The Ultimate Tweak:
I want everyone to know that I have spent the past 13.897 weeks secretly researching and implementing what I consider to be the worlds ultimate audiophile tweak. I am, quite frankly, shocked that no one else has thought of this before me. After delving into room treatments, cabling, vibration and electromagnetic isolation, psychoacoustics, phase and time shifts, and simple speaker and seating placement it became clear to me that we have all missed the proverbial boat completely. As the waves of music emanate from the speakers they instantly hit the greatest limitation we all suffer from. Air my friends. That ghastly combination of mostly Oxygen with some Nitrogen, Helium, and a few other trace elements compressed at a measly 1 ATM (atmosphere of pressure - 760 torr). Our beloved waves of acoustic energy affected by such a plebian design as air; it makes me wretch and heave just thinking about the unacceptability of the situation.
Once the thought came upon me I was unable to sleep, eat, drink, work, respire, perspire, perfuse or waste a single molecule of ATP on anything other then my new goal. I immediately set at work sealing off my room of any possible entrance point for that horrible air. Such a poor transmitter of acoustic waves that they travel but a few meters before dissipating to the four winds (literally). Once my room was devoid of all things air'ish I began phase 2 of my plan.... what would work better then air? My first juvenile attempts were to simply try air collected from outside of some of the more prominent Audiophile companies. as is the case with wine and the earth the grapes grow in affecting their quality, if these companies can make music sound good it must be the air around their manufacturing plants that has something special... I began my trek to the corners of the globe (has anyone every realized what a stupid expression that is?? Globes, by definition, have no corners!)and collected air from outside Nordost, Rowland, Burmester, Soutution, Accuphase, JM Labs, YG, and many of the other reveared companies. I pumped my room full of each of these collections to no avail... I will admit that the air outside of the Colorado based Rowland Group has a rather funny smell and made me feel great, but it didn't improve the actual sound quality. My suspicions were realized in full, air in all of its forms was not the solution....
It took months, 78 trips to the hospital, and a small fortune in rare and available gas combinations to come upon the solution... With a combination of compression to between 9 and 14 ATM (around 9,120 torr)of 98% Nitrogen, 1% Argon and a small mixture of Xenon, Vaporized Silver (gives the sound a touch of accuracy), Silica salt ions and the concentrated smell of my Maltese's left ear canal I had done it! The compression needs to be highest in a direct line from the speakers to my ears (what I refer to as the listening tubes) and then mitigate as it expands laterally, giving the sound increasing speed as the pressure reduces, reflects, and then hitting a wave of higher pressure at it re-enters the listening tube as a reflection. The increased viscosity of the listening tubes propagates sound at a much more efficient level then banal air and the wave front created by the change in pressure essentially eliminates all reflections. Utter perfection!!!
The room came at a cost of 19.4 million dollars as the variable compression device is rather complex and is wired completely with Odin 2 speaker wire; 2/3 of a mile of it in total. The gas cost is negligible and my Maltese doesn't seam to mind me extracting the ear canal odor much at all. I have, unfortunately, been hospitalized several times for severe cases of the bends and I subsequently installed a very sophisticated decompression system which allows me to listen to music down to about 4 atm before the sound quality becomes unacceptable.
Compression requires about 2 days to fully stabilize the variable compression system which is perfect as it allows my equipment to warm up nicely during that time. I have taken to knitting, sock puppet animation and cats cradle to pass the time during compression and decompression.
I tried a Synergistic Research Atmosphere to fine tune the system and it seamed to work wonders until I set it to its Easy Listening setting and it had a severe interaction with the Xenon, Argon mixture and blew up half of my block. Boy were the neighbors pissed!
As it stands I believe I am the first in the world to have this system and I am utterly disgusted at al of you for not thinking of it sooner. It is the proverbial "No Brainer".
Please let me know if you would like to implement one of these systems in your home. I will gladly provide a detailed layout of the entire design and a list of all necessary supplies.
You, of course, will have to provide your own Maltese.
If you don't have one of these then you truly can not call yourself an Audiophile!
Oh, please keep in mind that the respiration system required to breath in what I have come to fondly refer to the room as "The really freaking expensive room filled with gas and lots of pressure that makes my nose bleed and ears happy," is made of carbon fiber and requires carbon fiber air tanks and hoses to avoid ringing. I mean, any Audiophile worth his weight in StillPoints knows that its gotta be carbon fiber! If your not going to take this seriously then don't even try....
