Request ended , somebody has given me all the measurements I liked to know , Oh yes it is NOT my intension to make a lookalike as a friend made a ebony wood record weight for me , which weight is 400 gr.
There’s more to these things than meets the eye. Much more. Even the little Shun Mook Mpingo discs are a bit complicated inasmuch as there is a small crystal placed inside the wood and the disc itself is a resonator AND directional. So for the record weight it's not just mass loading or something so mundane.
So for each disc you have to figure out which direction is TOP and which one BOTTOM AND which direction sounds the best when the disc is rotated. Been there done that. The other Shun Mook devices such as the Spatial thing, the one with 3 Mpingo discs on it, and the record weight have to be constructed so that the directionality of each disc is taken into account. I’m confident the Shun Mook record weight is not that easy to knock off unless you are aware of these issues with directionality, otherwise the way the whole thing will be lopsided and probably ineffective.
Geoffkait have some good Points - the wood (African Ebony) is very hard to work, you have to be a Wood Turner with right equipment to do it. They also use special oil on it and the Crystal is just high quality Diamond. The higher quality the Diamond the better (VS1 and up - don't ask me why but I have tried), you may end up paying more for the Diamond itself than the real Shunmook! Even changing the Metal insert inside will make a difference - i prefer Brass to Steel and that part required access to CNC machining...
Shun Mook Mpingo discs used to be a good deal at $20.00 each they are now $80.00 each NOT a very good deal.I have 1 set of the large feet that cost to much not with it anymore.Good luck.The clamp is great but clearly not worth 3K.
When I met the Shun Mook dudes back 20 years ago the Mpingo discs were not 20 dollars. They’ve never been $20. In 1994 they sold for $50. I can get them all day long on line - when they’re available - for around 30 bucks like new. Ain’t nothing wrong with those apples.
What do they do, is what I meant. I have never understood how a little piece of wood, or even many little pieces of wood, could be expected to "do" much to tame room acoustics or dampen chassis resonance, one of those two of which I presume is the intended purpose of an mpingo disc. But hey, their enduring popularity is testimony to my cynicism.
From the Shun Mook web site. This info has been there for what, 25 years?
For the last six years Shun Mook Audio Inc. has introduced a new concept and a new approach to usage of material in the control of acoustic resonance in High Fidelity. There is no real magic about our products. They are all based on simple high school physics - "Sympathetic Resonance". As all elements in this universe will resonate when like pattern energy is generated from another material. Just as in a physics experiment when you excite a metal tuning fork of say the "A" frequency and hold it close to another static "A" tuning fork. The result is that the second tuning fork will also get excited because same frequency energy is transferred through the air to cause the vibration. Thus when the musical energy produced by any Hi Fi system will excite to different degree of all materials within the space covered by the acoustic spectrum. Different materials will have a positive or negative effect on each other influencing the final music production. The secret is to control and tame such resonance to the advantage of the system.
It is commonly known that many musical instruments uses Mpingo and other ebony wood to create the most natural musical tones and harmonics. Just like the clarinet, the violin and other wind and string instruments uses the ebony as the essential component to generate the sound. With many years of research and development we at Shun Mook have designed and brought forth several revolutionary devices in the technique of electronic audio enhancement.
A. Mpingo Disc The Mpingo Disc is invented by the Shun Mook team. It is made from a combination of Gaboon and Mpingo Ebony, treated with a proprietary process that gives the disc a unique property to regulate the resonance of any sonic component and its transmission. Yet this is a very simple item to use. Just place one to three disc on top of your preamp, CD transport, DA converter, turntable etc, and listen for the wonderful change in your Hi fi system. When this disc is excited by any external acoustic energy, it will resonate throughout the entire audible spectrum, thus overriding unwanted harmonic distortions and at the same enriching the musical reproduction.
They say it's "simple physics". Simple physics tells me that a small wooden disc is too small to do much of what they claim their discs do in the context of an entire room full of larger objects and audio equipment. It's a matter of mass. We need some magic here. And it's the "proprietary process that gives the disc a unique property to regulate the resonance of any sonic component and its transmission."
Puh-leeze. Whenever I read about a proprietary or patented process that must be kept secret, I worry. Or in this case, I doubt. Because I cannot even imagine how a small piece of inert wood could regulate resonance of other objects.
I got this from a website: "Types of Wood Used for Making Violins. The woods most commonly used in violin making are Maple, Spruce, Ebony, Boxwood, Willow and Rosewood. Usually the back, ribs, neck and scroll are made of Maple while Spruce is used for the top, blocks, and linings." Mostly, violins are not made from ebony.
Geoff, I agree with your underlying sentiment that it is unwise to disparage a tweak or a piece of audio equipment just because it is very expensive. I try not to do that. On the other hand, I do try to apply what knowledge I have of the relevant physics (college level, in my case) and electronics to understand how a product "works". Then I can judge better whether it is worth the cost. In this case, I don't see the connection. Absent magic, it seems impossible that a small wooden disc can "regulate" the resonance of other much larger and heavier objects of heterogeneous composition that happen to be in the same room with it. Since this claim is rather extreme, it behooves the maker to provide some rational explanation for the mechanism by which the claimed end is achieved.
Mpingo discs are ridiculous and utterly useless, except as coasters maybe if they're large enough. I can leave 4 acoustic guitars out (along with a piano that's always there) in my listening room and my rig remains unaffected, although if loud enough the guitars might vibrate a little. Years ago I was visiting a neighbor who was a serious gear reviewer and the Mook freaks had been to his place (a large dedicated and serious listening room…amazing) and "tuned" it with various discs…on stands…stuck to the wall…none of them did anything at all. They became a joke among the "non myth based" audio community along with Tice clocks and other mystical faith based audio silliness. Geoffkait seemingly never met an imaginary tweak he didn't think was real, and markets his own stuff like a bag of magic pebbles…so you can see where he's coming from.
Whoa! What? Hey, Wolfman, you shouldn’t disparage that which you know nothing about. I hate to judge too harshly but I suspect you might benefit from enlarging your circle of friends. 😄 What did you do with the humorous Wolfman? This one is just another angry grumpy pseudo skeptic. 😛
Actually, Wolf, having a guitar or two well placed in one's listening room, not to mention also something as massive as a piano, could do a lot to "tune" the room. Surely, your system would sound "different" if you pulled out the piano. This makes perfect sense to me.
I once inadvertently left a large empty cardboard box in my listening room. It absolutely killed the sound in various ways.
Where we do agree is that the Shun Mook discs are much too tiny to do anything substantive, and the notion that such a thing could "regulate the resonance" of other much more massive objects is unbelievable/absurd/fallacious.
Geoffkait…if you read my post you should be able to see I DO know something about useless tweaks.
There are tiny "transducers" people use that appear to be metal JuJuBees that are also laughable, and misuse the term "transducer," so beware of those also...My upright piano is against the back wall and it would take a VERY high level of sound to excite it. I’m not about to haul it out to check if it’s making a difference, but it does if you play it while my stereo is on…stop that…just stop...I’ve been a professional musician and audio geek for over 5 decades, and currently get paid to mix live concert sound for astonishingly accomplished musicians…been doing that for a couple of decades. This doesn’t make me more qualified to comment on stuff, but at least I can claim I’m a Professional something or other. I "tune" my listening room with its sloping ceiling that goes from around 8 to 15 feet or so, my furniture, carpet, books, CDs, myself, and jo mama.
You sure fooled me, Wolfman. I just built some knock off transducer thingies. See if you can guess what fits into the opening of the tiny bowl? Three guesses, first two don't count.
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