Miracles in Audio, by luck, by good choices,by design or by tweaking...

I accidentally deleted my text  :)

All this tweaking on a low end system is wasted maghister

Somebody hasn’t heard of the Hierarchy of Sound. I won’t mention any names. The gist of it is, a tweaked inexpensive system can be made to sound better than an un-tweaked moderate price system. And a tweaked moderate price system can be made to sound better than an un-tweaked expensive system. The only constraints are the ones you bring with you. 

What is a low end system?
This is relative...

My tweaking are not a wasted Unfairlane , you have not listen to my audio system before and after the last 2 years tweaks...

And a tweaked moderate price system can be made to sound better than an un-tweaked expensive system.

Geoffkait is right on the spot....

I dont dream with a sense of urgency anymore about a high end system...I had my dreamed system in head for sure... For example to beat My Sansui AU 7700, a ZOTL Berning amplifier...

To beat my speakers that are very good one, a pair of Harbeth will do...

To beat my Starting Point Systems dac at lea the best of  Denafrips  theTerminator will do...

Total cost with power supply around 15,000 thousands...

My actual real cost systems bought used (speakers 50 bucks), amplifier (vintage 100 bucks) and new on ebay bid my dac ( 20 bucks) sound so good it will takes this dreamed system of mine to really beat it... And I am not even sure of that, after all, what is the difference between a great big upgrade and some improvement?  In dollars enormous for me...In sound quality perhaps not so....

If you own already natural timbre of instrument,and detailed imaging, you owned music and no more just sound, good or bad...

When I listened to the  same system I own now before addressing the vibrations-resonance embeddings, before the acoustical room embeddings,before the electrical embeddings in the room and house, the same audio system sounded almost  very bad to my ears... The same extraordinary dac, the legendary Sansui, and the best speakers Mission ever designed I dont liked them really...After the tweaks all that sound so good that upgrading them with the cost implied seems preposterous... This is my impressions after reading your remark.... My best really to you and thanks for your participation, you will be always welcome...

You might be interested to know I bought a prototype David Berning amp, if I recall it was EA- 230 some 40 years ago. Berning lived just down the street in MD from Bruce Wenger, (now BWS Consulting in Arlington, VA), another high end amp designer, whose high power Class A tube mono-blocks and power supplies tip the scales at 600 lbs, shipping weight.

- Your humble scribe and audio insider from the future.

Yes indeed.... And what is your overall impression of the guy and amp?

Your humble friend from the past …. :)

Since I am unable to go back that far in time, IIRC the Berning amp sounded quite good (why wouldn’t it? 😬), even when he was starting out. If memory serves I sold the Berning EA-230 and got a modified Fisher 500c receiver from Bruce Wenger, remember, Berning’s neighbor. The Fisher 500c was outfitted with aircraft output tubes, a more robust PS and other niceties. That is all ancient history, and crystals, intelligent chips, spooky clocks and springy things were not yet a gleam in my eye 👁

Thanks... Very interesting opinion coming from you....I am interested by Berning original design ( I dont pretend to understand tough)… My best to you...

It seems my idea for cheap isolation platform for my speakers, amplifier and dac was good...


"Sorbothane sandwiches":
quartz feet, granite plate, sorbothane sheet, cork plate, granite plate, quartz feet, bamboo plate, sorbothane, speakers..... My idea was precisely coupling- and decoupling the resonance and breaking it using different property of different resonant densities materials...

It was audibly good for my ears and the cost all in all for my 4 platforms around 100 dollars for all of them ... read that design idea from a polish company :

«

The FOS-70SXL platform is based on the FOS-7SXL model. It consists of two separate bases. The lower one is made of multi-layer MDF, veneered with ebony wood colored black. It is decoupled from the ground with double carbon steel spikes. The upper section is a metamorphic stone with a specific, irregular structure, enclosed in a wooden box, combined with MDF (upper layer) veneered with ebony in the same black color. This part is decoupled from the bottom platform with spikes.

The idea behind this model, as well as other designs of my firm, is isolating from external and internal vibrations by breaking them in many directions from side to side, along with simultaneous absorption by appropriately selected materials.»

http://highfidelity.pl/@main-970&lang=en

I dont doubt that they are good, but:

The price for 2 would be 750 dollars x 2 = 1,500 dollars

I need only 4 of them.... Then 3000 dollars versus my 100 dollars :)

I dont think that their platform is thirty times better than mine tough...The problem is also they would takes way too more space than mine on my desk... :)

Someday I will try the springs idea of Geoffkait and a bed of quartz sand....And compare that to these platforms of mine...

Sometime we should sit down and have a nice long talk about the difference between damping and isolation. This is not to say I don’t like your idea of throwing everything at the problem except the kitchen sink. 🤗

The ideal would be something that combined isolation and critical damping, eh.( Btw damping is most often not your friend, unless you are a big fan of phase shift strongly related to the applied damping material/system ).

Remember that I am not a scientist, I applied some imagination and very rudimentary knowledge to the problems with the judgement of my hearing... At the end my sound quality relatively to my ears is increasing big way, what much can I do? I even listen to some like you for better understanding...

By the way sometimes you are right I even try to throw the kitchen sink at the problem... Like with my many different kind of resonators, but at the end without being perfect or optimal, my solutions worked... :)

Perfect solution is for science, imperfect but working homemade one for the pleasure of my ears...And sometimes I cannot wait for science to improve my sound quality.... :)

I think that the sandwiches I use+ some load on my speakers makes precisely that a relative damping with a relative isolation and a kind of passive filtration with different structural densities materials... Not perfect at all in any way, but very clear improvement, and if this phase shifting is there I dont hear it...My best to you Taras and thanks for your participation...

In the beginning of my quest for a true Hi-Fi experience, I feel powerless... What can you do without any basic audio system, without money, and without any knowledge ?


I begins with buying the best I can in the low scale spectrum of audio system. The results was not there, the sound was always artificial and 2 dimensional after many purchases and trials and errors...


Then I read and after 1000 hours I bought the right stuff, a vintage amplifier, a very good used speaker pairs, a new minimalistic designed dac at almost no cost (+headphones)...


My actual audio system is this one, basic, mid-fi quality but very carefully chosen and very good in theory... Remember that I cannot listen to anything before buying... And anyway people has the illusion they can listen to the stuff before buying but it is not the case because no audio system sound the same in different prepared or even not prepared embeddings (be it an acoustical, mechanical, or electrical embeddings) ...


When I listen to this system out of the boxes, and absolutely not prepared in the embeddings of my house, I was happy but very disappointed... The sound was not enthralling at all...Not living, not 3-d, not natural timbre for instrument really; it was better than with the first components before these one but not a world changing experience... I was very disappointed... After all my Mission Cyrus Speakers are very good speakers not trash, the Sansui AU 7700 was a legend and one of the best vintage amp... The dac i own is so good that even today I dont perceive any limitations... Then why my listening experiment were so disappointing?


I begins to read a lot, each day... And I begins to experiments without even knowing that I experimented in the first place... :)

I begins to makes different preparation first for the mechanical embeddings, more conscious about vibrations-resonance problems...

Then I begins to treat the wall of my room, homemade no cost stuff... At my surprize my sound begins to improves...

I go on with the electrical embeddings with a big chunk of quartz on the breaker panels...I was surprized to hears something like a change... I go on with enthusiasm buying stones and crystals to investigate their different impacts on my sound pleasure...

Making my story short, I cannot repeat all that is written in part in these thread, my audio system begins a total metamorphosis... The system I dont really like begins to be a system I loved much and much... And now I smile and say to some beginners, trust yourself, and create heaven, that will not cost necessarily much money...Only basic good components, playful mind, listening experiments, homemade stuff most of the times, and at the end a real hi-fi experience will surprize you...



The most important lesson I learned was that it is not the so called hi-cost quality of the electronic components of an audio system that makes great audio experience, it is the careful controlled preparation of the 3 embeddings of any audio system : mechanical, acoustical and electrical....All the marketing audio industry mostly does not say that, they must sell their carefully researched products and tweaking is only a small "niche" products that you added at the end of your endeavour...

The truth is inverse of that, tweaks and preparation must be first, and my rule is : any electronic components that is already good will takes cares of his function without any needs for a so called upgrades necessity and will work at his peak potential only in a such rightly prepared triple embeddings... Then when some company affirm something about their electronic new marvels they are right, often their product is better than the one you owns already... But if you had never listen to what you already owned in the first place at his peak potential quality, because you had not installed your electronic components in a qualitatively carefully prepared embeddings, what is the need to upgrade a product which you dont really know ?


All electronic components are on a 3 level of quality/price ratio.... Low, mid, high....Any upgrading changes in the same rung of the scale is a waste of money and not necessary, and will be deceiving in giving to you only a small improvement at best.... The triple preparations of the embeddings will gives you hi-fi, even sometimes with some low components in the scale, more with the mid elements of the scale, and you will think: is it absolutely necessary that I pay now for high priced elements in the upper end of the scale ?


In my case I know that the Berning Amplifier will be better than my Sansui, but I do not feel the urge to change that... A happy end indeed, because I dont have the money to go with the dreamed high priced product...I feel no more frustration...Music is music at the end if you listen to it really trough an already good sound...


My best...

“Because it’s what I choose to believe.” - Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, Chief Science Officer, Prometheus

I promise I will go back and read your entire post, mahgister. 😃

I promise I will read your reaction and words... :)

But dont bother too much, you will learn anything that you dont already know,  and even if you are the most frequent ghost here, i wrote my rant for silent beginners...

And yes I try to create what I believe in audio matters at least for myself....

This evening I disconnect 4 of the S.G., and after that 3 others, keeping only one...I disconnect also the three himalayan salt lamps, 2 under my desk and speakers, one near my desk at my right...

Interesting experiment with the expected confirmative results, not a placebo one, the imaging was recessing, contracting, with less flesh to the instrument timbre...The sound was less projected in the room and more attached to the speakers...

I speak of that experiment to say this: each incremental tweaking in the mechanical embedding of the audio system by limitation of vibrations-resonance effects, or each incremental modifications of the room acoustics with different materials and different resonators, each incremental modifications of the electrical embeddings of the audio system by adding the golden plates and different stones or crystals, each one of these incremental modifications and tweaks added some little but very audible effects... Till I reach my actual imaging where the sound is clear, natural and projective in 3 dimension in the room without being attached to the speakers anymore...

Experimental listening is the way... 

Most likely the Himalayan salt lamps are placebos. They look pretty, though. Such a nice color of pink. 

I am happy your hard work and dedication are paying off with greater musical enjoyment, my friend. Even though I think that it is less hard work for you and more enjoyable work!

Thanks thecarpathian for the nodding head on the road... We are 2 travelers in musical spaces...My mate is cold and delicious and wait for you... My best...

I want to add this... We never know all what we miss in a piece of music when our audio system is not in a controlled and treated embeddings, mechanically, acoustically and electrically; even with very good electronic components...

My estimate , metaphorically speaking in using numbers, is half of the music sounds is veiled or not there at all and if there is only with 2-d imaging, and instruments not at the right place, on the right intensity level ... :)

For the anecdote, I had participate to another thread that was erased without explanations by some moderator... I regret it because, never mind the delicate subjects raised, the meeting places was interesting with all sort of characters...But I understand that speaking about non-audio matters is not always a good idea, but intensity of exhanges can create friendship also and not only aversion,or agressive language...

Anyway I am not in the boots of the moderator, even if I miss discussions... Here no problem of moderation, ghosts dont argue...And perhaps a relaxing island is at the end better....:)

"Peace is like luck, we want it only when we miss it" Groucho Marx

Update:

I came back with the S.G. optimal modifications : my 8 S.G. ( 7 cheap one) are now all modified with a thin "golden" plate+ tourmaline or Herkimer diamond or the 2 ...

Clarity all across the board, imaging out of speakers 3-d, natural timbre, dynamics without compression...

But the last and most difficult thing to get right was the atmosphere and space impressions of the recording room or theater or live event...If you prefer only studio sound and dont like the sound of live events or vast theater in your cd files, it is a sign that your audio system is not at his optimal, and the level of noise is too high... The best room treatment, and the best vibrations controls are not enough to get there... It takes methods to decrease the electrical noise floor, and  other way than just acoustic materials to modify the acoustic of your room... The S.G. modified are great for that and different resonators ...

It takes some experiments to try and discover the good formula...I wait now for the final 2 big shungite tiles to makes the 2 last "golden" plates for the main router and the main breaker panels...

I dont know if a better product than mine exist? Probably, but I dont even dare to dream to buy one...Music is music now...

Most of the times really most of us really dont know what they misses in the sound quality, whatever electronic components we use...The embeddings of these components is the real definition of HiFi, absolutely not the stamp of commercial makers, so good they are... This is the truth I bring to light by myself...Some pointed to me the general direction, but I never tought that this will be a so great journey... :)

Update:

I make another little discovery with great impact for me...

I put some 2 "golden" plates in my basement on 2 electronical boxes of the Bell telepnone lines...I forgot these one, it seems not important compared to the breaker central box or the router...I am stupid :) all the electrical grid post and cables count...The 2 "golden" plates in some way works filtering the mushy waters (electrical courant)… It is only metaphor to convey my impressions but when something happens there is a cause...I will not wait to understand before experimenting...


After placing these 2 new plates on the phone boxes:
Instantaneous improvement on all counts...Clarity, dynamic, imaging….

For those who speak of audiophile placebos, think about that: why if placebos explain all, some of my experiments gives nothing audible, and some others degrade the sound ? Placebos is always there for sure, it is linked to our unconscious expectations, placebos increases the effect of that which already work and in the body increase reaction without any substance because we expect it believing that the substances is there... But I dont believe that my non treated breaker central box will increase suddenly the quality of sound without anything being implemented...This box is not my reacting feeling body ….Some "objectivist" are more clueless than most audiophiles...:) 

The embeddings in the electrical grid is by far the most important task for an audiophile , after the acoustical field treatment of the room and the mechanical (vibrations-resonance) embeddings...Reviews are entertainment and motivation to bought before thinking... :)

I am amazed that almost no one ever report their experiments here inspired by my very low cost recommendation...And all are buying costly tweaks or electronics components...If it cost nothing and if he does not sell it that’s nothing to bother about ….

I am too old to want to makes money, but I would like some try one of my tweaks and thanks me....

:)

" I pay gold for my tv and your face is way better" - Groucho Marx

Update to the last update:

Sometimes it takes very familiar recent listenings to gives a total "awestruck" moment...


For the last weeks I listen to the Bach trio sonatas at the organ with Helmuth Walcha, by far the more spiritual interpretation of Bach, with the likes of cellist Fournier, violinist Henryk Szeryng and few others...


What struck me immediately was the more impact and clarity of bass frequencies...Organ is a good way to listen that, I listen to others files and noted improvement all around on all counts but this one was so more evident...The bass notes was bothering me now in a pleasant way... :)

Then beware, pay attention to the phone boxes of the house....Any element of the electrical grid contributes to the noise level, any....

For any audiophile any incremental improvement seems the end of the world and in some way it is....The key is working out that by yourselves without paying thousands of dollars...More fun ! And believes me it lead at the end to the same asymptotical basin of attraction that is : a more living sound...



" We must pay attention to attention itself" -Groucho Marx

" We must pay attention in dollars." Harpo Marx

" We must pay nothing more" Chico Marx

" We must tweaks and turn at each corners" Zeppo Marx

"We will do nothing more for attention or money" Gummo Marx

Third update:

The golden plates on the 2 telephone box lines were really something...After 2 hours listening, clarity exceed any other improvement effects including bass enhancement...

I had order 2 more shungite plates (300 gr each), and will create 2 new golden plates...(25 dollars ordered paid and delivered)

I had pick surreptitiously the plates I put on the telephone boxes from the main router at the desk of my wife where there was 3 of them already, because I want to experiment with on the tel. boxes... :)

She ask to me : " Where are the 2 missing one?" I said on the tel. boxes in the basement... She replied:"  At the end you think more about sound than about me".... oufff…. I must replace the missing one now... Shungite plates protect from negative field radiations the biological organism according to some Russian research... By the way I put shungite in my refrigerator with great success with all vegetables and fruits staying fresh more longer... The skeptical mother of my wife owns a "bad" refrigerator that she hated till the day where I put some shungite, now tells all people around about the "miracles" in his refrigerator...

You must know that I dont gives a dam about any spiteful smiles from some readers... :)


" I love you more than music, off course the radio is off now" Groucho Marx

I think that people dont like the fact that I pretend with a cheap audio system to rival their costly one, more than that, as if that weren't enough, with improvised homemade tweaks at low cost... The insult is double... :)

 I apologize....
But some beginners will perhaps learn something and thanks me, this is my only reward... My best...

@mahghister - 
I admire your "chutzpah".  Don't get discouraged.  Keep it up!

My friend, you have many "ghosts" haunting this thread. They are silently listening, but they are there.......

ghosthouse

My wife just said to me that I rant about an atom of dust in the air...I think this is true... :) 

I am very happy to welcome and thank you for your nod....From my heart, will light be between us all....

thecarpathian


I cannot thank you enough for your many kind remarks with passing times...

I will pray God for you...


My best and for sure some maté wait for you....

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour...."

W.Blake - Auguries of Innocence (1863)

Wow! Blake is one of the true great genius of all humanity...I cannot thanking you enough for this reminder you put here of this fact...

" The universe has no outside, and the cell no inside, why do I have the two ? " - Groucho Marx


"Why do you put all these words in your mouth M. Marx? Because we lend only to the riches" -Groucho Marx

N’th update :


I dont understand nor I had any explanation at first for the reason why putting the golden plates on telephone boxes in my basement causes so enormous improvement...Way more details across all frequencies...

But few minutes ago I think that my audio system upstream begins with the optical line, the optical cables that the telephone company Bell use, and these 2 boxes are directly connected to my computer and to my dac by this way...Then not only the central breakers panel is important, the 2 telephone boxes are on par with the breakers for the S.Q decrease or increase....My best...

...and I'm a ghost in the city, looking at the Infinite Forum....*G*

Putting gold plates on phone boxes may lead to 'harder stuff'.....phone phantasy beyond one's darker dreams, when They find out....what you've done.....@ 3:19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZJsjPY2A3w

....I'm not paranoid....anymore.....;)
...since it's over....done...

....dusts the woofers, anyway.....

I dare say we’re entering The Teleportation Tweak territory, men. I have been counseling lo these many years telephones 📞 and cellphones 📱 are bad news for the sound. Imagine how bad the sound is in a room at CES filled with a bunch of people with cellphones. 😩

Welcome to my ghosts...

Have a nice day... :)

*G* Yeah, it's Fryday, after all....

Being 'self-employed' and 'self-deployed', it's occasionally difficult to notice where in the week one is.... ;)

I am in the same boat out of time... :)

I am waiting, waiting for someone to come out of somewhere.

Get smart, get well, hang around the ink well.

Sometimes to create you must first destroy.

Made the scene, week to week
Day to day, hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through, break on through
Break on through, break on through

"Sometimes someone comes out of somewhere, usually it is me out of the strawberry jam pot" -Groucho Marx

Human owns their habits like a shirt, they know that it is an habit but they are proud of it or try to makes that habits an object to be proud of and not only a relative action...

I had discussed with some about their audio system and reviews and reviewers, and they cannot see that their tastes are habits solely acquired through certain limiting circumstances and that owning a relatively good audio system is not related directly and mostly to these relative tastes... Then reading reviews of electronic components of someone with the same taste habits is only slightly more useful than reading the financial markets, if our goal is to create a real relatively good audio experience for ourselves...

This creation is directly relative to our own conscious works and experimental plays with the 3 conditions linked to the embeddings of the audio system in a mechanical system (vibrations-resonances controls) in the acoustical field of a room and in the electrical grid of the room and of the house...(There is also others confitions than these 3, but we must begins somewhere with the most basic one)

Where is tastes in that context? How tastes can play any other role than a secondary one?
We all had the same taste and dream about a real Hi-Fi experience and the objective conditions to realize it...Tastes comes on after all that and is more an anecdotal preference, linked to the place we comes from, than a real factor for an objective experimental creation...

Reviews and reviewers are entertaining. sometimes informative, but they act like many pro and not pro-reviewers did, relativizing finally all to "tastes"...They dont speak, forgetting any specific electronic component whatsoever, about how to make them all great, whatever the components... Who will sell anything if the set of all very good  electronic audio components is too large?


I wanted that to be said somewhere without hurting feelings... :)




"Before choosing my wife sure I taste it " -Groucho Marx

It’s human nature to become more and more attached to one’s own ingenuity and to embrace his results and conclusions with great fervor. But, I caution you, gentle readers, one must be open minded at all times and ready to change directions at the drop of a hat 🎩 It can be quite difficult to break out of the lower energy orbit into a higher energy orbit. As John Lennon advised, there is nothing to get hung about. Sometimes we benefit from taking a break from our daily routines. As Groucho Marx advised to his guest with ten children, I like my cigar but I take it out sometimes. 

geoffkait
I will takes this good advice for me … thanks Geoffkait   :)

A note about Herkimer diamonds...

I use H.D. normally of 1 or 2 grams...

I try some very little one on top of tourmaline stones that are themselves on my S.G. They weigh only a fraction of a gram...

Incredibly for me they seems to work with the same impact that the bigger one...they are like thin sticks, like an antenna, that enhance the tourmaline stone linked to the S.G. the effect is mostly a more beautiful distinct imaging...


These S.G. modified transform the acoustical space in a way that no materials for room treatment, nor any resonator, Helmholtz one or others can equal...


I dont need an explanation to hear it tough.... :)

The cost for this experiment was a 2 dollars amount for 16 little H.D. 3.5 grams in total...

I test that with the 100 transcendental studies for piano by K. Sorabji, a genius for the future...

Update for the liliputian H.D.

The effect is confirmed for me and surprisingly subtle but evident, a more softness in the imaging, without any loss, in any aspects of the sound...The effect remind me of a change of cable ...Like with my Morrow M3 compared to ordinary interconnect...It is in the same order...

I am flabbergasted that adding a .200 gram thin Herkimer diamond produce a change....on top of a chunk of tourmaline... On 6 of my 8 Shumann generators...The liliputian H.D. seems powerful on another level compared to the 2 or 3 gram H.D. they seems to add a softness that was not there even with the big H.D.


For using behind speakers for example, a golden plate + a big H.D. will be better... We need a powerful action there to balance the shungite…


For using with the S.G. we need a more subtle action no less powerful but more toward softness than cleanliness...Then the liliputian H.D. are the best...


Audio is not what we think it is at all, engineers, audiophiles or whoever we are; audio is a complex activity combining many artefacts in an experience always new, implicating more than one science, and some unknowns to discover and perhaps even more than we think at the end....

I cannot stop listen what I listen to, now Vivaldi, with a softness that is miraculous with the Biondi violins...

All that for 2 dollars for my 16 liliputian marvels....... :)

second update for the liliputian H.D.

These liliputian H.D. are the way to go with the tourmaline+ the thin  golden plate on the Schumann generators... They are powerful...This is an incredible amazing tweaks, that cost nothing...The imaging and softness, and clarity of the sound exceed everything I added before... This was evident after few minutes of listening, but after many hours of listening the sound is so good on all files I know by heart that I am flabbergasted... I just said some days ago to my wife that I cannot imagine a new increase in S.Q. for the times to comes... :)


How can .150 of a gram of a variety of quartz stone( called Herkimer Diamond) can be so potent? Equal for his audible effect to 450 gram of shungite or tourmaline?


An effect very soft and powerful at the same time....I have no clue …. :)


I will go back to the magical Bach organ now.... My best...

third update on liliputian H.D.

I just put a photo in my "virtual system" section of a liliputian H.D. on top of Tourmaline+"Golden" thin plate with a cabled S.G. under that... :)

OMG! That was a close one! For a second I thought you were going to say you put a photo in your freezer. 🥶