Then or now, I think most people buy the story as much as the sound. Hardly anyone ever bothers to compare. Not that it's all that easy to do even if you wanted. I started out like many do thinking the whole idea extremely farfetched and therefore not willing to spend a dime on what I know will turn out to be a wasted effort.
But it is a hobby and I do have a keen interest and so I tried, first phone books and of course that made hardly any difference at all but the fact it made any difference was telling and so one thing led to another and soon I was trying all kinds of things.
Along the way I learned that not only the material but the size and shape of the material makes a difference. For decades it seemed the last thing you wanted was something soft and squishy like a spring. Because sorbothane and other soft stuff like that did lower the noise floor and did reveal some detail but also sucked the life out of the music. Spikes on the other hand went completely the other way, only instead of sucking they are adding etch and emphasizing a top end that a lot of guys seem to mistake for detail.
Now looking back it is clear all that was ringing, and all the different spikes and cones were tuning the ringing to what people like. Even today all that is going on with a lot of these things is people using different materials and shapes to tune out some of the more unpleasant peaks in the ringing. That is what Gaia do, they are sort of springy but too damped. Ordinary springs are better, at least in some ways, but have the resonance problem.
Mahgister uses springs above and below and that is another way of tuning out some of the objectionable resonances that come with springs. If you have one sort of spring below with one mass it will have one set of resonant frequencies. If you then add another set with another mass it will have another and they will average out smoother. Similar to the way a lot of subs in a DBA is smoother and better than just one sub.
The beauty of it is once you get the hang of it there are a whole lot of applications. Simply removing the hot glue from the board my crossover is mounted on and using some sorbothane for crude isolation improved the crossover. Rubber bands are a sort of spring and so I figured out a way to use them to hold my phono leads that reduces ringing and vibrations being transmitted up the cables into the tone arm. The opportunities are endless.
But it is a hobby and I do have a keen interest and so I tried, first phone books and of course that made hardly any difference at all but the fact it made any difference was telling and so one thing led to another and soon I was trying all kinds of things.
Along the way I learned that not only the material but the size and shape of the material makes a difference. For decades it seemed the last thing you wanted was something soft and squishy like a spring. Because sorbothane and other soft stuff like that did lower the noise floor and did reveal some detail but also sucked the life out of the music. Spikes on the other hand went completely the other way, only instead of sucking they are adding etch and emphasizing a top end that a lot of guys seem to mistake for detail.
Now looking back it is clear all that was ringing, and all the different spikes and cones were tuning the ringing to what people like. Even today all that is going on with a lot of these things is people using different materials and shapes to tune out some of the more unpleasant peaks in the ringing. That is what Gaia do, they are sort of springy but too damped. Ordinary springs are better, at least in some ways, but have the resonance problem.
Mahgister uses springs above and below and that is another way of tuning out some of the objectionable resonances that come with springs. If you have one sort of spring below with one mass it will have one set of resonant frequencies. If you then add another set with another mass it will have another and they will average out smoother. Similar to the way a lot of subs in a DBA is smoother and better than just one sub.
The beauty of it is once you get the hang of it there are a whole lot of applications. Simply removing the hot glue from the board my crossover is mounted on and using some sorbothane for crude isolation improved the crossover. Rubber bands are a sort of spring and so I figured out a way to use them to hold my phono leads that reduces ringing and vibrations being transmitted up the cables into the tone arm. The opportunities are endless.