SR Tuning Discs, Psychoacoustic Bias and Listening Fatigue

And I don’t want to mock. I really don’t. So I did take the task seriously and really really tried to hear a benefit. But didn’t. Either straight signal or with a high end studio analog mastering EQ with W shaped curve in signal path.   That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It simply means I didn’t hear it. It MIGHT mean it doesn’t exist however…

To the mocking part…c’mon folks!!  This is HIGH END AUDIO!  We are paying thousands for gear all the time!  SR wants to use sticky PUTTY to attach the tiny disc to the cable!  They and others have said it’s best at or near the terminal source end. Just incorporate it into cable design, so it’s aesthetically pleasing!  It’s ridiculous!  Sheesh, SR could REALLY rake in big bucks by doing exactly that but offering different location options on the cable. Which undoubtedly invite many enthusiastic souls to spend inordinate amounts of money buying many more cables than they need. Wouldn’t SR love THAT boost in profits. Regarding loaner batch of three, I bought Shunyata Theta. Sounded best. With or without disc and putty!

@hce1 -- Thank you. Apology accepted. I have been an audiophile for nearly my entire life, purely for the love of music. I have tried many types of tweaks over the years with an open mind -- always an open mind. My policy is to live with a system change for a while before making a judgement on it. Then, if I believe that I’ve made a true improvement, to remove the tweak and live with that a while. Things like better cables (better is not equated to ever ascending prices) prove themselves out over time -- so when they’re removed, it’s often easy to hear what’s now missing from the presentation. The most obvious tweaks that I’ve made almost aways involve the listening space itself. Improving EM noise levels, reflections, etc. Sometimes you just don’t know what you have improved until you take it away and live for a time with the absence. Some things are obvious and can be heard immediately when introduced and then later removed. Those I put back. If I have to reason and argue with myself over a tweak’s impact of the sound I learned that this, for me, is a sign that it probably doesn’t need to be there. If that’s the case, then I err on the side of keeping it simple over adding more complexity to achieve an uncertain benefit. Finally, until the room itself has been tuned to it’s maximum potential, my experience has been that it’s better to put the effort there -- even if that’s (usually) not as much fun as searching for that elusive silver bullet.

@wesheadley You described my evaluation procedure to the T! Cheers.

@tlcocks I certainly was not referring to your review in my comment.  I found your comments open-minded and helpful. I appreciate you sharing your experience. The comments that put me off are those that treat other peoples’ curiosities, experiments and interests as ridiculous. 

Yes. Understood. Thanks. I am open minded, despite that I don’t sound that way with these SR discs. Couldn’t help but poke a little fun at the whole “just use the sticky putty to affix the Tuning Disc to your [fancy] cable” thing. 😁. As a dedicated audiophile though, I took the listening experiment deadly serious though. As I always do when critically listening.