uh oh... :)
Are Shakti Stones effective?
I have never used Shakti Stones and wonder if they really work and, if so, what do they do, I have used the Shakti Holographs and found them to magically focus the sound and tighten the soundstage. From what I have heard, even from Shakti, is that the stones make a significant difference is some usage and less in other. Has anyone used these and what do they do?
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The best most experienced dealer I ever met stayed with me one time for a couple weeks when he was moving out here to Washington. He brought a whole van full of gear, and I got to try it all. Among the many tweaks and cables and amps was a Shakti Stone. I was no stranger to tweaks at this point and real eager to hear what it could do. Tried it all over the place. Straining to hear even the slightest difference. The only place it did anything at all was over the transport section of the CDP. Even there it was barely noticeable. When I told Stewart I tried it the first thing he said was did it work over the transport? Because that is the only place it did anything. So in one fell swoop I learned yes indeed tweaks are for real, we both had the same experience, and Shakti Stones are a waste of money. Unless of course you like the looks. They do look better than a phone book, which is the performance level they are competitive at. |
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I dont know for the shakti stone or the hallograph..... But i create my own devices,with only homemade component, and they worked for improving sound on all count....Peanuts costs.... But people dont believe in their own ears experiments and dont believe in improvement if they are not ready made and officially stamped by a reviewer and costly like the wooden hallograph... Believe in your own ears and listen.... One experiment after the other.... My best to all.... |
I purchased a Shakti stone last year. It’s effect was immediately apparent and 100% repeatable on each piece of equipment I placed it on including the main breaker panel in my house. As the instructions stated the effect of the stone depends on its orientation on each component. If you don’t hear a change in sound rotate the stone 90 degrees, again, the effect was 100% repeatable each time. As for the sound, it produced a darker background and made the soundstage bigger. However, the larger soundstage was ‘artificial’, instruments went from sounding life size to being too large, the singers voice was exaggerated so their mouth was like a foot wide. I liken it to increasing the size of a picture in MSpaint, when you stretch it out it becomes larger but all the pixels become blocky. I did not find it pleasing in my system due to the exaggerated, no longer life size scale of the music. Perhaps a different system could benefit from the use of a shakti stone. |
mglik Are Shakti Stones effective? About as effective as Shun Mook Pucks, Geoff Kiat’s Pebbles (https://www.machinadynamica.com/mikro-pebbles.jpg), $150 Boutique Fuses, HFT’s and a host of other snake oil products, that convince the gullible to hand over their cash. Cheers George |
simple answer is this - if one insists on trying to see ’if it works’ just be patient and buy one someone is selling at a used price, then try it if it works and you are happy, great... if you decide that it is all b.s. and want it gone, just post an ad and as you can see, there are enough 'believers' that you will sell it to the next _________________ (fill in the blank)... |
Once you get them,Then what do you do? Just set them on the metal box of the component? Yes, that’s exactly what you do. Pick a spot, plop it down, plop yourself down, and listen. Strain. To hear even the slightest difference. Which, remember, even something as simple as a phone book placed on top of a CD player will affect (usually improve) the sound. So the Shakti Stone being a mass with felt on the bottom is expected to make some small improvement even if only due to the slight mass damping effect. It is when you think about it actually quite remarkable they have managed to make something so truly ineffective. I mean it does do something. Like I said it does make a very slight improvement when placed over the transport section of a CD player. But that is it. A ten dollar dive weight makes a bigger difference than one of these things. A freaking phone book! Okay, nobody has a phone book any more. Use your imagination. Any book of decent size a couple inches thick will do. Don’t take my word for it. Try it and see. You have just out-performed a Shakti Stone! Okay, just realized no one reads books any more. Dang. This getting old stuff is getting old. Okay so what do you have these days? Energy drinks! Put a big ol can of Red Bull on there. Or Fountain Foo Foo Water. Two pound bag of Organic Coffee. Whatever! Take the challenge, do your best, try and find something you can put on there that WON’T be better than a Shakti Stone! Go on! I dare you! I double-dog dare you! |
With my similar products, no strain was needed to hear the positive difference. Shakti and similar products don’t use mass as their effectiveness. In the products I use, use rare earth minerals that absorb RFI/EMI, I only assume the Shakti does this as well. I'm not histrionic about it as one here is. |
It would be refreshing if those immediate naysayers on these types of thread could prove they’d ever tried the mentioned tweak before they pull that ’no, it will never work because it can’t claim.’ And Miller Carbon’s responses to this are what I mean as useful answers - he tried it, he sort of did hear a difference and he points out anything of sufficient mass placed on top of a cd transport usually does effect its sound. |
for me i am not an IMMEDIATE naysayer i have tried it, gave it a chance (actually many many chances), based on my experience, it does nothing i can hear - still have one, it sits in my equipment closet after four homes in 20+ years but maybe i am blessed with no emi issues... or poor hearing LOL ymmv as always |
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Mass is mass. How much mass do you need to qualify as mass? When you post ignorance on a general forum some old fart who went to school back when they actually got an education is liable to irrefutably correct your nonsense. Back then we learned this thing we called reading comprehension. More than merely being able to sound out and spell the words reading comprehension involves understanding not only the words themselves but the context, intent, and content of the total message. The difference between reading and reading comprehension is knowing the OP is asking about Shakti Stones. No one is talking about mass loading. That was merely an example used to illustrate the ineffectiveness of Shakti Stones. It can take years to develop your reading skills to this level. Usually grade school but not everyone learns at the same rate. Maybe by the time you yourself are an old fart you will have figured it out. Not off to a good start, but you never know. |
A 1’ thick slab of concrete from Home Depot does the CD trick for me. Getting ready to try those springey things from China. Will report. I am an admitted happy user of Shungite, which I assume is what Shakti stones are made from. I went thru some experiments and used some of Magister’s ideas and determined that these stones are primarily effective as POWER noise reducers. A bag of small shungite stones draped over the cables leading in-n-out of my router and wall sockets seem to have lowered the noise floor for both audio and video. I have a pyramid resting on my flat (Nordost) speaker cables. More stable image. They’re cheap and the pyramids are cute and if you can’t hear the difference, use them as tiptoes or decor or give them to someone and make up a weird story. I get the impression that most of the deniers here have never read any of the literature on shungite. Pity. |
Thanks denverfred.... I just want to remind the readers that what i call "Golden Plate", a device i created is a plate of shungite+copper tape on the external side .... It is more efficient this way, only shungite is less powerful, and i put these "golden plates" all along the electrical grid of the house, behind speakers connectors, on router, on the electrical panels, power supply, etc....(dont use on amplifier or dac because they will compress the sound ) For interconnect or for my Schumann generators grid i use very small "Golden Plate" namely very small shungite plate+ copper tape on the external side of the application..... It is my main device to lower the noise on the electrical grid of the house....(electrical embeddings of an audio system is very important) Golden plate cost: peanuts... I dont sell anything.....Grab it.... :) My best to you and to all.... |
They have a patent you can check out that has a diagram of the internals and describes their construction and how they are supposed to work. The stone part is just a shell for the actual internal working components, I don't know what its' purpose is or why they settled on the stone aspect of the shell. I'm open to try any tweak if the price is right and the resale value is decent in case it does nothing of note. I bought a Shakti Stone, tried it in different spots in different setups both audio and video, it really made a big difference placed on an Extron rgbhv distribution amplifier I use with broadcast monitors. I haven't moved it since to other spots after changing things round and it's been years since I tested things out so I can only say I noticed a real change in this one spot. Find a dealer that may have a demo period if one wishes to try them out for themselves. |
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I used many materials, trying to damp vibrations over the years,(years ago). Yes I could here differences. Realized later, that as far as controlling vibrations goes, starting from the ground up made more improvement and more sense. These devices like Shakti, Bybee, Akiko and so on aren't the same. Just because Shakti is placed on top of a component doesn't mean it's purpose is mass loading. |
If the weight of a stone reduces vibrations in an audible way then great. As far as hearing a different soundstage or "inkier" backgrounds, sure-- you might hear them, you might not, either way it's more likely you and not the stones. You have adjusted your focus-- and when your ears try to hear something differently they just do-- even when nothing has actually changed audibly. You sip a wine, someone points out a flavor note in it you hadn't noticed, and suddenly there it is-- and there it always was. So much snake oil, so little time... |
WOW,, the thing is, put your stones, or anything that this company makes, on or in your room, play some well known music, blindfold yourself, then have a friend remove these items, OR NOT, and see if you can hear a difference, a plant can make a measurable difference, IE on a scope ,not to the ears, as a defuser, for £15, all in if you can tell the difference you are kidding yourself, but if you like big wooden sticks with magic paint on, then it's your money, sell the crud, and buy better gear, not too harsh i hope |
if you can tell the difference you are kidding yourself, but if you like big wooden sticks with magic paint on, then it's your money, sell the crud, and buy better gear, not too harsh i hopeNa, on the money, you let the snake oiler's down gently I think, most are shilling for snake oil companies anyway. As there's massive profit gain in a 10cent fuse being sold for $150. So those companies recruit very carefully so they are not implicated for fraud with their snake oil, that why you NEVER see them or their staff spruiking their voodoo snake oil rubbish to the gullible here on these pages. Cheers George |