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SR Tuning Discs, Psychoacoustic Bias and Listening Fatigue

By the way the SR Tuning Discs are snake oil. They don’t make a damned bit of difference. Careful about psychoacoustic bias. Fresher ears hear small differences greater than fatigued ears. At first listen, again A-B ing instantaneously with streamer cable plus Disc against exact same master and material on CD player transport digitally into same Bryston DAC, the two sources about 5 seconds apart to hear “phrase” of that duration in instant back to back repetition, I THOUGHT I heard a shocking large difference. But it was the first listen of the day. Then removed Disc from cable and did same thing. A LITTLE less dramatic difference. Ok. Then put Disc back onto cable. About the SAME as last. Hmmm. Then repeated this whole process about 6 more times to be sure. Then left room for hour. Came back in and did test once WITHOUT Disc. BIG DIFFERENCE. Like first test of the day with Disc ON cable. 

CONCLUSION :  THE DIFFERENCES I HEARD WHICH I INITIALLY ATTRIBUTED TO THE SR TUNING DISCS WERE PSYCHOACOUSTIC AND LISTENING FATIGUE BIAS. SYNERGISTIC RESEARCH TUNING DISCS MAKE ZERO DIFFERENCE. 

But that’s my opinion. You can take it with a grain of salt if you so desire. 

tlcocks

Showing 1 response by kennyc

kennyc
1,760 posts
 

If it works or doesn't work in your system does NOT mean it will work/not work in someone else's system. There are no absolutes in this hobby. I literally cringe when someone uses the term "Snake Oil". 

Buy it, try it, if you don't like it, return it.

+1 @coralkong 

At a major audio show, SR tuning dots were demonstrated. I couldn’t hear before and after differences, but I did NOT jump to the conclusion that MY experience is Universal Truth.  These tweaks are relatively inexpensive, so one shouldn’t expect “transformative” changes.

Bandying the term “snake oil” implies no benefit and the manufacturer is dishonest, but the truth is it “may” be beneficial or not, it depends on one’s audio chain transparency, room conditions, and hearing ability.  And no, unlike some I don’t make the baseless claim my hearing ability determines universal truth.  

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