I no longer sell the NASA grade ceramic cones. But Golden Sound does.
309 responses Add your response
Jhills mentioned Walnut. Now this is an interesting species if you are someone who is going to go the felt, rubber (type) and cork route. You can get some interesting tones out of Black or Chocolate Walnut mixed with the softer (more absorbent) materials. When I did my ranking a few years ago Walnut came in right after the softer woods and I ranked it higher musically than Maple (for electronics). So that's cool Jim brought this up. good ears :) Michael Green |
I'm conflicted on this one... I'm aware wood plays a part in tone for instruments. With the Mapleshade 4" under my table, couldn't hear a noticeable difference between the expensive slab and the 1" cheap cutting board from Target. I guess my ears aren't sensitive as some here. Another thing to file in the YMMV cabinet. |
Hi Tablejockey I don't want to talk directly about Mapleshade, but the first question I have is, did you keep your stock feet on your table and what is the table? Nothing wrong with the Target cutting board. I'm sure there are a lot of Ikea and Target audiophiles out there getting great sound. It's not a matter of buying HEA, it's a matter of what works. MG |
michaelgreen, Speaking of wood, let's say walnut as above, do you take into consideration the time/season it was harvested? Once upon a time, it was emphasized in some of the products. I am not sure if it was more for marketing purposes or it really mattered that much. There was something about density of the wood depending on the season (wet, dry, something like that). For a casual follower, it does make theoretical sense at least. If true, accurate comparison of different wood samples would have to include harvesting timing. |
michaelgreen, I found that piece about harvesting wood... "The SS-AR2’s baffle board is made from laminated instrument grade maple, harvested on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido in November, when the grain is tightest."http://www.sonypremiumhome.com/ar-speakers/SS-AR2.php I think there was a similar statement about headphones 20-30 years ago which included wet/dry season references, but cannot find it now. |
michaelgreen, For whatever it is worth, as it is someone's review, although I really think promo material had similar statements... "This is due to the resonant properties and rigidity of the wood, as it was harvested during the winters in Japan when the trees contracted the most to rid themselves of excess moisture from sap. This tight wood pattern is evident when you closely view the cups, and the tightness maximizes the resonant properties of the Japanese elm."https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sony-mdr-r10.12589/reviews |
The reason I prefer Walnut, particularly Black Walnut, above even Maple, is because of it's consistency. Because it is a very low resin wood, the density and weight from tree to tree, board to board, is very consistent in weight and density, with a clear, tight grain, free of voids and soft spots - making it very favorable for a component platform. @geoffkait Thanks, I'll check that out... @MichaelgreenaudioBecause I robbed my last set of brass cones from under my preamp, to put under my integrated amp, I am in need of a replacement set of three or four and maybe a spare set. Since I no longer have a lathe to turn my own - I'll check out yours......Thanks Jim |
Hi Glupson My evolution of wood curing and voicing has been a fascinating journey. Even when I read back through the threads it's pretty amazing. The answer to your question is a long one because for me it has meant owning my own kilns and huge collections of wood. A big factor in the learning curves are, where you live. No matter how much wood I have collected or the different types, and from where, the key is learning how to cure. Lets start with the where it comes from. I have my pet areas to choose wood from and also get samples of this years harvest (been collecting wood seriously since 1987). I have wood sent directly to me and I also make my regular rounds of my lumberyards. The advantage to having lumberyards here is they are natural kilns. I can go in on any given day and start testing wood for possible purchase. The yards here have gotten to know me and have been very gracious about letting me come in a do my first testing. In fact during the start of my curing season each year some of the workers who know me will let me know what they have that I might want to check out. There are 3 types of yards I visit here, common, exotic and exotic blocks. On TuneLand I have pictures of all three and with us choosing the wood and the process I go through in the curing and voicing. For me it's not only a weekly hobby of mine but also a thrill ride that once you get hooked is as cool as any other hobby. Today for example I spent half a day over in my curing house, flipping and getting ready some wood for Platforms, Subs and Blocks. On the topic of Maple vs Walnut, yes I gave a very general answer and if someone ran out and bought a piece of either they would more than likely have their own created sound based on the way they treated that particular piece of wood. If you would like me to give you how I get different species ready for my listening tests I can do it, but yes every piece of wood has it's own story. MG |
Michael Fremer’s video made at AXPONA 2019 includes this exchange between he and an attendee at the Mag Lev Audio (makers of a magnetically-isolated turntable) booth: Attendee: "It (the table) avoids the vibrations. But ya know some people say records sound warmer because it gets the sound from the speakers to the stylus." Fremer: "No. Those people are idiots." The size of the LP groove is extremely small, it’s modulations even smaller. The stylus measures the modulations in the groove, transducing those measurements into an electronic signal. The measurement is microscopic, the signal very low in voltage. Both are very susceptible to corruption from outside forces, mechanical and electronic. Any unrelated vibration affecting either can result in a change in the signal---either a loss of information, or an addition of artificial information; that’s called distortion. One may find the distorted sound "pleasing", or "musical", but it’s short of the highest level of music reproduction quality. And what’s with this obsession with soundstaging?! Recordings made in studios (the majority in most peoples music libraries) contain phony, artificial, fabricated, illusionary imaging. I’m much more concerned with 1- the sound of the instruments and voices themselves---their timbre, tonality, color, texture, weight, body, and 3-dimensional palpability; and 2- the effect of the playback system on the timing of the players and singers, and the subtle interplay between them all---the inherent, essential temporal nature of music. Both of those effect the emotional content of the music and lyrics, and even it’s quality as music. Soundstaging is a parlor trick, devoid of musical meaning. |
I probably mentioned this before somewhere - the type of wood matters much less when we’re talking about the top plate of an isolation stand. That’s because the top plate is isolated from vibration coming up fro the floor along with the component. Now, there remains residual vibration on the top plate - the percentage of seismic type vibration from the floor, acoustic vibration and vibration induced by the component (motor noise, transformer noise, etc.). Residual vibration can be dealt with effectively and easily using inexpensive damping techniques. No, not rubber, Michael! Also, all wood or granite or other boards or slabs should always be supported by cones. Carpets are an issue when placing iso stands on them because carpets behave like springs and can interfere with the performance of an iso stand. Cones that pierce the carpet are suggested. One issue with hardwood boards and plates that hasn’t been addressed so far is warping. Maple, aside from its sonic attributes, is very resistant to warpage over time. Other woods, like the cherry I used for the Nimbus isolation stand I built for Mapleshade Recording for CES, might not be so resistant. Cherry wasn’t. I also have used Baltic birch for load bearing sections of iso stands and Baltic birch ply for the top plate. I also like the high mass (inertia) and extreme stiffness (resistance to seismic type bending forces) of materials like granite and bluestone. At the Show in Vegas with Golden Sound I employed Italian marble slabs (beautiful stuff) made right there in Vegas, enough slabs for about five isolation stands, two slabs per stand, a spring sandwich as it were. 🥪 I have a customer in Aruba with a monster five foot long marble isolation stand for his Raven Turntable. I’ve also used laboratory grade granite slabs for some projects. 3” thick 18x18 Bluestone slabs from Home Despot are probably my fave, all things considered. One big advantage of my small independent springs is there is virtually no limit to the load they can handle. I have customers with seriously heavy things up on my iso stands. Upwards of 200 lb. My first iso stand, Nimbus was limited to a load of around 35 lb. |
My last concept for a isolation stand was a combination of viscoelastic material, bamboo and glass micro beads. Together these materials simulate the operational characteristics of the woodpecker’s head (bone, special absorptive tissue and flexible cartilage) which able to withstand tremendous negative g’s whilst pecking wood. Much greater negative g’s than a F-22 fighter pilot pulling a Immelmann maneuver. |
I realize MF is a big vinyl guy but geez, Louise, you can only get so much soundstage when you’ve got 10,000 records crammed into the listening room. No offense to anyone. I mean, come on! MF would be wise to place his entire record collection in a dedicated house or self storage unit somewhere and keep only what’s in current rotation in his listening room. That would put him miles ahead of whatever he’s got now sound-wise. Same goes for CDs, all you CD fanatics out there. They are bad for the sound - there’s no other way to say it. Am I even allowed to say that? Will I be banned for saying that? 😳 I have lived here before, the days of ice And of course this is why I'm so concerned And I come back to find the stars misplaced And the smell of a world that has burned |
Getting back to Mpingo wood for just a second. I would have thought Tuners would be all over this thing like ducks on a June bug, jumping up and down at the mention of Mpingo wood or Mpingo discs. The Mpingo disc, African Rosewood + Gabon Ebony, and highly resonant, is a Tuner’s Delight. First it takes some considerable effort to find a place in the room where you get a Big Bang. Many of the suggested locations often don’t work or are overly subtle. This just seems like a Tuner’s dream. Once you get the hang of it there’ll be no stopping you. There are many locations in the room where a Mpingo disc will improve the sound. And what a sound! But the best part for Tuners is when you do find a location that works you can tune the disc since it’s directional. Hel-loo! If you have it upside down it won’t work and if you don’t have the azimuthal (rotational) direction tuned in it’s effects won’t be as pronounced. You can also play games with the soundstage with one or two Gabon ebony 12x1x1 stakes, or even rosewood, the kind they sell at hardwood stores. Just lean one or two ebony stakes up against the wall in various locations. A Tuner’s delight! 🤗 |
"I would have no desire to be on an audio forum if I didn’t even have an in-room stereo to talk about and use daily to explore with."That is understandable. People pick and choose how to divide their time and interests. Some like reading. At the same time, many people, if not most of those, who watch basketball do not have basketball courts at home. Some can barely run a few steps, some play only on weekends, and some actually do have a court and practice often. They all comment on some really good game that happened in the city they have never been to. Nothing wrong with theoretical discussion. It keeps "I did it" bragging at bay with a little bit colder and much less subjective approach. Question is would having Mpingo wood floor on the basketball court influence the game and why. |
Hi Geoff I like Michael, I think he’s witty and easy to watch, even though I didn’t watch this entire video. My writing room is kind of like his listening room "stuff all over the place". However even my writing room seems to be a little more organized then Michael’s listening room. I see what you are saying about the LPs and CDs and immediately made my own listening judgement call as soon as Michael walked into his listening area. On a professional level it would be a disqualifier for me to take his critiquing of components and music seriously. I would classify Michael’s room more of a music collectors room than a listeners room. That’s not a slam on Michael, just a different part of the hobby than I am a part of. I will make this comment though, If I sat down and listened to both his system and your system (with exception of the body effect) I would bet that I would choose your system over Michael’s. I know that I am on you Geoff about using your ear buds as a reference for in room listening and I hope you can understand why, it’s not in-room listening and I’m never trying to do anything but talk about real time, on going, in-room listening. However if you are making a comparison between your in-room listening and Michael’s I can totally understand why you would make some comments you make, you don’t have to be listening to see the potential problems Michael is living in the middle of. Any comments Michael would make about soundstaging would score a zero among the level of listeners I deal with. At the same time there are many Stereophile type hobbyist who are collector/listeners and not stoundstage enthusiast just as there are many other off shoots of this hobby and industry. It’s truly a to each their own type of experience. thanks for your post, it sheds a lot of light on Michael’s preferences and mostly for me that Michael is an entertaining and gifted magazine writer more than a soundstage expert. Michael Green Oh, I should also add, as a purist listener, CD cases and LPs should be no where near the listening room. That's just fact and if anyone has taken the time to remove them out of the area they will tell you the tremendous benefits to not having them around. |
"Anyone who calls listening to music a "hobby" is engaging in a quite different endeavor than am I. Focusing on soundstaging is like watching a film for 3-D effects." Honestly I wasn’t aware of this so much before bdp24 but yes I now see clearly that we (you and I) belong to two different camps of the hobby, industry, happening, lifestyle or whatever it is that you or anyone wishes to call it. I am most definitely a SoundStager and believe this is the heart and soul of playback. I also believe obtaining the real space of a recording is the proper way to hear it in it’s fullest regardless of any particular parts and pieces someone may want to extract from the recording. That said, from now on I will try to make note of this as much as I can when acknowledging you. As I have said to you directly before I hope we can get to a place where you don’t feel upset that I refer the event by different names. I think you know by now I have done nothing else but music my entire life and would say I have embraced every inch of it. I’m happy for your excitement and passion for your type of listening and lifestyle, but please keep in mind that it has been my quest to live and study the whole with all of it’s variables and disciplines. Just as I respect that Geoff is a "direct to ear" listener I respect you as a non-soundstage listener as I would respect Michael as a collector type of listener. Each has their own sensibilities and passions and are obviously driven by healthy egos. For myself I enjoy all the variables and explore every part is if it is part of a big universe without judgement of right or wrong but more choice to go wherever we wish. Personal taste is a beautiful thing but there also needs to be those who can take this all the way in any direction, stopping along the way to take in preferences but having the ability to move on to the next exit when it is desired. Michael |
"At the same time, many people, if not most of those, who watch basketball do not have basketball courts at home." Absolutely positively correct! However there are more people who explore the "whole" of playback than you would think. Keep in mind that most who tune have no need or desire to be part of an audiophile forum. My clients over the years learn the art and technology of tuning and then move beyond the stereophiles of the world. If you read the members threads on TuneLand you will see that they get to a certain place in their abilities and move on to the rest of their listening years with the knowledge that they can do anything they wish. Some do stick around to help others get started but the vast majority send me Christmas emails and good greetings usually with the title "I'm still tuning and love it". Once you learn how to tune this becomes a different type of adventurous lifestyle for you. Most of the guys and gals who tune keep in touch with me through PMs to let me know they want to try something I have developed or share with me, and sometimes the forum, things that they have been doing that works within their own world. These folks have stepped way past the sales world of Stereophile and HEA tradeshows and have developed their own version of the Tune that they have fine tuned just for them. It's like a family of the worlds most explorative listening members. Folks who have traveled so far beyond plug & play you wouldn't even recognize they were from the same hobby as the ones still looking at component collectables. MG |
Michael, obviously my Sony Walkman and Sony Ultralight headphones system is not the same as “room listening.” However, I should point out that headphone listening, or “direct ear” listening as you call it, does have some very important advantages over in room systems. Let me list them for you here. I won’t dwell on COST SAVINGS, which is obviously enormous. I also won’t dwell on SPACE SAVINGS, either. Or even TIME SAVINGS. The primary advantage of my current system is SOUND QUALITY - purity, air, dynamics, coherency, and extremely low noise and distortion. 1. My headphone system is completely independent of room acoustic anomalies that plague room systems - echos, standing waves, comb filter effects, early reflections, phase issues,. I do not have to constantly tune my room, I.e., playing around with room treatments and adding/moving/removing them, as well as moving speakers to keep up with all the changes and tweaks. It can be an endless cycle, I don’t have to tell you. 2. I have no AC issues, or AC ground issues, since my system is battery powered. 3. I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies power cords, speaker cables, interconnects, and digital cable. 4. I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses. 5. I avoid distortion produced by speaker crossovers as my Sony Ultralight headphones are crossover-less. 6. I have greatly reduced the number of variables that affect my sound by going to a small, battery powered system. This makes things much easier to CONTROL. 7. Immunity to RFI/EMI. 8. Immunity to vibration. Quick Summary - More music, better sound, less audio nervousa. |
Yep, two different worlds! I prefer the in-room system obviously, and the in-room listening experience. Audiogon looks to me like a mostly in-room system forum, at least most of the threads I see you on, which is why I question some of your input as being up to date or relevant. It’s ok, I just think the reminder to folks needs to be often that you are not basing your comments about in-room system listening as actually something you practice yourself. For example with the OP "What kind of wood have you found to be best?" It doesn’t appear to me that you use any wood with your Walkman so for the guy using an in-room system with many different materials how does your Walkman fit in. I also disagree by a long shot with your Quick Summary - More music, better sound. It might be better than Michael Fremer’s clutter but not a well tuned in-room setup, not even close to the full body listening experience. But I say this having all of the above to base that on. MG |
I wood be remiss in not mentioning some other audiophile icons made of wood. The Shakti Halographs, Room Tuning devices, a classic. Shun Mook Spatial Control Kit (3 Mpingo discs on a wooden bracket. An awesome device. Shun Mook record weight, stack of dried ebony briar discs, very high on my wish list when my rich uncle gets out of the poor house. Shun Mook Diamond Resonators, audio footers comprised of a stack of ebony discs with a diamond tip, you know, for “instantaneous evacuation” of vibration. Me want. |
Live music is a whole-body experience, not just a sense-of-hearing one. Headphone (or ear speaker, as Stax puts it), ignores the physical aspect of music. Our ears hear music, but our skin, organs, and even bones feel it. Headphone listening is a completely different experience than is loudspeaker listening, a more purely cerebral one. The only genius I have personally known (that’s not my opinion; He was a computer programmer at HP, and they wanted to know just how smart he was, so had him tested. He also had perfect pitch, loved J.S. Bach, Brian Wilson, and Bob Dylan, and was an excellent songwriter. As proof of his intelligence, he elected to not pursue a career as a professional songwriter or musician ;-) preferred listening to music on headphones rather than loudspeakers. But then, he didn’t need to "hear" the music, he could just read the sheet music to achieve the same result. When he returned from an assignment in Germany (HP sent him over to train some programmers), he had a new supervisor. He told HP he couldn’t work for such a stupid person (she was undoubtedly very smart, but he had a very low opinion of women, except mine ;-), and resigned. He took his 401K money, paid a year’s rent on a house, and spent that year playing computer chess and recording Bach music which he performed on the piano he had shipped back from Germany. What a nut! We were about to embark on a recording project when in 2008 he died of a massive heart attack at the age of 56. I feel extremely fortunate to have known and made music with him. |
Contrary to popular belief, I am really not trying to pick on anybody, but I see some not-entirely-correct assumptions in one of the above posts. "My headphone system is completely independent of…...echos, standing waves.....early reflections....."All those may be less prominent in headphones, even less in earphones, but "completely" may be an exaggeration. Above statement may be mildly insulting to any serious headphone designer. "I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies.....speaker cables,"True, if Bluetooth is in play. Otherwise, just a different name for the same thing. Speaker cable, headphone cable, ear speaker cable. "I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses."Are there small capacitors anywhere? If yes, are they perfect for this purpose? "Immunity to vibration."Smaller devices, namely SONY Walkmen and Discmen (CD Walkman, to cut that debate short) were so prone to vibration that SONY and other manufacturers included ESP (Electronic Skip Protection) in many on their products. Not to make them perfect in some theoretical sense discussed on Audiogon, but to make them playable at all. They were so sensitive to vibration that it is not even funny to make fun of the above statement. |
@glubson, hey man, music is vibration (is vibratory even a real word?), and hi-fi components musical instruments. To prevent vibration from reaching Walkmen and Discmen (and all other components, even those nasty HEA high-mass dinosaurs) is to kill the music they make. Don’t kill the music, let vibrations run free, like you and me. |
glubson catches on fast. Yes, the Sony Walkman is not (rpt not) susceptible to vibration. If you know what to listen for you can hear it. Way to go, glubson! 🤗 Not to mention my 12 ounce system does not have a whole lot of mass and stuff hanging off it to even vibrate. If you could hear what I hear with my ears.... |
Just I little update. As with some of the topics here that I get involved in I start receiving emails wanting to know more. One of those emails was from a member here who has been reading the TuneLand archives, especially the Jim Bookhard reviews and articles. After my talk with him we've started reposting Jim's work. I'll give a link to this area on TuneLand after a few of the articles get republished. stay tuned! Michael Green |