Miracles in Audio, by luck, by good choices,by design or by tweaking...


I owned a low cost headphone for many years, the Fostex TH7B, first version( a new one close version exist Fostex TH7BK), semi-open headphone...I was never completely satisfied by any headphones I ever owned: Hifiman 400, Stax basic lamda, Stax 5 gold,Akg 340,Akg 701, beyerdynamic 990, and T150... Because in each of them with all their qualities I never listen to at the same times, a confortable headphone with natural timbre and voicing, with a good imaging and a realistic soundstage(not too close to my ears)...


For the last days I tweaked this Fostex, to damp his internal resonance I used sorbothane, I put some shungite stones at the exterior part of the cups and I use some Herkimer diamond in the interior pads( 3 at 120 degree) … Now this low cost headphones crush all my others if I sum all his qualities... For example his mids and voicing cannot beat the AKG 340 but among all my other headphones it is the best that is near that mids and it is more confortable, and with longer cable than the 340...His imaging is better and more realistic than the 340 etc etc...It is the same if I compare with the others...


His most important qualities is natural timbre and clear imaging,very precise pinned point accuracy and natural, so clear it crush for that ALL the others to dust...In the French audio circle the reviews were more than very positive few years ago...Diapason d’or and choc Classica...I am not the only one impressed buy the ratio quality/price... But remember that thesae reviewers dont tweak their headphone...The difference between before and after the tweaks are staggering...


Yes Miracles happens in Audio: cost is under 100 American dollars... Few years ago they cost me 50 bucks new... I never dreamed that I will go back to headphones...


I will enjoy your miracles stories of any kind ….My best to all...
128x128mahgister
wow! Definitely the way to go for my thin "golden" shungite plates are on the S.G. …. a small piece has an amazing effect on details, and dynamic then a way better imaging... I must lower even the sound volume pot....I listen in nearfield for the time being :)

5 of my 6 S.G. has now a "golden" plate of shungite( around 10 grams) and the effect is in the same level than with my 5 "golden" tiles of shungite on the central breakers panel (250 gram at least each one)...
The last "golden plate" on the last Schumann Generator has been installed...

The results: a more ethereal, dynamic, clear,imaging, with no negative effects whatsoever audible by me at least...

I dont know the scientific explanation for that, the S. G. are all linked together and to my stones grid but there is no cable linking the stones to the audio system, except the near location of the stones themselves...

The shungite+copper tape is the most potent of my tweaks, it is more an instrument to decrease the noise level than a tweak...On top of each of the 4 capacitors on each S. G. the "golden" plate push the sound toward a sublime road if I compare to the same system of mine in the beginning not even 2 years ago, when my direction of action and research begins to be more systematic because my hearing understanding was better...

Learning the way of a discrimating hearing attitude is simply that : listening for yourself without putting faith in any other thing that your ears...No apparatus can coordinate all elements, including the vibrations controls methods, with the room acoustic, with each pieces of the audio system in itself, with the electrical grid of the room and of the house and all that together... All this must be remedied or corrected gradually each steps at a time simultaneously...

No instrument exist that can make all that in one fell swoop... In some way everything happen as if your ears must learn to replace the electrician, the audio engineer, the acoustician, and their costly products by simple improvised and inspired creative gestures transformed with the help of your ears in practical simple homemade solutions...If I had the money I would had consulted these 3 specialists and the photos of my system would have looked like very different than what you see now... But audio is not about looks, but about sounds quality... And my thread is not for the people who can pay anything for themselves, but for the "relatively poor" who think they cannot afford true Hi-Fi heaven... Or for those simply who wanted the fun to play and experiment at low cost...

The last question is how my system is being compared to others?

This is not the right question even if it is a good one...

The right question is :

Is your audio system nearer now to his true potential top qualities?
The answer is firmly YES...The questions answered themselves from the beginning to the end of this evolutive correcting process...

My best to all...
The last question is how my system sound is, being compared to others?

To answer that I will say that my actual system is mid-fi at most...

But at this level, favorably compare probably because of this implementation of his actual potential...I had listen to other system I like less that are slightly better theorically... But they are too many factors to compute to fairly compare many systems, essentially the particularities of these 4 factors: vibrations controls and resonance including the cables, electrical grids of rooms and houses, and acoustical atmosphere of the room, plus the embeddings particular to each link of the audio system with the others...


If I dream about my ideal  affordable system  and compare with my actual one  in price :


 Sansui Au 7700 amplifier versus Berning ZOTL integrated amplifier ( 150 dollars versus  6 thousand dollars for the 20 watts integrated)


Dac Nos tda 1543 of C. Mariac ( paid 25 dollars new bought on ebay versus the Denafrips terminator for 4 thousands dollars)


 My Speakers  Mission Cyrus 781 paid 50 dollars versus Tannoy Harbeth M30  4 thousand dollars....


My actual system cost was so low I dont want to add the numbers versus  14 thousand dollars...

I am sure this  will be  an upgrade...
But think about it, I would reinstall almost all my actual tweaks and controls methods, not exactly in the same location... But the room , the house and the connectors, the resonators, the Shumann generators, the vibrations controls, the homemade room treatment, even the grid of stones  with modifications linked to the particular sound quality of  this system would go on...


For those fond of explanation turning around the "placebo effect",
I can assure you that the placebo effect is not enough potent to explain my experience...

We can call that "super placebo effect"...

I just make a test, taking off only one stone which is under one of the 6 Shumann generator, a beautiful oval chunk of Hetian Jade, the imaging was instantaeously modified, a slightly but very audible change, linked to the power of Jade or nephrite to add some more differentiated velvety atmosphere between each instrument in a musical piece...


For those of you that think that  this is a degradation of sound, perceived like an added  "color"... I will say that this is the IMAGING which is affected here, not the naturalness of the timbre of the instrument... The "imaging" is a complex quality concept that exist only if you had a great amount of clarity in your system, the less noise sources possible, and the more natural is the rendering of timbre the better you will distinguish the aural timbre and location of 2 violin, an alto, and a cello in a quatuor, instead of a pudding of confusing strings...


Perhaps the drug in my coffe also explained a bit that (I added some almond milk to it) .... :)
I just wrote a post this morning in an another thread but for the benefit of my few readers I will keep it also here because it represent my experience better perhaps than my other posts... I apologize for this copy/ paste post of mine and my excuse is also some corrections were added for clarity ...

«Contrary to the popular faith that because hearing decrease with age, (which is true off course), the opinion that the capacity and the power to discriminating listenings by self education of the ears with music must decrease also, is false... The perception of sound is complex and only simple mind think that it is only function of frequencies direct perception...

On the contrary at any age man can educate his own ears...

Creating your own audio system without discriminating ears is difficult in fact impossible,then the only one solution is using money to buy reputation and high quality ready made at high cost...

Without money, if you learn to listen, creating a great hi-fi for peanuts is possible... I made it...

Rule number 1:

Almost all electronic gear are on these 3 levels of quality...Be it 3 levels in S.Q./ price ratio: low-fi, mid-fi, high-fi...Inside each level the difference are way less linked to the product " per se" and way more linked to his particular implementation, his qualitative embedding in your audio system, and room and electrical house grid , way more than any upgrade on the same level with a different piece of gear...
You must buy after searching for the best possible something in one of these 3 categories of gear and you keep it, this is the first rule (no upgrade ).
When I say that almost all gear on a same level are on par approximatively for quality compared to a higher level or to a lower one, I only affirm that nevermind the difference which exist on the same level, a good amplifier being a good one, changing it will cost you big money, but tweaking it toward his improving potential will cost you way less and will be more rational and more fun... I can say that most people indeed dont know the true quality level of the gear they already owns. The reason is simple, controls of vibration, treatment of the room, cleaning the noise in the electrical grid gives you most of the times an S.Q. out of this world compared to an upgrade with an hyped new product, especially if you buy it in the same level of quality among the 3 possible...

Rule number 2

You treat the electric grid of your house

Rule number 3

You controls with different experiments the vibration-resonance in the gear and room

Rule number 4

You use your ears and a small step at a time you treat your room for sound

Rule number 5

You read and inform yourself about tweaks that you replicate or invent yourself after listening session in your system and after 2 or 3 years your system will be top level at the least cost...


My best to all and each of you...»