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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
bolong
621 posts
 

"Psycho acoustics" is probably a much more profound subject than many people are willing to give real attention to. The SR discs appear to be discs of nothing more than carbon which as we all know is quite electrically conductive, so it wouldn't be at all surprising if placing them in the vicinity of electrical components might have some field effects. On the other hand, they may be made of the same stuff in powder form that inhabits their fuses, and I have in the past been impressed with the performance of the audio fuses especially the "Purple" ones.

It is a jungle out there. Welcome to the jungle.
 

tlcocks OP
448 posts
 

Oh I am already well accustomed to this jungle!

hilroy48
162 posts
 

I have 2 sets of HFT transducers mounted on the walls of my main listening room. They actually work, and made the soundstage a lot wider and bolder. I tried them in the basement, and they made zero difference down there, so i sent back the ones i didn't use.

 

It seems like this company is becoming a gimmick shop more than anything else.

steakster
1,891 posts
 

Good advice. Don’t buy the tuning discs. Instead save up for a full loom of the Synergistic Research Atmosphere signal cables - with the tuning modules and ground leads. After 20+ years of cable swapping, my system sounds better than ever when they were added

jhnnrrs
112 posts
 

I think many of the "night-and-day differences" are attributable to head position, mood, expectation bias, gullibility, nasal conditions, and a host of other issues not related to audio quality.  Companies like Synergistic Research, Furutech, Pangea, and others play on this and prey on the naivete and gullibility of audiophiles.  It's basically what the entire snake oil industry is built on.  

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