer version of the speaker cables brought some noted improvement to the bass depth. The highs were also a little more forward but I believe this was because the cable has yet to run in. Sure enough as the day went on the highs started to settle.

Now, to the contention points: Zanash brought along the culprits of some heated debates in this forum and I was very intrigued to see what effect I could hear (if any!) in my system. I am usually quite sceptic about these "treatments" and such like, so much so that only very recently did I start hearing proper differences when changing cables (I think this has more to do with my equipment upgrades than with my hearing).

In order of appearance, here is what we tried and what my reactions were:

CD LATHE: Z. brought two identical cds, one lathed, the other not. He played one and then the other and I did not know which one was which. I clearly heard one being much more detailed on both freq. extremes than the other, almost as if the singer was more in the mood for singing... the silences a bit darker, the dinamics more present. This was, as it turned out, the lathed cd. It is NOT a subtle difference, it is very distinguishible!

WHALE SPERM: Next up was a spray treatment. I heard the same cd before and after the treatment. In this case I knew when the treatment was applied and therefore I could be said to be "influenced" by that. Nonetheless I heard a similar effect to the one described with the lathe, but less marked. There was a noticeable improvement, if not as much of a difference as with the lathe... but it cleans the cd!

BLUE LIGHT CRISTALS: This box is a complete mystery. I was prepared to not hear a single difference... and I was wrong. I still cannot believe that it made an effect, but it most certainly did! How is it possible, it beats me. But I kid you not, you could hear differences. In my opinion, it did two things that were very noticeable: it smoothed the sound, made it a bit more "silky", and, most noticeably of all, it made it all sound louder. As if you had turned the volume up. This was *really* noticeable.

The incense test was more of a joke... We were wondering if it was doing anything to the air and so decided to burn an incense stick and see if anything was different in the way the smoke dissipated/left the stick. The result: I never ever in my life (and I burn incense regularly as I quite like it) saw the smoke going up in a straight line as far up before fizzing as when the blue light thingie was on. My wife was just as surprised...). This is, of course, nothing to do with sound... but it sure makes one think that something is happening to the air around that thing. What, I would not know... but I sure saw it!

ZANASH POWER CORD: This I believe is a prototype. I swapped my Russ Andrews Powercord and slotted Zanash's instead. This was on the cd player (an MF A3.2) and there was a difference in bass extension (predominantly) and subjectively more air around the instruments. Not a world of difference but a small improvement over what was a tweaked cord already.

WOODEN CONES/BALLBEARINGS: we tried these under the turntable, sandwiched between the NAS plinth and the Base isolation platform I use. There was a change in sound, but I wasn't sure it was for the better. There was more bass and but the sound felt a little colder. The bits were definitely doing something. If I had more time to experiment with placement it is well possible that I would find an improvement I would like to keep... I don't know. I want to try them under my cd player at some point as that has no isolation platform at all.
For the cost, these are a no brainer, as there is no risk involved and there is potential there to get some improvement.


So all in all, a lovely afternoon, thank you Zanash for coming all the way down to my humble abode. It was a pleasure having you here.

For everyone else, I am not expecting you to change your opinion based on mine. I would suggest trying these before you comment on them, though. I didn't think they'd do anything before I tried them, and now I know they do something, and something audible. In some cases for the better, in others just different, but they do make a difference. Pretty real in my book.

Would I buy them? The lathe is potentially worthwhile but I am more into LPs. The whale sperm is fairly good value for money and it cleans the cd as well so if you are going to to get a cd cleaning solution, there's a good argument to get this one. The blue LED box I think is too expensive for the changes I heard, in my system.

The power cord is very good vfm and the cones/ballbearings are a no brainer, they can make a real difference for peanuts, and if you dont like the differences, you don't stand to lose much.

At the end of the day, YMMV as our systems all differ, but all I can say is try it out, it is at the very least interesting stuff! Isn't this why we all love this hobby?

Cheers everyone,
Jack.

 

Hang on a minute. I don't think this is in the least fair to Pete!

Lets not forget that he has no vested interest in this product, if he mentioned its effect in this forum is because Pete is a nice guy, enthusiastic about hifi and likes to share with other like-minded folk his findings. If you want to try it and write an essay on the science behind it, or for that matter, any trials you feel like setting up it is up to you! I am sure it would make interesting reading... and many more would spend time picking holes in your theory/results...

I for one would gladly engage in cloud watching as a simple, empirical, light-hearted test but would not spend my time setting up a complex experiment trying to measure its effect.

Also, I don't think anyone extrapolated that the fact that the smoke changed patterns has anything to do with how it could affect the sound. That was never the intention, I believe.

At the end of the day, if anyone is that keen on proving or disproving the effect of this box, Pete has already offered to host a test. Maybe you could bring the gear and measure it?

My two cents,
Jack

 

A test of what? That's all I'm asking, it's really not a big question. Since smoke clouds don't appear to have anything to do with the claims made for the audible effects of this device, I was just trying to get Pete to tell me what exactly he thought he was testing. Apparently this is evidence of me being unfair. What a lot of phooey.

-- Ian

 

Hmm. The smoke thing doesn't of course suggest this magic box does anything to the sound, but it does suggest it does something. i.e. it isn't just a box with a blue light.

 

Oh come on, you sound like knackered old record.

In case you don't get it: Nobody knows exactly how it works. The manufacturer claims it does something to air particles to positively affect sound traveling through it. Since Pete hardly wants to chop up the unit and try to reverse engineer it he tests if something is going on with the air and does so with smoke. What does that have to do with improving sound? Well you can make educated guesses but more importantly I've seen a over five first hand reports from people other than Pete who flat out said it does have a positive effect.

 

Another "similar" concept...

http://www.clarus.com/content.php?location=home

I have been using one of this for a few years, previous model, looks nicer...

http://www.q-linkproducts.com/p_pebble.shtml

 

Cheers ....

I will make my offer again .....

I'm happy to bring it over to anyone who wants a listen ....within reason!


As jackotrades points out we spent a relatively short amount of time watching the air/smoke as opposed to the large amount of time listening to music....jackotrades suggested the incense trial after I said I had tried it in the past. For all I knew it would have had no effect, but out of completeness I would have mentioned it ...

thanks for correcting the gear you were using ...my memory again. The Asparagus water was definitely different...but the cake was a winner!

Sideshowbob ....I suggest you contact

[email protected].

they will be delighted to answer you questions, as I can't. You could arrange a home demo then report back....then rather than take my word for it, you can add something positive to the thread ..

or is that going to be too much trouble for you ?

 

Melorib....thats not the first time this has been mentioned , but I'm at a total loss to see any connection.