"Audiophile Rocks"
MY POSITION ON THIS. I am an "audiophile rock" agnostic. I have been sneering and scoffing at the Ebay seller who seems to select rocks from around his front door and paint them different colors to masque their identity so he can sell them for a deceptive markup. They are painted like something my kid would make. I mean, really, if you are just going to rip people off, why not make it look really cool like the "Rodin coil Scalar Wave toroidal field generator module, torsion field, vibrational healing, radionic machine" on Etsy? I love audiophile products but this Ebay guy, not so much.
MY CONFUSION. I was watching a video on YouTube by an audio dealer verbosely and authoritatively denouncing all "tweaks" as snake oil, including cables. He said all of these change the sound but do not actually improve the sound to be of any value. He then held up a 3 pound rose quartz rock, and said, "except for this super cheap rock." Which really caught my attention. He elaborated something to the effect, "This is just a quartz rock from my back yard. I had it in the house and while I was messing with my gear, my wife was sitting there listening and to move the rock out of the way I set it on my component and she looked up and said, ’what was that what did you just do?’ If you think about it, your transformer makes a big electromagnetic field and when you put a large semiconductor on it, it will transform that electromagnetic energy into physical vibrations. Quartz rocks are almost free and you can just find them on the ground, so go put these on your transformers they work."
MY QUESTION. If a guy who denounces "all tweaks" as snake oil is recommending setting a free quartz rock on each of one’s transformers. Have any serious audiophiles experimented with other semiconductor crystal rocks? I don’t want to sound like a mystic, but what’s up with all of this anecdote?
MY CONFESSION. I’m going to buy some rocks on the internet and try them out. I found rose quartz coasters and cheese cutting blocks that I can stealthily slide under my components so that none of my friends think I have healing crystals on my audio gear. If they don’t make rainbows come out of my speakers they can be used for evening wine and cheese.
Thanks for providing input on this!
Halz
Well, after procuring a few potato-sized rose quartz rocks, I placed them on my monoblock amps, external power supplies, and source components. It did seem to make a difference, but not necessarily better... at least not for my system. I have some HeartSoundAudio devices on my gear so maybe it didn't make much of a difference because the rocks were correcting a problem that I don't have. If I had I enough free time to just mess around with rocks, I could remove my HeartSound Holostages and listen with or without the rocks, but frankly since it didn't do much for me I won't fiddle with it. So, my conclusion is that yes there is something going on there, and if you can get quartz rocks for freee, I do recommend trying it unless you have holostages on your transformers. Halz |
mxpwladimir, OK... maybe I harshed on the Ebay rock guy a little too quickly. I retract my unkind words about the individual, and will reserve judgement until I hear for myself. But I will say this, he has achieved quite possibly the worst marketed product in all of Audiophiledom. So... sorry to the guy on Ebay selling Audiophile Rocks.The Navy used semiconductor devices to help make gear in nuclear submarines more quiet. Bybee spoke of this quite a bit. Shunyata has patents on their semiconductor filtration devices, and documented tests showing any skeptic that their devices perform well. I have Bybee and Shunyata conditioning devices as well. They present a professionally made product, in a professionally packaged presentation. Heartsound Audio’s devices are perhaps far more complicated than all of the above, with many more internal components, ingredients, and trial & error tests used to develop them into what they are today. I could be wrong, but it appears that the numerous ingredients in Heartsound’s composites and internal components make the rock guy look like he learning about things that others mastered a decade ago. So, your report that his products are worth a repeat purchase sounds like a pretty hearty endorsement. Could you please describe for the rest of us what these rocks are, what they do, and why you like them? |
