I was lucky enough to be asked to try out a prototype of a new Synergistic Research product. For now, I think they are calling it a Tuning disc.
What it looks like is a small wafer (smaller than a dime and is very thin). They are either in gold or purple tops and are attached using some tacking substance. I placed 2 on top of my Shunyata Sigma V2 interconnects.
I wasn’t expecting much but whoa, did these things work! First, I tried the purple on my interconnects and boy did the soundstage widen with lots of air.
Then I tried the gold discs and though the sound stage shrunk perhaps a little but the naturalness of the music was fantastic!
Hard to believe that these things work so well, I am really impressed.
I questioned your thought process and the fact that one only has to “prove” the worth of a tweak to themselves, not to you or anyone else. I do feel humans are capable of making good buying decisions without always, or even mostly, being influenced by placebo and other supposed mental plagues on humanity.
No need to try and prove something to you when in the end it seems all of our reasoning falls short of truth according you your hypothesis. Even blind testing will have “effects” so I just trust my ears and emotional connection to the music over time with my upgrades and tweaks. They will inform me correctly over time. Goodness, if they don’t, then we are all doomed 😬. I may need a purchasing life coach!
"I don't understand it, therefore it cannot work, therefore I won't try it."
That’s a very fair and rational decision on a purchase (or lack thereof). We are all adults and make our decisions. Fine. Although they are not available for sale yet to general public.
My question for you is why the tantrum in this thread? You sound angry. Challenging people with bets and all. What are you trying to accomplish? If something does not interest me, I just ignore it, and don’t waste my time on useless discussions about that something. No?
Funny that the posts attacking my character for questioning the truth in advertising of these tweaker products remain, but many of my responses, which never attack anyone personally, but do question the claims of many of these products are often summarily removed.
Am I bad for Audiogon's business model? Apparently so. Seems cowardly, yes?
My only gripe is that people are being ripped off.
And because of feelings like this, large numbers of posts like this are made which have no effect on most people reading the thread, but I guess make posters feel better.
Answer my questions: How many $20K cables do you have on hand that we can try?How many $5K power cables that we can swap back and forth? Where are you located? What kind of components are we going to test these on? Let me know, and I will see if I can get a set that we can try out...."
My Main System: SOTA Sapphire VI w/ vacuum hold-down, Origin Live Silver arm mkII, Soundsmith Hyperion cart, Genesis III speakers and subs, Musical Fidelity "Vinyl" phone preamp, McCormack DNA Gold Amp & Preamp. Morrow and WireWorld cables.
I have tied cables costing in the thousands-- no better than cables costing in the few hundred dollars on up range. The differences are subtle flavor notes on wines-- not better or worse, just differences. You will never be able to rank them based upon sound quality and price. Even more so with power cables-- above a certain materials and build quality. Of course cheap crappy cables can be bested by well designed and made higher end versions-- but when you get to the thousands of dollars per cable... it just mental booshwa.
I am open to trying stuff on my system. I live in California.
Yes, the placebo effect. Apparently it has no effect on true believers. Yet, despite being true believers, they don't seem to have total self confidence about their ability to hear the difference between a green and a black Sharpie when I suggested a friendly wager to test how valid those beliefs really are.
I you put little round stickers on your interconnects etc., and suddenly hear blacker backgrounds, greater dynamics, more "air" between the instruments, etc., why is it so hard for anyone to believe that when your mind wants to hear a difference, whether or not there really is one, you will!
My only gripe is that people are being ripped off. When the profit margins are orders of magnitude above the actual costs (and let's be real, what substantial research and development costs could there be in many of these cases?), I think that's not a very cool thing to do to people who are honestly trying to make their systems sound better through tweaks. So who does?
Gentlemen, let me tell you about something I just discovered. It’s guaranteed to undermine your entire belief system and make you question everything you ever thought you knew. I call it the placebo effect!
"I don't understand it, therefore it cannot work, therefore I won't try it."
You might apply this logic to your own thinking, but with a twist... How about, "I don't understand it, therefore it must work". That better?
You will note that I asked a direct question, how do these discs work? And received an insult as a reply. I think that about sums it up. Spooky magic.
You are free to believe whatever you want, even if you have no understanding of what you are doing, and could not tell whether or not the tweak was even in your system or not-- as I have asserted.
Still waiting for someone to take me up on my bet...
I guess if I could explain how they work, I could make my own! Don’t begrudge someone from a making a profit on their ideas. We all would like to. Yes?
I doubt if you fellows would hear the difference even if your ears could, you have made up your mind. Too bad though, you’re missing out on some of the fun of this hobby.
I do know my own mind well enough to NEVER trust first impressions with respect to the changes I make to my analog front end. Partly because I understand the placebo effect and the fallibility of human perception.
Again, anyone here want to bet me they can consistently detect the presence or absence of these discs, $5k power cords, green marking pens, $20k cables, or whatever, when replaced by quality alternatives, or simply removed from their systems during blind testing.
Buy some and test over 30 days. Surely you’re in tune with yourself and confident enough in your abilities to judge accurately for yourself over weeks. Right?
If you think you will dupe yourself due to the “placebo effect” over a 4 week period, then you really can’t just yourself to buy anything and correctly judge if it works better, tastes better, smells better, cleans better, makes you feel better and on and on…You should let others decide for you if you can’t trust yourself when making all manner of purchases.
The mind is a powerful thing so just use it and decide for your self over time. Pretty simple. Yes, I bet you can make the right and true decision for your system and ears.
Can someone please explain how these discs work? Anyone? Sans any kind of reality based explanation or double-blind tests that truly validate these discs, the only rational explanation for their powers lies in your own mind-- it's called the Placebo Effect and it is indeed very powerful-- you will hear differences, things you never heard before, and perversely, if I snuck into your house and removed those little discs without your knowledge, I would be willing to bet anyone here that you would still hear those same improvements, until it was revealed the little discs were removed. The mind is a powerful thing, one can convince one's self of almost anything.
The only thing that bugs me about little magic tweaks like these are the stupid money prices being charged for so many of them. Like a $5000 record weight's claims that it sounds better than any old $100 version of same.
I wasn’t expecting much but whoa, did these things work! First, I tried the purple on my interconnects and boy did the soundstage widen with lots of air.
Then I tried the gold discs and though the sound stage shrunk perhaps a little but the naturalness of the music was fantastic!
You didn't have to listen for hours to hear a difference? Nothing subtle about it?. Haven't tried them so I can't comment.
It's just 1s and 0s - That can't possibly work - It measures terribly - No, I haven't tried it because I know more than you - AND I SPEAK IN CAPS when I am questioning your intelligence and at my most disparaging.
Same story...
I don't miss the likes of George one iota.
Most of my additions are fantastic. Well worth the cost for the improvement in music delivery. Huge thanks to members like Ozzy, Tommylion, Frank etc.
You know, many manufactures of audio gear were once DIY’s who shared their new gear with fellow members on sites just like this one and as word spread they had an opportunity to go to an audio show and got some orders, became entrepreneurs and the rest as they say is history. They are actually just like us. Someone with an idea, a multimeter, scope and a soldering gun. If Ted’s stuff didn’t work, we all wouldn’t be here, would we?
One of the reasons I come here to read about gear, is to find out about products I might not otherwise considered trying, and see what peoples real world experiences are with them.
A thoughtful write up as to somethings effectiveness, or lack thereof, is of great value.
People calling BS on something they have not tried is of zero value whatsoever.
If the designer of the product participates in the discussion and answers questions even better.
If the rules were such that no manufacturer could chime in when one of their products is being discussed or criticized, then we would miss out on a lot of valuable insight.
I wish more manufacturers would participate here, but given all the vitriol thrown about here about certain products, kinda understand why they don’t.
It’s a disease. Mental disorder. Called Good Samaritan Syndrome.. chronic hero syndrome. Or savior complex disorder. Many people in the audio forums suffer from these. I had no idea they existed until I started frequenting these forums. It’s so sad
to me….anyway…the 30 day $, ¥£€ , etc back guarantee is a doubt / cognitive dissonance / confirmation bias..eraser… But then, most audiophiles don’t bother to level match…… so….read about hyperbole with caution….but always listen with an open mind and ears….
The issue with georgeshifi was he thought things should be free or inexpensive
the real issue with georghifi was, in Ozziespeak, that he had a kangaroo or two loose in the top paddock - OCD fuelled by a strong NPD drove him to pasting basically the same hate fuelled post multiple times on any thread mentioning the word fuse; to the extent he was ultimately banned from this forum. However, in his own mind George was always convinced he was saving the world from the tyranny of exploitation.
Unfortunately George did not have exclusive ownership of NPD, nor the ability to post ongoing hate fuelled rants.
So, I have now tried placing the tuning discs on the speaker cables at the amp end or at the speaker end.
Ted suggested placing these at the speaker end. I initially felt they sounded better at the amp end.
Today, I again placed them at the speaker end, and I think Ted is right they do sound more 3 dimensional in that direction with a more stable center image.
At the amp end they sounded more diffused perhaps that is why they seemed to have more air.
I still have the discs on the interconnects at the source end.
The issue with georgeshifi was he thought things should be free or inexpensive if he thought they should be. Period. He didn't care if a country fell apart, certain things should ONLY cost everyone, not someone, EVERYONE the same. Strangest way of thinkin' I've ever seen. Comrade Lenin would have been proud!
I personally love to let the "I know it all" kind of person spend all the money they want. They didn't ask me, besides they knew it all anyways..
@ozzy- I think that you have a solid track record of offering open and honest opinions regarding, tweaks, cables, etc. that you have tried regardless of the prevailing winds or what manufacturer may be involved. From my vantage point your only "agenda" is to offer your opinion/experience; no sinister designs attached.
What a shame that we still see unscientific rubbish still populating what should be a clean and honest audio enthusiasts forum.
This has nothing to do with perception or what he is 'beholding' to. This is someone who has nothing else better to do but show his hatred and negativity BEHIND the guise of a keyboard with nothing positive to give to a group of like minded individuals who genuinely enjoy each others posts and positive contributions we give and share with each other.
Remember, they're just trying to get our gourd so the moderators will shut us down. Even when these same people go to the lengths of actually creating a new moniker to post their hatred, we still know who they are.
I previously had a perception of Synergistic Research, and their products, which has changed significantly after trying several of them recently. I would go so far as to say my previous perception was wrong.
Doesn’t matter. Perception based on what you read is all one has on a forum like this. Does not have to be accurate. Perceptions are all people have in many cases so they matter. If perceptions are not accurate the blame may lie on either or both sides. One can only address it themselves if they care.
“The only thing bizarre is when people get all defensive because someone said something out of line with their agenda.”
How do you determine what their agenda is, or that they actually have one? Often there’s no way to know for certain, so you can only make (more or less) educated guesses and/or assumptions.
How about we trust each individual member to sort out for themselves what is good information vs. marketing, hype etc? I, for one, don’t need, and am not asking for, anyone else to do this for me. If something is really out of line and/or clearly violates forum rules, that’s what the moderators are for. Although we disagree (often passionately) about some things, we are all pretty intelligent people, who have been around the audio block a few times. Let’s treat each other that way.
It’s imperative having another who knows your sound signature extremely well during these trial periods. Validation that what you’re personally hearing is truth and not thee placebo effect. Having said that, last evening … eight hour positive session with my son dropping tracks we’re very familiar with. SR purple fuses gents
Looking forward on trying these communion wafers ….
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