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Fun Little Project for improving Dynamics

Fun little project, or Tweak that will improve system dynamics, soundstage, frequency extremes.

Try using Amethyst crystals. Get them in small sizes and unprocessed. I bought a pound on EBay for $10 including shipping.

To clean the unprocessed crystals prior to use, I soak the crystals in distilled water with Aquarium salt. Mixing it to become a strong sea salt mixture and letting them soak for about 8+ hours.
Then pour off the sea salt and soak the crystals with 90% or better alcohol for about an hour. After that, drain off the alcohol and rinse well with just distilled water.
Finally, let the crystals dry in a bowl in the sun.

Start with placing small amounts (25-40 crystals) in the plastic baggy things and tape the bag over your Circuit breakers to your system or on top of power cables IEC/Male end.
You can even buy at Radio Shack small project boxes. When using these types of boxes I put a lot more of the crystals in them.
You can use Blu Tack or 3M tape to stick these project boxes to outlet strips, junction boxes, over outlets, etc.

For reasons still unclear to me, it may take a few weeks (perhaps as much as 4 weeks) to sound good.

But, when it does, the dynamics will improve and so will the overall sound stage and frequency extremes.

Please note:
Too much of the crystals may actually surpress the dynamics, but with the baggies you can experiment with how much of the crystals to use.

I have experimented with all kinds of different crystals, from Topaz, to Tourmaline, to Quartz and etc. The Amethyst crystals seem to work the best.
ozzy

Showing 3 responses by ptmconsulting

ptmconsulting
1,000 posts
 
Well, I may lose all credibility for stating this but, here goes ...

I picked upo some of the Alan Maher littel boxes as part of a local club "group buy". We got a really inexpensive price on them so I thought it would be worth a shot for experimental purposes. I really had NO expectation that they would work at all. So, after about 3-4 weeks I definitely hear an improvement. Yes, there was some improvement within 24 hours of installing them, but after that things changed (up, down, sideways) sound wise, and no, I can't explain why. But they did stabilize after about 20 days.

Yes, these crystals do have an effect and I don;t have any explaination as to why. I have one box on the incoming bundle to my fuse box, one on the fuse to my audio system, one on the outlet feeding my amp and one on the IEC end of the plug into my preamp.

Now, let the derogatory remarks commence. But at least I know that I tried it and discovered a sonic improvement. (Yes, I have removed them and heard a definite degredation immediately, so they seem to be doing something.)
ptmconsulting
1,000 posts
 
Picked up some very small tumbled Amethyst, cleaned them and put them in small baggies and draped them over my power cords. There is a definite and distinct audible difference. If you are one of the ones making fun of this then you haven;t actually tried it. it makes no sense, but it does SOMETHING(?).

Too much makes things closed in and dull sounding. There also seems to be a difference when used on the plug end or on the IEC end. It didn't sound good at all on my CD player cord no matter where or what I tried. Same with the amp cord. It does improve things when placed on my phono preamp and my regular preamp and my power junction box that feeds the source components.

No BS. For $10 on E-Bay you can try this and speak with some meaningful knowledge instead of snarking at those not afraid to experiment. I can't explain it and I won't try.
ptmconsulting
1,000 posts
 
Believe it or don't believe it. Try it or don't try it. Open minded or closed minded. It's no skin off my nose. I can hear an effect, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Not an illusion at all.

I performed a test for a fellow audiophile this weekend when he stopped by. I took 2 small plastic cases that had crystals in them and placed them on the top of my turntable step up preamp. The soundstage shrunk and was immediately constricted. When they were removed it expanded tremendously. No question about it. Not subtle at all. Using something like a weight in their place yielded no result at all, so it wasn't anything to do with vibration dampening or the like. Obviously in this case they caused a bad result, but an immediately audible result nontheless.
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