Clever Little Clock - high-end audio insanity?

Elizabeth, the pens I used for that experiment were plain black ballpoints from Staples, their cheapest. Keep them in the box, they work best that way!!

Tonnesen: The results of the fairly unscientific blind test we did with the NJ Audio Society are referenced earlier in one of my posts on this thread (you have to go to another of the many threads on this topic to find it). Take a look at the results and do with them what you'd like. Zaikes, not to take away from your post, but the one person in the test who correctly identified when the clock was in or out of the system felt the clock's effect was detrimental to the sound. Since we're having another meeting at my place on this Sunday, and I still haven't done anything with the clock, I might try it on them, unsuspecting, again, to see if anyone notices anything. Me, so far I haven't heard a difference, and I haven't experienced any time travel effects except that my hair is growing back.

I think our members are clocked out, but I think I'll probably do something to take the clock in and out without anyone knowing and see if anyone notices. We've got a speaker manufacturer demoing and I don't want to steal his spotlight. I have done the test sighted with two of our members, neither of whom heard a difference but both of whom were quite skeptical about such a device, to put it mildly.

Tbg, the two who took the sighted test heard no difference with the clock in or out of the house. In the NJAS test, I as the tester was the only one who knew when the clock was in or out of the system, and asked people to tell me if there was a change, not whether there was an improvement or not, though several members did put down their subjective impressions of any change they heard.

In both of these tests, there was a definite negative bias against the clock making a difference, though people were asked to keep an open mind. A far better test would be where a single subject is alone in a room listening to music and asked to tell if there were any difference in the sound of the system from time to time without knowing what was being tested or changed, if anything, in the system.

Charlie, then what's your take on the one member in our club who correctly knew when the clock was in or out of the system? Knowing the guy, he was not guessing (he has some of the better ears in the club, especially for tweaks), and in fact told me how he could tell the difference. As I mentioned in the report, he thought the clock adversely affected the sound.

I'm not really defending this product, as I've certainly not felt it makes any difference in my system and I do not subscribe to any of Peter Belt's theories (which have been around for years, by the way)--however, I've seen a lot worse and more expensive items I consider rip-offs and pseudo-science in this hobby (Mpingo discs, anyone? Whose ox have I gored here?). I am surprised that this product is the whipping boy and not some of the others.

By the way, for the record, at the NJAS meeting last week I took the clock out of the house and brought it back in on two occasions while people were listening to music on the system, not telling anyone I was doing it or even letting them know I was leaving the house. No reaction one way or another, no one saying "Hey, what did you do?", etc. While this might not qualify as a double blind test, I think it illustrates the type of test Zaikes comments on in the Clever Little Sharp thread. Maybe there are people of exceptional sensory powers who can hear this thing working, but I'm afraid that I'm not one of them, nor are most of our club members.

Zaikes, Guido, and others, I hope that that all this time spent on the computer writing about the clock is not keeping you from listening to music!!