Audioaril, I have learned by my experience with you not to disseminate any information over the phone in confidence. ~ Geoff |
Qdrone - Actually, the Tice clocks did not employ cryogenics, but another "proprietary process." Below is (part of) Tice's statement in letter to Stereophile a while back (1991):
"Regarding your comments on extra circuitry, no extra circuits have been added to the Clock. The Clock is only a carrier of the TPT technology. I realize this is a difficult concept for some people to grasp: the Clock has been treated with the TPT process. This is very much the same idea as cryogenically treating components. Those components are not visually modified or altered, but the treatment changes them on a molecular level. The same is true for our TPT process. As to the Audio Advisor mentioning that an additional chip was added to our TPT Clock, this is incorrect." |
|
Guidocorona - thanks for the kind words - we aim to please.
~ GK |
Guidocorona - while I am pleased you're considering evaluating the CLC, I respectfully decline your terms on the principle that it would be unfair to my customers who did agree to my terms, which are quite reasonable as they stand. We also do not wish to get into the habit of loaning out the CLC or any other of our other products. Hope you understand and that you will agree to the following:
I am perfectly willing to provide one clock - or two clocks - for the usual 30-day period, with the proviso that payment be made up front as per usual.
We have found that, in reality, the 30-day evaluation period is quite unnecessary, and a bit ridiculous, as the effects of placing the clock in the room are quite audible within 5 seconds, in almost all cases.
What have you got to lose (except your mind)? ha ha ha ha
Geoff Kait, Machina Dynamica |
Zaikesman: now I'm starting to see why the British have the expression, "As mad as a clockwork orange." :-)
GK |
Guidocorona, we are not trying to set the world on fire, only start a flame in a few minds or hearts. I don't think it's productive for Machina Dynamica to focus much on trying to change people's opinions - to convert them, so to speak, as you suggest I try to do with you. I'm quite used to the idea that people are attached to what they call mainstream science and reject anything that is a little too far outside the norm for comfort. I say, be Comfortable, be Happy! :-) |
I didn't mean to suggest that the excerpt from the short story was any sort of hint as to the clock's operation. The intention in my last post was to suggest that the concept of Time is one we all tend to take for granted, but, in reality, Time is very mysterious and technically difficult to pin down. Kind of like the Clock. |
Tonneson - you make a valid point, one which has been mentioned by other readers of the PFO review.
The reason Carol Clark thought the sound had "deteriorated" (my word) was because she had gotten used to sound with the clock in the listening room for more than a month. So, when her husband (surreptitiously) removed the clock, she heard the sound revert to it's pre-clock state - i.e., subjectively worse. When the clock was returned to the room she noticed the sound return its higher (clock-in-the-room) level. I.e., Dave was attempting something like a casual blind test.
I think the confusion regarding the Positive Feedback CLC test arises because the reader is not let in on the fact that the clock had been in their listening room for a considerable period of time - about a month - prior to the actual "A/B" test.
Dave Clark addresed this mystery of why their system sounded so "bad" all of a sudden at some length recently; perhaps it was on another CLC thread here at Audiogon. |
Tbg - There is no "lingering presence" of the CLC. The clock can, however, affect the sound in the listening room when it is placed in another room of the house. This could be (mis)interpreted as a lingering effect if someone were to remove the clock from the listening room and place it in another room, thinking that the clock is out of the picture.
Strictly on the Hush Hush: The clock was not demonstrated (by me) at CES for a number of reasons, devising a proper test for the clock, esp. one to satisfy the controlled DBTers, is not as simple as it appears and there is risk of "false failure" (if I can be allowed the expression). This risk of failure increaseth (IMO) when systems with brand new speakers and/or electronics are involved... the CLC can do a lot of things but it cannot correct for such ill-advised set-ups. Of course, new speakers/electronics are the rule at the show, sad to say.
Be that as it may, there were at least two CLCs at CES, brought there by a customer. As I hear thru the grapevine, the clocks went over bigtime in the room where they were located - in fact, the exhibitor (who shall remain nameless) requested they remain in the room for the duration. Of course, this is all on the Hush Hush.
GK |
"Space, the final frontier."
Actually space isn't the final frontier, time is. Aside from A Brief History of Time and Time's Arrow there just aren't that many books on the subject. After all this time, there is no equation in physics that shows the flow or passage of time. Does time flow at all? Or was Steve Miller right - that time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future?
Another rather peculiar thing, IMHO, is that we live in the "present," timewise; yet if one slices up time into thin enough slices, there is no "present" time, no what we call "now" - there's only what we call the "past" and the "future." Just when you think you can grab onto the present, it's too late - it's already in the past!
Finally, for any science and sci-fi buffs, here's an excerpt from the short story, "Do Super-Toys Last All Summer Long?" by Brian Aldiss that was the inspiration for the Kubrick/Spielberg movie, A.I.:
David was staring out of the window. "Teddy, you know what I was thinking? How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?"
The bear shuffled its alternatives. "Real things are good."
"I wonder if time is good.
I don't think Mummy likes time very much. The other day, lots of days ago, she said that time went by her. Is time real, Teddy?"
"Clocks tell the time. Clocks are real. Mummy has clocks so she must like them. She has a clock on her wrist next to her dial."
David started to draw a jumbo jet on the back of his letter. "You and I are real, Teddy, aren't we?"
The bear's eyes regarded the boy unflinchingly. "You and I are real, David." It specialized in comfort.
|
Line - they might have gotten lost in the shuffle, please feel free to re-post them....GK |
Z-man - I hear the food at the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania isn't all that bad. :-) |
Z-man - I see your Orgone Accumulator and raise you two Intelligent Chips. If you'll allow me the observation, you're only scratching the surface. |
Rprince - at least none of the NJAS members heard the clock degrade the sound this time. Seems like progress to me.
:-)
GK |
From "Zen and the Art of Debunkery" by Daniel Drasin
complete list of debunker's tools at:
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/scepticism/drasin.html
Selected Tools of the Determined Debunker:
1. Label any poorly-understood phenomenon "occult," "fringe," "paranormal," "metaphysical," "mystical," "supernatural," or "new-age." This will get most mainstream scientists off the case immediately on purely emotional grounds. If you're lucky, this may delay any responsible investigation of such phenomena by decades or even centuries!
2. Accuse investigators of unusual phenomena of believing in "invisible forces and extrasensory realities." If they should point out that the physical sciences have *always* dealt with invisible forces and extrasensory realities (gravity? electromagnetism? . . . ) respond with a condescending chuckle that this is "a naive interpretation of the facts."
3. When an unexplained phenomenon demonstrates evidence of intelligence (as in the case of the mysterious crop circles) focus exclusively on the mechanism that might have been wielded by the intelligence rather than the intelligence that might have wielded the mechanism. The more attention you devote to the mechanism, the more easily you can distract people from considering the possibility of non-ordinary intelligence.
4. Engage the services of a professional stage magician who can mimic the phenomenon in question; for example, ESP, psychokinesis or levitation. This will convince the public that the original claimants or witnesses to such phenomena must themselves have been (or been fooled by) talented stage magicians who hoaxed the original phenomenon in precisely the same way.
|
Guidocorona - good comeback, entertaining as always. |
To All - Let's go back in time to 1991 when Stereophile published Thomas J. Norton's review of the Tice Clock, a product that bears more than a slight resemblance to the CLC (or the CLS for that matter) - i.e., a digital clock. As one might expect, the Tice Clock was heavily drubbed by audiophiles and some reviewers of the time (and currently).
Unlike the CLC, the Tice Clock plugs into the wall outlet and supposedly operates by influencing how the electrons flow in conductors. Now, whether or not that theory is true I can't say, and have no experience w/ the Tice Clock myself. More importantly, I'm not suggesting the Tice Clock operates at all like the CLC. However, the hoopla that surrounded the Tice Clock way back when certainly bears a strong similarity to that of the CLC in many ways -- if I do say so myself :-). Here is the link to Norton's review of the Tice Clock:
http://stereophile.com/miscellaneous/784/index4.html
GK, Machina Dynamica |
These two articles are always fun.
The first link is John Atkinson's article in Stereophile (circa 1991) in which he ruminates about the Tice Clock:
http://stereophile.com/miscellaneous/784/index5.html
The second link a letter to the editor (also Stereophile) in which George Tice defends his clock:
http://stereophile.com/miscellaneous/784/index7.html
~ GK |
Guidocorona - I take it you must mean as opposed to specific mature rubbish? |
