Bigman80
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The HiFi Bear/Audioaddicts/Bigbottle Owner
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Post by Bigman80 on May 28, 2019 22:24:57 GMT
i used to have my own way to isolate turntables 2 real heavy slabs of marble with a bike inner tube between them...works wonders and cost next to nothing I remember John Bamford and Keith Howard advocating this. Then Max Townsend put a hot water bottle between two thin steel plates and charged a rip off price for his seismic sink. |
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Post by sq225917 on May 29, 2019 17:59:19 GMT
I have a box full of magnetically levitating feet in that load of stuff I've just inherited. Lovely smooth vertical piston action, put any side load on em and they grate against themselves like a mf-cker, what the point of that then?
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Post by pauld on May 29, 2019 18:18:26 GMT
I currently use original Black Ravioli under my streamer and amp and found that made some difference, plus I have a granite placemat on top of both which also seemed to make a difference too. Both components are on a Creaktiv rack which was an improvement over the AudiophileBASE one i used previous, so yes I think that isolation products make a difference, well certainly to me anyhow.
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Post by macca on May 29, 2019 18:51:50 GMT
Most solid state gear shouldn't be affected, exceptions to this are anything with plug in boards and some CD players. Valves, of course, are affected by vibration, due to pins of small movements in parts in the valves causing microphony. Think about it, you're firing electrons across a small gap, if the two parts firing and catching the electrons move about relative to each other then its bound to affect how they work. Some phonostages can be microphonic, same goes for CD players. I always liked two soft pads under the chassis and one cone directly under a CD mech. But yes, most isolation products are bollocks. What is microphonic in a cd player? (assuming it doesn't use valves). |
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2019 20:30:39 GMT
Surely, it depends on how much you spend?
I'd cut out the middle man: imagine I'd bought some cones - obviously really expensive ones. Imagine I'd put them under my cd/whatever. Imagine there was a vast improvement. Could go all the way, and not bother switching anything on and just imagine how great the sound is. Well, if it's all down to imagination, might as well go all the way.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2019 20:41:42 GMT
i used to have my own way to isolate turntables 2 real heavy slabs of marble with a bike inner tube between them...works wonders and cost next to nothing I remember John Bamford and Keith Howard advocating this. Then Max Townsend put a hot water bottle between two thin steel plates and charged a rip off price for his seismic sink. It's an old idea. I think a reader originally suggested it. The Seismic Sink does use nothing more than a bicycle inner tube. I used to think it was silicone damped. |
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Post by macca on May 30, 2019 6:24:21 GMT
Surely, it depends on how much you spend? I'd cut out the middle man: imagine I'd bought some cones - obviously really expensive ones. Imagine I'd put them under my cd/whatever. Imagine there was a vast improvement. Could go all the way, and not bother switching anything on and just imagine how great the sound is. Well, if it's all down to imagination, might as well go all the way. There's only 2 types of hi-fi enthusiast - those who realise imagination plays a part in what we hear and those who have yet to realise it.  |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 8:11:11 GMT
When I ferret about YouTube looking for the best-sounding uploads , am I really just deluding myself? Well, I can tell you I'm not.
Why is it that at certain times of the day my system can sound leaden and sat on and not worth listening to? Other times it sounds open and ethereal and I will listen for ages? I don't imagine it; it's real. Mains quality is the only answer. Years ago a mate used to experience the same. We both heard the same effect so it wasn't being imagined by just him or me.
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Post by alit on May 30, 2019 8:38:28 GMT
I can recommend the “Tiny Desk” recordings on YouTube, lot of good sounding stuff there.
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Post by macca on May 30, 2019 13:16:37 GMT
When I ferret about YouTube looking for the best-sounding uploads , am I really just deluding myself? Well, I can tell you I'm not. Why is it that at certain times of the day my system can sound leaden and sat on and not worth listening to? Other times it sounds open and ethereal and I will listen for ages? I don't imagine it; it's real. Mains quality is the only answer. Years ago a mate used to experience the same. We both heard the same effect so it wasn't being imagined by just him or me. mains quality is highly unlikely to be the answer. You can have problems with the mains, too high or too low voltage, or interference, but these all cause audible problems, they don't make the sound 'sat on' but otherwise okay. Psychological is by far the most likely explanation, yes even if you both hear it, even if a stadium full of people hear it.
But there are other possibilities too. I once thought I might have a 'mains quality' issue, especially as the sound improved at the same time every night. I mean what more evidence do you need? But it turned out to be my hearing recovering from a noisy car journey. My hearing took about the same time to recover every night.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable...
There's a whole army of people making up problems and then selling (usually) very expensive solutions to them. Mains quality has to be up there with the best of them.
Have you read Dean's story about the mains cable comparison where the bloke who brought the fancy leads along to a bake off was waxing lyrical about the improvements each time they were swapped in? So Dean tells him they are in even though they are not, and he still waxes lyrical.
It isn't just that poor deluded bloke who will fall for that trick, it's all of us. Yes I know it is scary but it's true. So it would seem that it is better to just accept it and not waste anymore time or money.
Except,
I was having a listen the other day to my stand-in amplifier and wondering to myself if it really is not as good as the Krell/DCB1 or if it is just me. I'm sure it is not as good, but it's only slightly not as good. There's really no way to be sure without a proper blind test which would be way too much hassle.
Despite that I'm still getting the Krell fixed or failing that buying another Krell. That's maybe two grand spent for what could be just a placebo.
But as I said earlier, placebo works. I'll enjoy my music more regardless of whether the improvement is real or imaginary.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 17:24:44 GMT
Sorry, and all that, but the psychology aspect is just so much bollocks - in my instance. When I said mains quality I was including interference and so on. My mains is pretty constant at 247V and the drop in quality isn't related to this factor. The effect is real and not imaginary and has been an issue for years (years), with various amplifiers. And there's no other genuine logical reason to account for the sat-on, leaden quality I hear.
I didn't make it clear my mate had the effect in his system. He had a Nait 1 with the original Kef Coda speakers. Some nights it just wasn't worth listening to. The sound was so hard and compressed. And it wasn't due to maybe the temperature having an effect on the cartridge (A&R P77. Pretty warm-sounding to start with), as it was the same with his JVC tuner.
The last time I was trying out resistors, capacitors and opamps for the Technics cd you got, I was doing it early in the morning and late at night when I could be sure the mains wouldn't be a factor.
I don't imagine you think a humidifier can have any effect on sound quality (another JMH recommendation), do you? Although physics will give you an answer why it can.
Krell repair.
If the one fixing genuinely cares about sound quality, components changes will be done to both channels. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night just doing the one.
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Post by macca on May 30, 2019 17:36:07 GMT
Whilst I can't make any definitive statements about your experience with the mains it is easily demonstrated (and has been many times) that the psychology aspect is both real and important. You can't just dismiss it as bollocks. I agree that it can be used too easily for some aspects of sound reproduction where there are genuinely grey areas but that's another discussion. Interconnects shouldn't really make an audible difference but in some cases they clearly do and this can be differentiated in blind testing. If you've not tried it get two very different sounding interconnects and blind test them, see if you can spot when one has been changed for the other. If they are sufficiently different then you should be able to do it. I could. What shocked me was how much more difficult it was to hear those previously huge difference when I didn't know which was in play. It's sobering, it really is. I suppose with a humidifier you can slow (or is it speed up?) the propagation of sound waves in the room and I suppose this would by definition mean the sound would be changed. Whether it would be changed to a degree where we would actually be able to perceive it I doubt. But I don't know for sure. Krell repair - yes you are absolutely right as is everyone else who has pointed this out. But as I said I can't really dictate what is and isn't done. To get it back working again will be enough for me, I'll manage to sleep okay I think |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 17:49:00 GMT
Well, not wanting to labour the point any further, the effect was/is real for me and my then mate.
So that's at least two of us anyway
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Post by macca on May 30, 2019 18:12:32 GMT
most of the time when I've had that flat sort of sound there has been a real problem with a real cause and I've found it in the end. Equipment mismatch. Or just Sh#t equipment sometimes. So I'm not saying don't trust your instincts that something is genuinely different, it quite possibly is. I'm just not the sort who immediately plumps for the more unlikely explanation.
The problem with drawing conclusions from anything like that is that there are a lot of variables and the whole situation is completely uncontrolled. The music being played could be different (not saying it was in your case, I'm taking generally), or being played at a different volume. A connection could have worked slightly loose. Components could have gone out of tolerance in the crossover of the speaker and so on.
Even the level of ambient noise could vary. That's the most likely explanation for the 'better sound late at night' phenomena. The level of the noise floor can make a big difference to the sound especially when listening critically or at low levels. Or both. That's before we even get to the psychological.
In a controlled situation, if we can eliminate all known causes and we can eliminate the psychological then we get to the position where we can say 'Okay, there is definitely something physical happening here that we can't explain. There is a known unknown.' That's the point where I will start taking things like 'dirty mains' seriously. We aren't there yet.
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Post by nonuffin on May 30, 2019 18:14:50 GMT
Will you please stop going on about placebo Martin as it really has NO relevance whatsoever to what we perceive to hear from a hi-fi system. Placebos are entirely related to practices in a medical sense where an element is introduced where there is guaranteed to be no beneficial medical effect to the patient, as in a sugar pill instead of for example antibiotics. For there to be ANY validation on the use of the term then the "placebo" must be administered by a third party who knows for certain what the disease or ailment is and the appropriate medication and of course knows as fact the substitute placebo similarly has no beneficial effect to the patient and finally, the subject patient is TOTALLY unaware any change has taken place. I can see no logical and objective way this has been actively and rigourously applied in and during any of my listening findings. Anyone else here had that process happened to them I wonder? While I am also in the mood (although thank F#ck you haven't said it as my blood would really boil ( ) is bringing up that other lame objectivist excuse called "expectation bias". I find it deeply offensive whenever one of these so-called "intelligent" people try to insinuate that because I am EXPECTED to hear an improvement in sound quality my imagination alone ensures that this WILL happen, even though the product is exactly the same electronically as the product swapped out. Where that falls flat on it's face is where the product is indeed no better than the one being replaced, or actually dare I say it, worse sounding. How can that be, when the expectation bias foretells the outcome in advance? What complete and utter shite being peddled by nitwits  |
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Post by macca on May 30, 2019 18:38:39 GMT
I've heard that argument before and whilst logically consistent it's actually a straw man as it addresses what people think is the psychological process. Except that isn't how the psychology works at all. Bias is unconscious and so can work in any number of ways and we have no perception of it at all. The root causes of bias are far more subtle and complex then just thinking 'I bet this is good' or 'I reckon this will be rubbish.' It really isn't that simple or in fact like that at all. And as I said above I agree a lot of things are dismissed as 'bias' by 'objectivists' who are really just repeating what they think they understand that are actually real effects with definable and explainable causes. I, on the other hand, do know what I'm talking about. But I can't run a course on psychology here, and I don't want to either. Take my word for it or don't. BTW I've not 'gone on' about placebo, I used the word once. Whilst you are correct in saying that the word has had a medical connection for several centuries it has also entered the wider language outside of medicine and had a meaning way prior to its use in medicine too. So I stand by its use. (Although I'll try not to say it too often  ). |
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Post by savvypaul on May 30, 2019 19:01:59 GMT
BTW I've not 'gone on' about placebo, I used the word once. Whilst you are correct in saying that the word has had a medical connection for several centuries it has also entered the wider language outside of medicine and had a meaning way prior to its use in medicine too. So I stand by its use. (Although I'll try not to say it too often ). But...but, what word will you use instead of placebo? And how will we know when you've used it? |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 19:17:19 GMT
I reckon you'd be buggered if expectation bias kicks in whilst trying a placebo.
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Post by savvypaul on May 30, 2019 19:36:44 GMT
I reckon you'd be buggered if expectation bias kicks in whilst trying a placebo. The bias would be unconscious... ...and you might fall unconscious after being buggered. |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 20:41:23 GMT
Martin, give people a bit credit for some intelligence. As I've said the effect has been noted with varying equipment. Now either the effect is real, or it's me. And by me, I don't mean in a psychological sense. I mean in the - are you ready for this? - in the Peter Belt sense. Oh Lordy Lordy! I think the state of charge I (and everyone else) has on them may have some effect on sound perceptive. Well, could have, but I'll still stick with mains quality.
Here's an addendum (can't remember the last time I used that word). The sound quality from my mobile can - and does - change. It can sound compressed with the top-end appearing emphasized and spitty at times. And the the only logical reason that this might be accounted for, is down to the charge it's had. I can only consider it's down to noise/distortion being imparted when the batter is getting a charge. Nothing else really to account for it.
And it is real. The last two charges it's had have resulted in a drop in sound quality. Hopefully, it'll get back to top- notch sound with the next charge
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Post by macca on May 31, 2019 12:18:16 GMT
re Peter Belt, do you know the background to how he came across all his tweaks? I'm going from memory here but he had a coffee table re-varnished and found that the sound of his system had changed and decided that there must be a connection between the two things.
I'm open minded and prepared to consider possibilities. What I try to avoid doing is jumping to conclusions about the reasons 'It must be this,' Well no, it really might not be.
On a wider note what I don't like the idea that people who are not happy with their system reading these 'certain' conclusions on line and the they go and blow a load of money on tweaks that will almost certainly not solve the problem, when they should be spending the money on better-engineered equipment that almost certainly will.
I went down that route and wasted a lot of time and money and it is important to me that other people do not make the same mistake. Or at least if they do make the same mistake it is because they have ignored the advice saying don't do it and listened to the people telling them to do it. In which case it is their own fault. I didn't get that option because there was no internet back then, just the crappy magazines so I only got one side of the story.
Now at least both sides of the argument can be presented and those people can make up their own minds. I'm not trying to change the mind of any of you posting on this forum and I don't expect to.
if your system is already wonderful and you want to ice the cake then by all means experiment with Belt style tweaking, expensive mains cables , fancy supports etc etc. I just don't like the idea that newcomers will be told that these tweaks will fix what is broken as they simply will not.
Like I said in another thread it's like the people who post complaining that their Naim systems sound harsh and the advice they get is to try toeing in the speakers or some other idiotic suggestion when it is the amplifiers that are the problem!
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2019 18:21:15 GMT
You can advise someone this way or that way. They might accept your advice, but then not actually agree, or they could ignore it do their own thing be happy with the result or yet again, still be unhappy. At the end of the day, you do what you chose to do and learn from the experience. You have to make your own mistakes and learn from them.
Only accessories I've bought that "cost" money were a Townshend Seismic Sink that I got in conjunction with Rock turntable and the Audio Technica Vacuum Platter Suction Thing that I mentioned previously. I wouldn't pay £100+ for an interconnect or £300+ for speaker cables. I'd make my own. If people want to spend stupid amounts (relatively speaking), then that's up to them. At the end of the day, you do what you do that you think suits you.
The magazines did have a reader's section, which could comment both for and against on a product or opinion.
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Post by nonuffin on Jun 1, 2019 19:38:33 GMT
Here us my own personal summary of this particular subject:
Firstly, I don't now or ever have been subject to any form of placebo, expectation bias or indeed any kind of delusion, because being a reviewer means there is no room for any of those atributes in my reviewer's psyche. I hear what I hear and have the ability to translate that into sensible and realistic wording so that other people can easily understand what I am communicating. I have many emails thanking me for my insights that enabled people to be thrilled with their purchases after reading my review, so I am very proud of that.
There have of course been grey areas whereby despite my best efforts at clarification, it has not been conclusive in either direction so I take the easy option and have not written a formal review. Sometines in those instances I will conduct blind tests to settle the argument.
Finally, I believe everyone lives within their own universe and what they hear can be a million miles away from what I experience in my own universe so I have no rights whatsoever to go invading other people's universes to dictate and I wish that the feckin naysayers and objectivists remember that they too similarly have no rights to invade those universes either with their unwelcome "wisdoms". None of them are relevant anyway.
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Post by dsjr on Jun 2, 2019 11:44:02 GMT
I honestly thought I could hear all manner of differences until I soundly confused myself on a couple of occasions. These occasions pulled me up short big-time and rather changed my views. I'm not closed to differences, but the audiophool market is FULL of scams and foo-physics (quantum tunnelling being a recent invented artefact). I maintain our ears are not that accurate or consistent and it's the MIND that tries to interpret what it perceives - and these perceptions can change by the minute, let alone days or months. Something I believe is important too. The speakers we all use are easily the worst component, adding horrendous distortions and the room adds more in terms of random reflections. Get this pairing right though, and it's amazing how much less important or unnecessary these me-too-add-on tweaks become. YMMV of course here |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2019 0:51:57 GMT
Sorry, and all that, but the psychology aspect is just so much bollocks - in my instance. When I said mains quality I was including interference and so on. My mains is pretty constant at 247V and the drop in quality isn't related to this factor. The effect is real and not imaginary and has been an issue for years (years), with various amplifiers. And there's no other genuine logical reason to account for the sat-on, leaden quality I hear. I didn't make it clear my mate had the effect in his system. He had a Nait 1 with the original Kef Coda speakers. Some nights it just wasn't worth listening to. The sound was so hard and compressed. And it wasn't due to maybe the temperature having an effect on the cartridge (A&R P77. Pretty warm-sounding to start with), as it was the same with his JVC tuner. The last time I was trying out resistors, capacitors and opamps for the Technics cd you got, I was doing it early in the morning and late at night when I could be sure the mains wouldn't be a factor. I don't imagine you think a humidifier can have any effect on sound quality (another JMH recommendation), do you? Although physics will give you an answer why it can. Krell repair. If the one fixing genuinely cares about sound quality, components changes will be done to both channels. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night just doing the one. No need to rely on psychology here; the effects are pretty obvious. Somewhat surprisingly. Listen out for the term "sat-on", Martin. Must admit, it's the first time I've noted anyone else mention it in relation to mains quality: |
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Post by macca on Jun 4, 2019 6:28:18 GMT
I love the way he tells them what they are going to hear then afterwards tells them what they heard.
if you mark the times you can jump between both samples pretty quickly, the best way to spot a subtle difference. There's no difference. And how much are they charging for this thing? (I didn't listen to his spiel).
Not sure if the distortion on the vocal is on the recording, their system or my laptop but it is there in both clips. I thought at first that is what was going to disappear. Which would have been impressive. But it doesn't.
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Post by macca on Jun 4, 2019 6:33:28 GMT
'The hairs are standing up on my arm'.
Man that's so lame.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2019 19:38:46 GMT
Must have been watching a different video to me. I didn't hear the speaker tell the audience what they were going to hear and then tell them what they heard. After the first comparison he does comment on the differences between the 2 demo's. The bloke at the back of the audience was impressed - obviously a plant.
A quick switch compare would hardly be possible, given that the equipment had to powered down, unplugged, re-plugged and powered back up. Hardly feasible.
I couldn't hear any distortion on vocals. Must be your dodgy laptop speakers. So obviously a cleaned up mains at source would do nowt for the inherent limitations of your listening apparatus. Get a decent mobile and start listening with some decent headphones.
Yes, the hairs raised on the arm was a bit cheesy - but then you weren't there. You too could have experienced the effect. That bloke at the back of the audience was impressed.
You obviously couldn't be bothered to watch all of it. There were 3 tracks with 6 demo's. You should have heard the last comparison. The vocal had so much more air and space. The middle comparison also showed improvements revolving around air and space. It's what you seem to get with a clean mains. The sat-on effect (compression) goes and is replaced with a hear through airy, ethereal quality.
If you had watched it all you'd know there was more than one product tried; there was 3, I think. The last was a regeneration item like the PS Audio P10. It lets you see the distortion on the mains. It allowed you to see the effect of differential mode noise, which he mentioned at the start, and it's what you get from all the items you have plugged in around the house. He switches off the cd player and the distortion falls from 2% to 0.6%. Seem to remember Jimmy Hughes advocating using one source at a time, if possible.
Don't imagine any of this will change your view, Martin. Not to worry...
Oh, I didn't hear any real hard sell spiel. In a 37 minute video I think the company was named 6 times.
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Post by macca on Jun 5, 2019 6:36:51 GMT
I only had a quick watch of it before work yesterday but if my laptop speakers are not up to it there's not much point. I do have a fancy phone but I don't like using headphones.
There may be distortion on the mains and it may be measurable but that doesn't mean that distortion is carried on through the power supply of the equipment, indeed there is currently no known mechanism as to how that can happen.
I've experimented with switching off all other devices in the house when listening (not hard there are only a couple) and can report no improvement in sq. I've also put ferrite chokes on absolutely everything. Again, no audible improvement. I've heard systems at shows using regenerators that sounded rubbish but in the next room a good sounding system using no mains treatment at all. I've tried fancy mains cable and fancy plugs - no difference.
So my opinion is based on my own practical experiments and experience and to date at least they back up the science - which is that unless you have interference like clicks and pops the mains supply has no effect on sq.
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Post by macca on Jun 5, 2019 7:25:28 GMT
Just had another go at it on my work PC with headphones. Sorry, still cannot get any difference between the two renditions, even jumping quickly between them. If there is a difference it is so subtle it is not worth bothering with
I wonder how many people will drop several grand on a mains regenerator when they'd be far better off buying a better amplifier?
In his preamble he doesn't tell anyone specifically what to hear but he does prime them by talking about mobile phone data transfer, electrical devices dirtying the mains, and mains cables acting as antennae. And after the second dem he comes right back and goes on about how much more wonderful it sounds.
There's a great Roy Gregory video from RMAF where he is flogging isolation products, he uses the exactly the same tactics. I'll see if I can find it later. That's the same, they add the products under the cd player and then move the whole system to a better rack, and none of it makes a blind bit of difference but Gregory tells the audience that it is night and day.
Before I worked in sales I would have said that no-one was gullible enough to fall for such obvious techniques but the truth is many people do. Quite scary really.
These are pretty standard sales tactics, draw the mark into your world and then you can flog him anything.
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