Schumann generators: placebo or...?

At the risk of appearing to be a gullible rube, I’m going to confess up front that the advocacy for Schuman wave generators by some regular posters to this site seemed to me, if not exactly compelling, at least impassioned enough to be worth risking sending $13 (a significant number?) to China to give one a try.

Last week, I received my Schuman wave generator. I turned on my system, put on some music, plugged in the device, and…nothing. So, I attached it to an extension cord in order to position it wherever I wanted, and even hold it in my lap where I could turn it “on” and “off” by plugging or unplugging it while sitting in the sweet spot. Nada. It makes no sound of its own (after all, it has no transducer of any kind to move air), it doesn’t get hot (fortunately!), no pilot light comes on (there is no pilot light). It seems to be a classic “do-nothing box,” the kind of thing first-year shop kids put together in order to learn how to solder. Except do-noting boxes usually at least light up.

But what do I know? Not enough to mount an argument, other than the one I just made: it completely failed the listening test. Then again, maybe I got a “defective” unit. (Or, as I’m sure its Audiogon advocates would prefer to say, maybe my hearing isn’t as keen, or as discerning, as theirs.)

However, I have friends who know about these things. One of them installs solar panels for people off the grid, built his own house by himself, including all the wiring and plumbing, and has been able to fix anything electrical or mechanical I’ve ever sent his way. The other has a PhD in physics and is currently a key researcher on Google’s quantum computer project.

Here’s the skinny from these two.

The Schumann generator appears to be a simple push-pull circuit, with two small transistors producing a fluctuating current. This current should generate a small magnetic field that would be limited to the immediate vicinity of the circuit board—it would fall off rapidly just a few inches from it. However, if any such magnetic field were being generated (as, for instance, is done by wireless chargers for devices like Apple watches), it would be enough to deflect the needle of a compass. We tried bringing a compass near the Schumann generator, and there was no effect at all. (The Apple wireless charger, in case you’re wondering, makes the compass go berserk.) However, even if there were some detectable magnetic field generated by this device, it’s completely unclear to either of these two guys how such a field could in any way affect audible frequencies produced by speakers in a room.

OK, next question. I’ve wondered from the outset what kind of “wave” this thing is even supposed to generate. Never mind that 7.83 Hz is well below the lower limit of human hearing. What sort of 7.83 Hz “wave” could possibly even be claimed for this device that might have anything at all to do with the moving air in a room generated by an audio system that moves speaker cones? The Schumann generator has no sort of transducer connected to it, as I’ve already mentioned, nothing that could move air. So is the Schumann generator producing a “radio wave,” as one of its Augiogon advocates affirmed to me in an email in answer to this question? Even if it is, how can a radio wave have any effect on a sound wave?

For what it’s worth, here’s how Wikipedia defines the relevant physical phenomenon: “The Schumann resonances are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency portion of the Earth’s electromagnetic field spectrum. Schumann resonances are global electromagnetic resonances, generated and excited by lightning discharges in the cavity formed by the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere.” Um…sure. So they’re “electromagnetic resonances.” That’s pretty vague; radio waves are electromagnetic waves, but so is light, microwaves, X-rays, gamma radiation, etc. etc. Bottom line: can electromagnetic waves (or resonances) interfere with, or augment, or in any other way affect sound waves?

Well, here’s a summary of what my friends said.

1. Any wave form at 7.83 Hz would have a wave length of about 2 miles and would need an antenna in that range to listen to or transmit.

2. Transmission of radio waves usually involves some heat loss and good-sized heat sinks. But the Schumann generator doesn’t get hot, and has none of the large conductors or components required for such transmission.

3. In any case, radio waves cannot affect audio (sound) waves.

4. The AC house current sine wave is not clean—the fuzziness can be seen on an oscilloscope—which could contaminate the cleanliness of an amplifier, and a resonating device plugged into the wall might somehow be contrived to “clean” that up. But not this device, and not at 7.83 Hz.

5. If the brain could be resonated, at who knows what frequency, perhaps audio perception could be affected. But…come on! And at the low power of the Schumann generator, you’d have to glue that thing to your forehead.

Conclusion? You can draw your own, I suppose, and you surely will. But mine is uncomplicated. I hear no difference, and my friends, expertly knowledgeable in the appropriate domains, are dismissive of any scientific explanation for why I should hear any difference. So those who advocate for Schumann generators are either disingenuously running some sort of experiment to see if they can perpetrate a hoax on the Audiogon community (and we know there are a lot of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and general nonsense out there that recent history has brought out of some of these very same Audiogon Schumann advocates)—or else, if they are in earnest, they are themselves deceived by a placebo effect. In short: “Snake oil.” So, slather it on, folks! Buy several; the more the merrier: they’re cheap! And, if you decide you don’t hear any effect after all, you can always use them for the purpose (also bogus, as far as I can tell, but that’s another story) for which they are marketed: to calm you and help you sleep. Sweet dreams.