Not for me.
Ok, I have spent a decade or more on an interesting cable clip-on filter, that improves any/every system that I have trialled it on, and I find is the final solution to endless tinkering/modding that still does not achieve the same results in terms of clarity, precision, image depth/stability and musicality.
Only yesterday I tweaked $90k++ or so of Belcanto player, DEQX digital crossover, Bakkon amplifiers, four way speakers running Raven ribbon tweeters (the big ones, $6k each, I forget the other drivers).
TBH the sound was big clear and dynamic, but shite really....non involving and close to driving me out of the room, not because of nasties so much as slightly loose and dynamically noisey side and depth information, and a slight noise mask over the overall sound, and slightly tissy/essey mids/highs.
All in the room thought this system sounded great and reasonably sota.....except me.
After the crowd went, I fitted my filters and the sound of this system was very nicely transformed with ease, musicality, clarity and nicely precise depth and side/centre information presented.
Harmonic and imd distortions are not the final word...more so intrinsic system/device noise is the elephant in the room, and the nature of this low level noise sets a character/voice to systems.
Controlling intrinsic excess noise is the next step towards musical and pleasing/involving audio replay/sound reinforcement.
Dan.
I used to build audio gear to be able to have a good audio system.
Today it's different. I can save and buy a descent system by carefully picking components over time.
In the past, necessity was the mother of all invention for me. Today I like to hear how different diy gear sounds.
Diy audio has become part of my identity. I can't shut it off. I tried and still trying.
Part of it is that I don't want to shut it off. No pun intended.
Vince
Today it's different. I can save and buy a descent system by carefully picking components over time.
In the past, necessity was the mother of all invention for me. Today I like to hear how different diy gear sounds.
Diy audio has become part of my identity. I can't shut it off. I tried and still trying.
Part of it is that I don't want to shut it off. No pun intended.
Vince
I lost my ability to hear subtle difference in sound, so I am not seeking my ultimate sound reproduction system through this diyaudio hobby.
I like trying different things, so something like trying a LM3886 amp with this circuit design and that design, and then see what difference I can notice, that's why I do this for.
I like trying different things, so something like trying a LM3886 amp with this circuit design and that design, and then see what difference I can notice, that's why I do this for.
If it has to do with making or reproducing sound, I'm interested in learning everything there is to know about it. This explains my Audio Amateur/Speaker Builder/Glass Audio collection. Right now I'm looking at the Electronotes printed stuff deal, after downloading all the available PDFs from the site.
And there was the Moog Hackathon a few months back...
And there was the Moog Hackathon a few months back...
I've thought a lot about 'sound effects' being achieved by doing ( apparently) meaningless things( to most guys) . Many being called Snake Oil . While some are surely fraud , some things are inexplicable.
I keep wondering if there is anything to do with energy forces that we still do not see or sense but which affects us. There is talk about the non physical universe ( dimension) and related matters. Currently conjecture, but it's possible ! That's a whole BIG can of worms. Until we REALLY know for sure we can't really dismiss it .
Like the world being flat or round. For a long time they insisted it was flat ......and even killed non believers! Same situation I guess.
So Dan is your filter just a magnetic clip like TDK and others make and use on digital signal lines or is it something you developed on your own (?) or applied ? Harnessing forces we don't know anything about ?
Same form factor for now, but precise mix of elements and compounds, most non magnetic.…So Dan is your filter just a magnetic clip like TDK and others make and use on digitavg hil signal lines or is it something you developed on your own (?) or applied ? Harnessing forces we don't know anything about ?
Power, signal, speaker cables is initial application, OEM to follow I expect.
Very interestingly, USB soundcard cables benefit greatly, also spdif feeds, FM and AM antenna feeds too.
Proven on recording sytems, stadium systems and FM broadcast studio and transmitter equipment.
Result is lowered perceived distortion, black between notes, and toe tapping goodness.
This technique is getting into BQP territory, only better, is mega mass producible and lower cost than BQP.
No magic involved, just physics.
Dan.
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Hello,
It has been a lifetime of fascination with machines, rockets, motors, things that explode and the electronics that control them.
My dad was a WWII Signal Corps radio repair Sargent, then aerospace mechanical engineer. He brought home NOS stuff he thought he could use on the next project (otherwise to be destroyed and end up in the dumpster). I found this stuff in the garage and built all kinds of cool stuff. I built electric motors, 3-phase generators from single phase motors turning a 3-phase motor. I had air compressors, built stills in my High school years and made things that would blow up and leave craters in the ground. I made rocket propellant in my mothers kitchen blender.
I will not provide too much detail about compressed air and the ball bearing cannon that recoiled and broke my friend’s foot. There were a couple of fires.
This all lead to a ME career with pipes, motors, ducts, fans and all the electronics that control and power them. It takes a large switching power supply to operate a 400 HP variable speed pump motor.
All those pieces of rotating mechanical equipment create sound and vibration that needs to be isolated from the building structure and the video production / state of the art stem cell lab on the floor below. Fun stuff!
I still teach and build an occasional audio amplifier. As long as no one gets hurt I still like breaking things.
Yes Cal, it is addicting.
DT
It has been a lifetime of fascination with machines, rockets, motors, things that explode and the electronics that control them.
My dad was a WWII Signal Corps radio repair Sargent, then aerospace mechanical engineer. He brought home NOS stuff he thought he could use on the next project (otherwise to be destroyed and end up in the dumpster). I found this stuff in the garage and built all kinds of cool stuff. I built electric motors, 3-phase generators from single phase motors turning a 3-phase motor. I had air compressors, built stills in my High school years and made things that would blow up and leave craters in the ground. I made rocket propellant in my mothers kitchen blender.
I will not provide too much detail about compressed air and the ball bearing cannon that recoiled and broke my friend’s foot. There were a couple of fires.
This all lead to a ME career with pipes, motors, ducts, fans and all the electronics that control and power them. It takes a large switching power supply to operate a 400 HP variable speed pump motor.
All those pieces of rotating mechanical equipment create sound and vibration that needs to be isolated from the building structure and the video production / state of the art stem cell lab on the floor below. Fun stuff!
I still teach and build an occasional audio amplifier. As long as no one gets hurt I still like breaking things.
Yes Cal, it is addicting.
DT
So is this physics that can be understood in the form of equations etc. and measurable or is it 'abstract' physics like the ' unseen ' universe ....with a possible explanation ?
Just got into diy audio one year ago. Got sick of all the marketing bs in consumer gear and thought "Why not try to build something myself?" Google led me to diyaudio and now I have replaced most of my commercial gear with diy stuff.
It give me pleasure to know exactly what's inside the different boxes instead of swapping components with fancy names that I have no Idea about the internals.
I still remember the feeling when plugging in my honey badger the first time and discovering that it played music, it was like witchcraft.
I built a lot of computers when I was a kid, then I started modifying cars. I have always been interested in electronics and mechanical stuff, so I guess that diy audio was just waiting to happen.
The good thing with the audio hobby is that it's much cheaper then modifying cars.
It give me pleasure to know exactly what's inside the different boxes instead of swapping components with fancy names that I have no Idea about the internals.
I still remember the feeling when plugging in my honey badger the first time and discovering that it played music, it was like witchcraft.
I built a lot of computers when I was a kid, then I started modifying cars. I have always been interested in electronics and mechanical stuff, so I guess that diy audio was just waiting to happen.
The good thing with the audio hobby is that it's much cheaper then modifying cars.
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Hi Ashok (again).
Sure a great number of tweaks by description are seemingly incredible and others are plain snake oil.....BUT not all.
The ones that do 'effect' can be minor/insignificant through to quite major sonic effects.
There are plenty of 'tweaks' that cause system differences that I readily hear......cables sound different, solders sound different, resistors sound different, capacitors sound different...etc.
I hear the effect of BQP perfectly plainly also, a device that many are either unable to hear due to inadequate systems, inadequate hearing, or are predisposed to not accept that such a device could cause any system subjective changes.
Hifi systems have never sounded 'right' to me, ever since I was a young kid...my mother played a Jacobus Steiner 1678 violin which sings and did sound 'right' to my then young ears.
This is the drive behind my interest (since very early teens) and indeed career involved in pretty much the full range of audio applications.
Long, long ago I abandoned agonising over specs and instead learned to trust my ears.
This has led me on a lifetime search to get that 'right' sound, be it replay or sound reinforcement, broadcast etc....and I believe I have found it.
I find that we have the senses to pick up on much more than the standard and obvious five.....study/practice dowsing and your mind will be awakened.
Materials/compounds all have their individual signature spectrum/signature noise, for both acceptance and re radiations....once these individual 'signatures' are learned they are not forgotten.
I believe that sleeping/working over a concentration of, say for example, an underground seam of lead/lead compounds is deleterious because of excitation and increase in chemical activity of the lead/lead compounds in the body due to coupling....action at a distance.
There is much fear and anecdotal accounts of health effects of background EMR, be it 50Hz/60Hz or RF.
I believe that EMR is not harmful per se (and can indeed be beneficial), but that the materials (spectrums/signatures) that this magnetic disturbance launches from is the culprit .
To this end I applied my 'mixture' to the internal antenna in my mobile phone.
I now find that I am perfectly comfortable with using this phone or carrying it in my pocket, whereas previously I found it to be subtly disturbing/annoying.
There is recent discussion on another thread about consonance and dissonance.....I maintain that particular combinations of materials will cause dissonance/discord, and others will play nice together.
For example, I find that lead based solder containing silver sounds all wrong (annoyingly so), but tin/silver solder although sounding slightly dull does not sound 'bad'.
Some experimenters find these combinations (consonance and dissonance) by experimentally selecting capacitors, resistors, solders etc...this turns out to be a crap shoot.
My approach is entirely different, and consistently reliable and reproducible.
In the case of audio equipment, the 'trick' is to quench the disagreeable intrinsic elemental/compounds system sounds and instill a new set that are acceptable/enjoyable/energising to the ear and mind/body.
In principle this is perfectly simple, in practice it is not.
Dan.
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IMO it is pure (measurable) Physics. The reason why it is not well understood is because of the limited understanding on how our senses and brain work, in term of its capability. People often mention that we only use very small percentage of our brain capacity. I would say: cliche.
It's true. If you insist on trying to understand the Physics, soon you will deal with audibility threshold issue...
There is reason why those snake-oil vendors have had success at "manipulating" their markets. The reason is because they are not 100% wrong. The fraud is not in the "snake oil". The fraud is in taking $$$ for improvement that can be surpassed by other (technical or sound engineering) means...
It's like improving a system by changing a Panasonic FM into an Elna Silmic. Most unbelievers will say "hogwash!". I would say "Okay, I know how the sound will change, and I can prove it in ears-only listening test, but I'm not interested."
Its a hobby stemming from the vein of the techno-democratic paradigm that founded the modern culture i.e. its a tradition. From founding the Silicon Valley in a garage to tampering with a loudspeaker in our bedroom there is not much difference in principle. Yes, after many in-between years of modern industrial evolution we can buy all those perfected things almost cheap and certainly ready but the sharpening of skills and sense of pride still feels like the same old intoxicating accomplishment kick.
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