Do you know the town where Tesla started an electric power company? At least we can get to something interesting. |
2chnlben, I am sorry that you are experiencing another placebo effect-not hearing real differences because of your perceptual bias. |
Nor would you be likely to find any physicists who would say there could be no effect. I have heard too many EEs say that electrons don't know what cable they have flowed through and other ridiculous statements to pay them much heed. |
A further thought. I once served on a doctorate committee in civil engineering where the candidate sought how to build on landfill. He sought many solutions, but ultimately stated that only penetrating it with footing would work. This may be true and may ultimately be cheapest, but there may be a better solution for someone with a more open approach. The Tacoma Narrows bridge is another example. |
In the case of your example with the copper coupler, I hear no difference. But I have dc charged cables. Certainly the are other examples of tweaks giving very modest or no improvements and even ones that at first I think are improvements only to change my mind. That is all part of the quest. I have tried other tweaks that give great improvements in some instances and great harm in others. An example of this is the Acoustic Revive QR-8 little quartz points.
Your own ears will have to be the judge. As the old warning goes YMMV. |
Jimjoyce25, as we used to say, that is damn right of you. |
2chnlben, as I said earlier, I certainly have tried tweaks that made very little, if any impact; I have tried tweaks that initially had an impact that I liked, only to discover later that I liked them out of my system; and I have tried tweaks that have a substantial impact in one place, none in a second place, and do great harm in a third. I don't see how these experiences can be reconciled with the idea that tweaks merely have a perceived impact, especially unless they have "scientific basis." I have much training in science and in research methods. As an undergraduate one of my majors was physics. I certainly know that my training now is quite out-of-date as we know much more about nature's laws than we did in the 1960s. Science doesn't know everything that can affect reproduced music. |
How many of you posting here are academics? |
Nietzschelover, I don't accept "success" in DBTs as a valid indicator of anything, because "same/different" samplings of 30 seconds themselves are invalid. Science requires valid measures and hypotheses testings.
There, however, is an even more important concern--are audio equipment or tweak buyers engaged in science or just what pleases them? I don't think anyone has to defend their likes for a tweak or component based on how it works.
I certainly have had tweaks that don't work, those that work sometimes, and those that work extremely well.
I really don't understand why some have to take it on themselves to be judges of what is worthwhile, what I call the Scam Police. What purpose do they serve? Certainly when some were selling worthless elixors as cures for ailments with those taking them potentially harmed, society did the right thing to band them. How are Scam Police serving society? |
Mapman, I have been experimenting today with the Acoustic Revive RIQ-5010 quartz disks under components, which are already on top a Halcyonic active isolation bases. Initially and most conveniently, I tried the quartz under the feet of the component. It is most convenient as the quartz disks are only 1/2 inch thick. They had no effect and in fact harmed the sound somewhat.
Previously, I had noted on a component with only tiny feet that putting the quartz disks directly against the component worked quite well. I contemplated removing the component's feet, but this was a pain. Therefore I sought a spacer to go under the quartz disks and finally settled on old Walker Audio lead filled brass ring pucks that were used under his Valid Points. I used three under both my amp and my dac in piles with the quartz disks on top.
The transparency of the sound and preciseness of the sound stage greatly improved in both instances. In both cases I locked the Halcyonic bases so they were not canceling vibrations. In effect they were just heavy shelves. The sound was good, but far short of the sound stage with the Halcyonics on.
As you can see, I pay no attention to the Scam Police. I find their arguments quite unscientific and defensive of existing science rather than pursuing further knowledge. I would love to know why quartz has the effects it does, no doubt related to its being a piezoelectric, but that won't work as sometimes they don't work. We need better science on this, but who will provide it? |
Yes, in reality the laws of engineering are incomplete. The effects of quartz on sound are what really mystifies me right now. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes no effect. |
Shadorne, you say "There is indeed no strong reason to use cable elevators in that there is no credible science behind this concept." This is a very unscientific thing to say. No credible scientist would ever make that argument. Evidence is call for to be dismissive even in science. We are not talking about science here; we are talking about people's preferences. Therefore you comment about global warming is off the topic. No one needs to pay any heed to you nor your willingness by self-selection to serve as a Scam Police.
I am glad, however, that you so starkly set out your position. Most here are pussyfooting around. I also think you and I have previously had this same discussion before with equal inability to convince each other. :) |
2chnlben, you are providing these definitions, not me. Actual, "To act or proceed cautiously or timidly to avoid committing oneself, like a cat circling carefuly around something it finds distasteful." |
Jimjoyce, were Edison and Telsa tweakers or engineers? |
2chnlben, the NJ company was The Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing not Power. See below.
From Wikipedia. The Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing was a company formed by Nikola Tesla in 1886. Located in Rahway, New Jersey, the company was formed after Tesla left Thomas Edison's employment, after a contractual disagreement. Tesla planned to sell and license his patent and innovations. Tesla invented an arc lamp of high efficiency; the carbon electrodes were controlled by electromagnets or solenoids and a clutch mechanism and had an automatic fail switch. The company earned money, but most of the capital gained went to the investors. Ultimately, financial investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him of his duties at the company.
You are right that Tesla was one of several involved. What is strange is the remoteness of Telluride.
From Wikipedia. In 1891, Telluride's L.L. Nunn joined forces with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse and built the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, the world's first commercial-grade alternating-current power plant, near Telluride. (Nunn's home can be found at the corner of Aspen and Columbia Streets, next door is the home he purchased for the "pinheads"[citation needed] to study hydro-electric engineering.) The hydro-powered electrical generation plant supplied power to the Gold King Mine 3.5 miles away. This was the first successful demonstration of long distance transmission of industrial grade alternating current power. |
Gregm, Telluride, Colorado had the first Tesla power company.
Mapman, yes it would be valuable to have such a measure, but judging from the meter on the Halcyonics Micro 40, the vibration are many and of short duration. I can remember all the activity of these measures at the RMAF in 2007, at least during the day. At night it settled down to what I see in my room. Also, what most surprises me is that women excite (pun) it the most. Of course, footfalls show up also.
When I saw the video of using the copper coupler on a Marantz cd player's IEC using a sensitive voltage sensor, I got one thinking as you do, that this would be a good aid in assessing that tweak. Instead, I found that all hinged on the sensitivity setting. At one setting I got a warning everywhere near any cables. I never could find a setting that showed any benefit on my player using a copper coupler.
What we really would need is an instrument that says, "vibrations just altered the music signal." I would, of course, have to have its own sense of what the signal was supposed to look like as well as what it did look like. And it would have to deal with real music, not steady state signals. |
