With $105,000 turntables and $16,000 cartridges that price for a tonearm seems consistent. Say, isn’t that the tonearm Michael Fremer owns? If low weight and stiffness are prime tonearm attributes how about a graphene coated balsa wood tonearm?
What’s your vote for the most ridiculous, overpriced, and useless tweak?
My vote: Furutech Outlet Cover 105 NCF $220, with “special crystalline material that has two “active” properties.” https://www.thecableco.com/outlet-cover-105-ncf.html
Showing 50 responses by geoffkait
Here’s two tweaks that might surprise you. SONEX foam panels and lead shot. Two of the worst materials ever foisted on gullible and easily influenced audiophiles. Lead seems like such a great material for audio - massive and dense but not too hard, not too soft! 😬 As for SONEX who could doubt that recording engineers know all about sound? 😩 |
danvignau Directional fuses in an alternating current circuit. >>>>>Software emergency! Data Buffer overload limit exceeded! Learning function routine disabled. |
Let’s get back on track for a second, shall we? Look, I’ve seen a lot of outrageous preposterous tweaks come and go. And of all the outrageous, crazy, ridiculous tweaks I’ve run across I put the photos-in-the-freezer tweak right at top of my long list. I haven’t mentioned this to anyone before, so this is very hush hush, but we had the photos-in-the-freezer tweak in the Golden Sound room at CES back in ‘05. That was the year we had the Intelligent Chip, another mind blower. 🤯 We also had Clocks and Pebbles. In fact, gentle readers, it’s the only time a room was ever extensively treated with PWB Electronics products in the history of CES. |
Actually, unless I miss my guess, which is highly unlikely, there are no wires inside a Sony Walkman. That’s one of the advantages of the Walkmen - you can’t have directionality issues if you don’t have wires. Hel-loo! You don’t have issues with transformers, big ol’ capacitors, digital cables, interconnects, or fuses, either. |
OK, here’s a “ridiculous tweak” you might not have heard of. You know those drain pipes on the outside of buildings that channel rain overflow to the ground? Every building usually has at least three or four. Well, here’s the tweak. Buy a pack of 14” long black cable ties at Home Depot or eBay or wherever. Wrap one black cable tie around the bottom section of each drain pipe, one foot from the bottom. If a drain pipe circumference is very large connect two cable ties together for each drain pipe. |
Link not working. Too many http’s 😬 This link is working, https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/which-way-to-run-a-cable/ I commented on this Positive Feedback article over on the Directional Cable thread this morning, https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/directional-cables-what-does-that-really-mean |
It has been reported many times that isolating the Acoustic Revive Schumann frequency generator from vibration improves performance. Also using a better power cord. The performance in audio applications appears to be related to how accurately the 7.83 Hz is generated. That’s why I decided to get the Black Schumann USB device which, at twice the price of the Blue, generates a more accurate signal. Since crystals generally act as resonance control devices it’s possible they improve the generation of the 7.83 Hz signal. In a similar fashion crystals on top of Tube Traps improve their performance. Or crystals on a power cord plug improves audio performance. |
mahgister, my Brilliant Pebbles, the world’s first comprehensive crystal based tweak, was officially introduced at the HiFi Show in London in 2003. Currently Brilliant Pebbles employs various pure crystals including - but not limited to - agate, quartz, sapphire, ruby, aquamarine and onyx. Power to the Pebble! 🤗 |
Pop Quiz. Win a free prize! 🤗 There are four obvious technical errors in the following paragraphs from the Von Schweikert technical description of the MasterBuilt Ultra Speaker Wire. Grammatical errors don’t count. Get all four right and win a prize. a) Impurities in the metal conductor which; along with crystalline barriers, result in rough and grainy high frequencies. This is caused by collision of the electrons carrying the musical signal with the impurities and crystalline barriers inherent in any extruded metal. MB’s solution is to use the purest, Laboratory-grade cast copper, with 99.9999% of the impurities removed. b) Dielectric absorption of the high frequency component of the music signal by the insulation material creates a non-linear response. Since most elements have “free radical” electrons in their atomic makeup, the musical signal will be affected when the electrons collide with the dielectric’s “free radical” electrons. c) Arcing (signal path distortion caused by “stranded wire bundling”) occurs when the signal electrons attempt to jump from strand to strand. The resulting distortion sounds like the crackling when you connect jumper cables from one car battery to another and creates a “bright” and “hard” sound quality. e) Hysteresis (magnetic field interaction) is caused when the positive and negative conductors are placed in close proximity. As you may remember from high school physics, recordings of music consist of alternating currents that alternate from positive to negative as the musical notes go through their 360-degree cycles. As the electron signal flows through the wire, they generate a magnetic field if the positive and negative conductors are in close proximity. |
OK, here’s one everybody can get behind. The Von Schweikert Audio MasterBuilt Ultra speaker internal wiring upgrade, prices $15,000 to $37,500. No, I’m not hot dogging you. 🌭 https://www.vonschweikert.com/ultra-internal-wire-upgrade |
glupson2,396 posts07-06-2019 4:18pm "I’m giving serious consideration to letting glubson win one of these times just to keep him in the game."Do not worry geoffkait, I am not trying to win. >>>>Great. It’s a win-win. 🤗 |
mahgister The schumann generator emit an acoustic wave, then the generator transform the electro magnetic wave of 7 .8 hertz in acoustic wave correspondant signal ? is it correct? For the antenna: the speed of light divide by the frequency of the schumann wave will give the length of the correspondant antenna modulo some fraction to obtain a small antenna... Is this make sense? >>>>Let me think about it for a couple of days and I’ll get back to you. 🤗 |
Just popping in Pop! 🍾 to say the 20 kHz frequency is acoustic so it’s wavelength is actually very short, 1.7 cm. On the other hand, the Schumann frequency 7.8 Hz is in the electromagnetic spectrum so it’s wavelength is extremely long, I.e. circumference of the earth 🌎 . 😳 With climate change and more extreme weather I suspect the amplitude of the Schumann frequency is at an all time high, given that the Schumann frequency is primarily a function of lightning storms. ⛈ Pop quiz 🤗 If the real Schumann frequency wavelength is 25,000 miles how does the Schumann frequency generator produce a frequency of 7.8 Hz in the room? Hint - the length of the antenna required is proportional to the wavelength. |
You still have not explained why or how the Schumann frequency improves the sound. It would be nice for either a physical, electronic or psychological explanation. It seems rather far-fetched that the human brain is influenced by or requires an external frequency, the Schumann frequency, to function properly. I’m not buying it. The 7.8 Hz frequency is nowhere near the audio frequency range of 20-20k Hz. The Schumann frequency wavelength is 25,000 miles for heaven sake and doesn’t even fit in the room! 😬 |
It is not (rpt not) true that NASA installed Schumann Frequency generators on the Shuttle for the well-being of the astronauts. I don’t know how that rumor got started but you can find it as a selling point for some wellness web sites. 👩🚀 Also, the argument that the real Schumann frequency is being drowned out by the proliferation of radio frequencies in our modern world doesn’t make sense because the Schumann 7.8 Hz electromagnetic wave cannot be “drowned out” by the radio frequencies that are very high up in the Megahertz and Gigahertz regions. It’s the same reason why a satellite 🛰 uplink frequency cannot interfere with the downlink frequency since those frequencies are deliberately separated. The real Schumann wave that exists in the channel around the Earth’s circumference is as strong as ever, perhaps even stronger now due to more extreme bad weather, I.e., lightning storms. |
I’ve been following with interest the Schumann Frequency device ever since Acoustic Revive introduced it all those years ago (12) and even tried a Schumann frequency CD, that produces an audio I.e., acoustic wave in the room of 7.8 Hz through speakers, even computer speakers, if you see what I mean. But as far as any explanations go, none, including those found on the Acoustic Revive web site and VH Audio web site and attempts by reviewers if they even attempted explanations - which they probably didn’t - do not really explain what’s going on. These “explanation” do not explain why the 7.8 Hz frequency improves the sound. The explanations obviously threw a lot of facts together and hoped it would suffice. Sorry, don’t buy it. That doesn’t make it an explanation. I’m not implying it doesn’t work. I’m saying no one has explained how the Schumann frequency improves the sound. At least not to my satisfaction. It’s OK that it’s a mystery, isn’t it? Doesn’t the whole world love a mystery? As Bob Dylan says at the end of all his songs, good luck to everyone. |
@mahgister, from the VH Audio web site regarding the Acoustic Revive Schumann Frequency Generator, “What is the Schumann Resonance? The "Schumann Resonance" is a resonance frequency that exists in the Earth’s "electromagnetic" cavity; i.e. it exists between terrestrial surface and ionosphere. The German physicist W. O. Schumann first detected the resonant properties of this terrestrial cavity in 1954. It has been noted that the Schumann Resonance is a breathing phenomenon of the Earth that has lasted for ages. The lowest-frequency and highest-intensity mode of the Schumann Resonance is at a frequency of approximately 7.83Hz. Humans and all animals and plants have been guarded by this frequency of 7.83Hz and lived for long time. But recently, many unnatural radio waves and electromagnetic waves have disturbed this frequency of 7.83Hz, having a negative influence on our human bodies. Acoustic Revive asserts that there are many effects when the frequency of 7.83Hz is generated artificially. Some interesting information regarding Shumann Resonance and human psychobiology may be found here. ( hyperlink no longer active)” |
Geoffkait is not dead. No need for alarm. When I’m not here, gentle readers, I spend much of my time in the future. Not necessarily your future, but my future. The reason I come back here to post is because they don’t have audio forums in the future. They also don’t have good thrift stores in the future, by the way. |
China’s a lot smarter than a lot of folks realize. For example China has the current distance record for quantum teleportation, 870 mi. I remember when it was few feet. Heck, they’ll be catching up to your humble narrator pretty soon if I’m not careful. Hey, mahgister, quick question - does the Schumann device work on the system or you? |