Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

Directed at industry types like me? Earth to agear - thanks for thinking of me as an industry type but I’m not sure where you guys got the idea that manufacturers are obliged to either provide data or to make claims for their products. You want to buy a new TV? You walk into the store, look at the picture quality of a few TVs, ones you can afford presumably, and pick the one with the best picture that you can afford. It's not rocket science. There is no data, no claims by manufacturers, no demands for measurements. Why shouldn’t the same be true for audio? My guess is certain people just like to argue. Or they just don’t trust their golden ears. Look within, grasshopper.

Again, is it just a profound lack of self-insight or mentation problems?  We will never know....

I’m utterly unconcerned with seismic vibration, although I do have vibrapods under things and a set of groovy cones (had those for many years…they look GREAT) under my preamp to add ventilation and because they look cool. All costing me very little money. Maybe I’ve addressed this issue accidentally in my home rig, but in live concert situations using 1000 watt amps and subs, I simply don’t see that any isolation potential exists. My main beef is with claims of substantial and audible improvements from uber expensive racks and $500 metal feet. Silliness in my view, and Barry Diament seems as delusional as geoffkait, although that might be a stretch. Note that I use guitar amps that have the speakers in the box with the amp…seismic indeed.

Seismic is good unless you are performing SEM and need absolute stillness and then maybe springs make sense or something along these lines:  http://www.kuzma.si/zerovibe-6050p.html . Speaking of 1000 watts and subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5hBXr3aJus
Robert from SS comes from a Pro Audio background....

Just cut to the chase and listen to a Sony walkman like Mr. Vibrations and all these problems solved except for Walkman vibrations of course.

The human hand coupled with the footwear below provides the penultimate isolation for audio purposes:

http://www.zcoil.com/product/freedom-classic-graynavy/?gclid=Cj0KEQiA6_TBBRDInaPjhcelt5oBEiQApPeTF9Mo1bY-WbYvoSisDXfsODiu43nzIDMqRtIfQO1qoXYaAszZ8P8HAQ

You are right and I am wrong; however, understand I use isolation in the loosest sense for all Audiogon community backgrounds. The correct term that Star Sound uses on its platforms are "Energy transfer systems". Is Star Sound into sales or consulting?? With that in mind, you get the gist I believe about savvy name engineering. Thanks for bringing this to our attention though!!! The important thing Agear is what you try may not work for me or Geof. You really have to try the product in your system and in your own sound room for a few weeks minimum and that is all that is important no matter what you want to call your approach to vibration control. I told my son that Star Sound Technology platforms are just great big peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he gets it.

More importantly, if your wife and kids can hear a difference in your system with and without springs then you are onto something.  

Oops.  That is now a dude link.  Here it is Wolf:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAoJ_-Bl2Ig

Are suggesting that things that we knew nearly 70 years ago ago is no longer knowledge? Or are you just not aware that the history of stands and things like anti-vibration platforms and Tip-Toe-style points have been around a whole lot longer than you thought?? Clearly the effects are measurable (and audible too) and its not rocket science as you’ve been suggesting.

Not at all but merely asking for data points relevant to the thread (in other words a measured change in an electrical parameter after correction for vibration....).  I am aware of the history to a limited degree but the usage of vibration products is a more recent focus of our energies.  Most people still think its a waste of time when it comes to electronics.  I am not one of those....

Believe it or not, isolation is like everything else - system dependant! Almost two years ago I received a Baetis Reference music server with custom Sillpoint footers and the Stillpoints did absolutely nothing to improve the server's sound. So, I removed the Stillpoint footers and placed the Baetis unit on a Star Sound Technologies Apprentice isolation platform and the unit came to life, in fact, it sounded like a totally different unit and this is no lie. Needless to day, I sold the Stillpoints. The bottom line is like everything else...you have to try what you are considering to determine if the investment is worth the return. BEFORE you invest in isolation be sure to 1) completely have your component settled/burned in and 2) make sure you anally voice your speakers to your room. Proper setting up and voicing your speakers to you room is something many people overlook drastically robbing them of the performance. Spend the time to voice your speakers to your room (and not the other way around as so many people do). When you achieve this, you will hear stuff in your music that you never heard before. At this point you can consider isolation properties. Some great pics of Star Sound Technologies isolation products appear on my Auduogon virtual system here:

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5390

Beautiful system and part of the world you live in and VERY sage advice regarding speaker setup.  That is no joke and much trickier than philes understand.  

Take a gander through the system pages of this site and things may become more clear for you.  You should consider posting your own system thread BTW just for comic relief.   

Of course vibration can have an impact on turntable lathes and tables themselves. However, I’m not so sure about other components without moving parts being helped much by spikes and fancy racks, and that doubt has saved me some bucks over the years…

Wolf, that is the gist of the thread and the standard bias many audiophiles have. We all know that vibrational control is effective with things that move (subs, speakers, TT, etc) but electronics is a more murky area for many. I have heard differences under computer servers as has cdrc. The question of the day was why and is there any data? So far there appears to be none.

It is my understanding that polarities of shear are best swept under the carpet where they can’t interfere. 😛

As I said earlier (and monsieur Kait may not have opened up the link), the answer lies in isolating the listener with these bad boys. All you need is missing is a Machina Dynamica logo:

http://www.zcoil.com/product/freedom-classic-graynavy/?gclid=Cj0KEQiA6_TBBRDInaPjhcelt5oBEiQApPeTF9Mo1bY-WbYvoSisDXfsODiu43nzIDMqRtIfQO1qoXYaAszZ8P8HAQ

agear, while that’s somewhat humorous (even though you’ve used that stale joke previously) what’s much funnier is that neither you nor the brain trust at Star Sound seem to know what shear waves are. Just more posturing and name dropping. i hate to judge too harshly but it certainly appears that at UVa the college places more weight on puerile humor than science.

have a nice day

Jeff, you have provided nothing of scientific value to the conversation....just the usual ad hominem drivel.  

Please tell us how shear and/or seismic juju effects electronics?  Pretend you are back at E-school and your professors are asking you for data.  Thus far you have avoided the question.  

I already have. Figure it out for yourself. God helps those who help themselves. Give my condolences to your liver.

Refresh our memories....

Dave, I am sorry about your losing your child.  That is horrible.  

As for Mr. Kait, he is just ducking questions.  Whether its Einstein or puritan sayings, the end result is the same.   

Here are Barry's words of wisdom here:  http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/vibration.htm

What I've found is that all of our components are being substantially inhibited from delivering their best because they are subject to external vibrations. By far, the most sonically and visually degrading are those vibrations in the ground that enter the component via its feet. These seismic vibrations (the ones very low in frequency and amplitude, so tiny we don't even normally feel them) are creating spurious signals within the sensitive circuitry of your components. These spurious signals mix with the real music and video signals to distort them, hardening the treble, thinning the bass, muddying the soundstage and annihilating dynamics. Seismic vibrations add grain to video pictures, ruin color purity and contrast and soften focus.

What kind of spurious signals and how was it measured?  Anyone?

What kind of spurious signals and how was it measured? Anyone?

Mommy, why is the sky blue?

😳

I would not expect a technical answer from you at this point. I do realize that NASA custodians are able to retire at 55 with 6 figure pensions (at our expense) and can fritter away their time as you do.  As science fiction is your primary focus, any books in the works....?

but you're not technical remember? you weren't even able to follow the technical data that's already been presented, including the isolation effectiveness data that a fifth grader would be able to follow.

you have presented none.  lol.  Just circular ad hominem babbling and poorly crafted, quasi-mystical science fiction.  Next.... 

If I were ever to create an audio company, one name I would most certainly consider would be Placebo Audio, where "the only limitation is YOU!"  

Ethan Winer has made a lot of people mad over the years, and has been banned from multiple forums for doing so.  That being said, he does make some cogent points from time to time:

http://ethanwiner.com/forums.htm

Sure- why not? Same test, just using the Diament system.

If you did this all with a sweep tone, it would be possible to show the strengths and weaknesses of the 'isolation' system under test.

Sound Anchors did something very much like this- only they bounced a laser off the surface of the loudspeaker that was mounted on the speaker stand that they were testing. The less noise that the reflected laser beam showed the more effective the stand. They were doing that a good 25 years ago.

The laser idea seems weak to me and only provides indirect evidence that we are supposed to surmise things from.  Maybe you can elaborate.  How was the laser "noise"measured?  Again, it tells you little about output variables pertaining to speaker performance and/or electronics as Geoff intonated.  

That should not be hard to do. Place a preamp on the stand to be tested. Run the volume up with a shorted input (phono would be best). Subject the preamp in the stand to a 20Hz tone measured at 90 db at the front panel of the preamp. Observe for the change, if any from the output.

Have you done it?  I am assuming no.

Part of that is because the guy tends to be a bit of a troll. For example, once he made the claim (and likely still does) that power cords can't make a difference- 'it's a power cord!" was about all you could get out of him. I challenged him to show his measurements, since he's a measurement guy. The funny thing was he didn't have any, and I did. They were pretty easy to obtain, too. When I pointed out that we could see a more than 2 volt drop across the power cord his instant response was that the power cord was a piece of crap. Now that struck me as trying to have it both ways; apparently even by his testimony power cords can make a difference even when they don't. 

Like Mr. Kait, he is a pugilist but has valuable things to say.  I am sure he would dispute your revisionist history of things.  I am aware of the fact that he can be a flat earther in certain areas.  He is certainly not a fan of Starsound's approach to room management.  I do know he is a fan of cats.   

After all that he finally did get banned from that site. I don't find him all that credible and often a bit obnoxious, but that's me.

In and off itself, that does not mean anything.  I have had friends banned from sites for stupid reasons.....much like the gov't cracking down on "fake" news.

Tom used the word refracted when I’m reasonably sure he meant reflected. You can see how much or how little the reflection of the laser beam jumps around on one of the walls. This laser reflection method is actually not far removed at all from how LIGO works, inasmuch as in LIGO a laser beam travels down a very long tunnel kilometers in length and is reflected back precisely from a mirror at the far end of the tunnel. Then the laser beam travels back to the original end of the tunnel and the influence of any gravity waves can be seen on an optical screen. Unlike LIGO, however, using lasers on speakers to measure their motion doesn’t necessarily indicate the speaker stands’ isolation effectiveness. The stand could be simply transferring energy to the floor more effectively than nothing at. AND in doing so actually making the sound worse!

I’m quite sure you didn’t mean to use the word, intonated.

I agree with your verbiage.  As for the word intonate, yes, I did mean to use it.  Don't be such a luddite.  It can be used to imply conveyance of emotion or emotional content of speech (and not simply pitch).  I know its been a long time since you had your intro to English composition in E school....how long ago was it?  55 years?  1961?  Is that ballpark?

Here’s the thing: When someone makes a claim, the burden of proof is on them. It’s not up to me to prove that a 2 volt drop doesn’t have an audible effect. It’s up to the claimant to prove that it does. This is Logic 101. More important, trying to assess the affect of a power wire by measuring the AC power voltage is beside the point. The *only* thing that matters is what happens at the output of the connected equipment. Competent audio gear is immune to small changes in voltage, and routinely filters out the typically small amount of noise riding on top of the power voltage.

Welcome Ethan!  Thanks for chiming in.  Yes, there is a burden of proof to some degree and thus the animus for this thread.....

I just realized the topic of this thread is vibration isolation. I love this topic! Why? Because it's so easy to prove or disprove by measuring. But who has ever done that? Well, I did not long ago. Enjoy:

http://ethanwiner.com/speaker_isolation.htm

Yes, yes.  I have been trying to coax out that sort of information, but everyone is resisting arrest....

I’m not terribly surprised to see Agear welcome Ethan Winer with open arms. Neither one of these isolation denyers - not to mention the two dudes from SS - even knows what vibration isolation is. Birds of a feather flock together.

That can only be described as troll envy....;)

Geoffkait: "I’m not terribly surprised to see Agear welcome Ethan Winer with open arms."

A definite turn for the worse.

Au contraire.  Another voice in the mix.  Its all good....

Ethan, I think room acoustic software is a reasonable endpoint to measure.  There is freeware available to use to this end if people are so inspired.

Here is a video from Townsend that was circulated earlier in this thread as proof of concept but it in no way measures endpoints that are meaningful:

I do want my isolation equipment to provide good sound through the most dire of circumstances:  http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/743988/Ring-of-Fire-BIG-ONE-CATASTROPHIC-earthquakes-tsunamis

"

We had an interesting incident near Humboldt State University. A new cell tower went up and the local newspaper asked a number of people what they thought of it. Some said they noticed their cell phone reception was better. Some said they noticed the tower was affecting their health. Think about how much more pronounced these effects will be once the tower is actually operational. The ability of the human brain to convince itself of just about anything is not to be underestimated." --Brian Dunning

That's very funny. The only confounding variable is THC. Humbolt county is a suspicious location for any higher institution of learning....

Placebo effect aside, much of this issue comes down to WHAT to measure and why. A lot of audio inhabits potentially cutting edge physics, etc and so is not alway cut and dry engineering. That being said, why not try to build a body of evidence and at least try to push things forwards in a concrete way? I do not understand all the resistance.

"For the record, I still use my Pioneer receiver, and it cost all of $150 at Costco".

This from a "consultant" to the audio industry. Need more be said?

Dave

That in and off itself does not mean anything.  I have heard people get good sound from very modest systems.  A lot of audiophiles do not really know what they are doing and thus struggle through the roulette of endless equipment purchases.  

Suspending all cables and power cords above the floor is always a good idea. Suspending them from eye hooks in the ceiling using thread, using a rubber band on one end, will provide very good isolation for the suspended cables and cords. This suspension of cables and cords illustrates the deleterious effect of vibration on the audio signal per se as well as on the electrical power coming into the system.

By the same token the Enid Lumley cable tunnels of yore provide the same sort of protection against vibration and static fields. I.e. Cables suspended by string inside treated tunnels constructed with long sections of three 2x4s, two sides and a top 2x4 with eye hooks on the underside for suspending the cables.

A skeptic would have to be exceptionally hard headed not to see that vibration is bad for the sound wherever it is found in the audio system, no?

The only good vibration is a dead vibration.

Why?  Any evidence to support such claims?  

Agear:

"That in and off itself does not mean anything".

That, in and of itself, says everything.

Dave

No, it means nothing.  I think part of the take home message from Ethan is that proper engineering (particularly when it comes to room acoustics and things measurable) is more important than gucci equipment.  I myself have experience that very thing.  I have had better sound in my sound room with Bestbuy gear than gucci audiophile grade in a standard room.  You cannot trump physics.  Now, back to the matter of how modulation of vibration effects all things electrical....anyone?

dlcockrum

Agear:

"That in and off itself does not mean anything".

That, in and of itself, says everything.

Eggs ackley! There's the high end and then there's everybody else. Talk amongst yourselves. Smoke if ya got em.

Thus saith Mr. Kait whose current sonic reference is a Walkman....

The original intention of this thread was to troll. This thread was started by the OP immediately following the removal of a previous very similar thread by the moderators. I’m not wishing to judge things too harshly but it appears the troll was successful. 😀

The original troll: "Mechanical grounding or isolation from vibration has been a hot topic as of late.....The question is does it have merit when it comes to electronics and if so why? Are there plausible explanations for their effect on electronics or suggested measurement paradigms to document such an effect?" Geez, give me a break!

No, the intention was to resurrect a previous thread that was cannonballed by trolls.  It seems as if history may repeat itself.  Now, answer the question if you can.....

Mr Winer -- if you had taken the time to read the full thread you would have seen discussion of test data showing the effects of vibration on jitter in CD playback. While we can have a discussion as to whether this is audible it seems there is no discussion as to whether the effect of vibration is real
http://www.industrial-electronics.com/DAQ/optical_discs_digital_data_and_vibrational_jitter_effects....

I had neglected to read that piece Folk.  Thanks for that.  I have a few thoughts.  First, the correlation between jitter and digital fidelity or musicality is murky.  From personal experience, I have owned DACs with high and low jitter and musical enjoyment does not always track with specs.  I know people argue all day about what thresholds of jitter are audible, etc and how to effectively measure it and correlate those measurements is no small matter.  Second, the findings referenced by Meitner and the author are interesting, but when crystal oscillators were embalmed in ceramic, "you could hit them with a sledge hammer and it doesn't cause any jitter."  Similarly, the author clearly demonstrated that well designed electronics were essentially impervious to vibration from the loudspeaker.  Finally, a CDP is a poor test subject for the realm of digital and vibration as it incorporates a mechanical element.  Most of us (including myself) are now streaming digital media.  It would be interesting to repeat such testing within that paradigm.

ps as a complete aside I was amused by the following in the WSJ today - if science is struggling to tell us how to brew a cup of coffee is it any surprise we have difficulty measuring the reproduction of music
http://www.wsj.com/articles/milk-or-sugar-in-your-low-viscosity-liquid-dynamic-scientists-seek-the-p...

As a coffee nut, I celebrate that particular struggle.  Counter Culture is based out of NC....

ethan_winer's profane and insulting post was thankfully deleted. It shows there's nothing to be gained by engaging with this guy.

What on earth did you say Ethan?  I missed it.  LOL.  Like incendiary, FAKE news, all contrarian behavior must be banished from public consciousness.  Shame, shame.    

All the giggling schoolboys apparently like each other's puerile and remarkably unfunny jokes. What we have here is not exactly the faculty of Harvard. Did someone forget to put out the Roach Motels again?

You missed my innuendo which is not surprising since you attended my alma mater prior to the admission of women and/or people of color.  The primary selection criteria was a whiteboy with a pulse and not academic aptitude.  

What a totally useless thread full of ad hominem attacks. If the OP actually cares anymore I will add that I concur with Mapman. Apart from turntables, tubes, and speakers, for the most part any mechanical vibration isolation is totally unnecessary with most SS electronics. This can be proven quite simply by gently tapping the chassis and noting that no sound comes out the speaker even with the volume turned up fully. (Of course, don’t try this with a tube amp or with a turntable or with a sledgehammer)

Ayatollah, the thread still has some inherent value despite its schizophrenic meandering and trash talking (which I find highly amusing...). Folk freak’s most recent post and link allude to the fact that vibration can effect digital processing (and not simply interfere with a mechanical element such as a CD drive or TT). Call it a "piezoelectric effect." That is the central gist of the thread, and it remains a valid question.  The sophisticated part revolves around "how" or "what" to measure.  

Ethan, a room spectral sweep is a reasonable approach, but what sensitivity does that have to unveil more subtle juju like jitter?  I concur with Ralph (MN tube hippy that he is) that vinyl (and tape) still sounds better to my ear.  Does a room sweep reveal any differences?  I assume not so there is obviously something more to it.  I was playing digital files the other night.  I then switched over to vinyl, and suddenly, both the dog, one of our cats, and both my kids came into the room.  I still "believe" intuitively that there is something intrinsically jarring to digital file reconstruction.  Another way to address the question of the day is does vibration management improve jitter performance and or musicality? 

You are wrong none of what I own or use do I consider Isolated. That word is offensive and just dirt. Just the opposite everything is direct coupled to the floor so as to remove or reduce shear wave interference. I use the same direct coupled methods with the use of polaration filters to remove interfering energy in my endpins for musical instruments. There are other materials and methods in addition to remove the interfering polarities. One is to disapate the energy into air thru a material that has the same velocity as air. The instruments become easier to play as a result. You can hear the difference and you can see the change in body language and sense of excitement in muscians face. Any instrument that touches the floor can have these improvements.One other thing we dont just hear with our ears we hear with all our body parts as if we are a geophone made of flesh and blood and bone. That is what makes some of us human rather than a robot textbook.Tom

Tom, you should send Ethan an Endpin for review since he is also a musician:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsavk0FX3Ro

What I would really like to see is a video of Mr. Kaits demonstrating his technology.....

Its not a hard read Ethan. Anyway, it was a study conducted by Psychologists in Germany looking at blinded listening preferences (both audiophiles and non) comparing an all tubed system fronted by vinyl and an all SS system fronted by digital. People preferred the tube/vinyl rig to a statistically significant degree.

no participant said that the analog system had impaired their sense of well-being, but 16 participants said so of the digital system! This must be one of the most astonishing, and irritating, results of Ackermann's experiment. How can it be that we spend a lot of money on something that makes us feel worse?!
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/god-nuances-page-4#76KVPhAqoldXrRYq.99

There is nothing jarring about digital audio. In controlled tests people are unable to tell when a 44/16 "bottleneck" is inserted into an analog playback chain. This is well known and well documented. The key is "controlled tests" which apparently many people here are unfamiliar with. :->)

Hmmm.  I would be interested to see that study.

I am sure you and others are familiar with this one:  http://www.stereophile.com/features/203/#um3KMoxJTFAhwZAf.97

Here is your paper: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1105/0b42c641807bbcf24ba7f6e11af49f135e8f.pdf

The result does not surprise me.  I have had many a recording engineer tell me Redbook is enough.  That being said, this a study of the digital domain only  

FWIW, the fact that trace amounts of the 7th order causes a metallic quality in the sound is something that has been known since the 1930s. So I don't see it as any stretch at all to simply acknowledge that such could be the case. I really don't want to devote more time going round and round on the topic than you do.

Reference?  How did they arrive at that conclusion?

Really. Besides, lots of things cause that metallic quality. E.g., RFI/EMI, vibration, background scattered light. As I’ve oft stated, in addition to that metallic quality there’s that thin quality, the rolled off quality, the bass shy quality, the congealed pablum quality, the screechy irritating quality, the electronic quality, the boring empty quality, the recorded-in-a-barrel quality, the uninterleaved quality. I trust I’m not the only one who hears it, am I?

Agreed 100%.  RFI/EMI is a biggie although a lot of people think that's hogwash as well (along with the subject of this thread).  

There is a select group of professional recording engineers now working who are considered the best in the business, responsible for some of the best sounding recordings ever made---lifelike instrumental timbre, high resolution and transparency, who can record on any equipment they choose. They have no allegiance to any system, just to getting the best sound possible. One such engineer is Kavi Alexander of Water Lily Records, located in Santa Barbara California.

Kavi not only continues to prefer analog tape to digital (though higher bit rates and sampling frequencies---24/192, are narrowing the gap), but he uses a very customized recorder that employs tubes! He does so NOT because of any "musical distortion" the recorder adds to the direct mic feed, but for the exact opposite reason---it is the most transparent, least distortion-adding method of recording he has found.

Kavi’s has produced some of the most astonishingly lifelike recordings ever made, including the Grammy Award-winning "A Meeting By The River", on which master slide guitarist Ry Cooder plays. Ry is VERY serious about the sound of his guitars (both live and recorded), which led him to make the first digitally recorded Pop (non-Classical) album, Bop Til You Drop. He HATED it! When he heard a Water Lily label recording he asked "Why don’t my records sound this good?". He sought out Mr. Alexander, and plans were undertaken to make the AMBTR album. It is World Music, and one of the handful of best recordings I’ve ever heard..

The Water Lily recorder’s tube circuits were designed by Tim Paravicini, who has also done work for the David Gilmore/Pink Floyd Studio in London, considered one of the best in the world. Tim also designs consumer Hi-Fi products for EAR-Yoshino, including tube pre-amps, power amps, and digital products. EAR-Yoshino has one phono pre-amp that is all solid state, which Tim preferred in that application. He, like Kavi, generally prefers tubes to solid state, not for their "musical distortion", but for their sonic superiority. One may disagree with that preference, but one can not truthfully claim that their preference is based on a desire for "musical distortion".

Thanks for that. I own Indian Architecture and agree his recordings are magnificent.....

Perhaps it might help to know that in the last ten years, Dr. Herbert Melcher has shown that the human ear/brain system has tipping points. An example of that is if the playback has insufficient speed (risetime) the brain has a tipping point where the music processing is transferred from the limbic centers to the cerebral cortex.

Reference, and how did he discern such a transference? PET scan? I am in medicine, and no Neurologist (or neuroscientist) has such specificity at their fingertips. They are only making assumptions based on observed brain activity.

Another example of a tipping point is where the brain will favor distortion as tonality over actual FR errors! Now both of these things were not known back in the 1970s and are examples of ’now that we know that, we can do proper engineering to take them into account.’

Again, we need a reference. Makes for good audio prose and ideology but there is no data.

It does matter that our ears are tuned to bird song frequencies (IOW Fletcher-Munson); this is the result of evolution as birds are the early warning system of the presence of a predator in the environment. You can regard this extra sensitivity as a complication!

purely speculative.

seventh harmonic causing a metallic quality: I’ve heard that several places, but in this case the easiest to remember is John Curl (one of the top solid state designers alive today).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZwS-oyqc3w

Again, no data.  I guess we need to find that "big red book."

@agear regarding the 7th harmonic. Two minutes on google will turn up ample references from piano tuning, design of wind instruments and so on. Here’s a basic one to get you started

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Music/harmon.html#c1

Anything pertaining to the design of amplifiers or better yet the effects of isolation on said harmonics?  Again, two minutes on Google provided about as much intel as the youtube video from Townsend.      

Ethan, since you are an actual musician as well, please educate us on the potential evils of 7th order harmonics and how they might manifest in a system and/or room....

Do some of your own research @agear

Nelson Pass on amp design and harmonics
https://passlabs.com/press/audio-distortion-and-feedback

That would not qualify as research....

Plagiarized from Peter Bizlewicz:

"The writer William S. Burroughs once wrote a response to his good friend, poet Alan Ginsberg, who had asked Burroughs why he hadn't dissuaded him beforehand against doing something that resulted in an unpleasant experience for Ginsberg. Burroughs, older and wiser, simply replied that he didn't say anything because "you can't tell anybody anything they don't already know." That's putting it rather in the extreme, but it's another way of saying that some people just don't get it and never will."

Food for thought Ralph.

I read Naked Lunch in HS.  Burroughs was hardly a font of wisdom with his penchant for heroin and young boys.  

Some people's ego doesn't allow them to contemplate how little of our brains do we use, how little we know. A healthy dose of a psychedelic can help with that

Interesting.  Can you elaborate on the last part of that statement?  Ralph (with your perfectly coifed hippy mane) care to add to that line of thinking?