What is the Silliest Accessory You Have Ever Seen.

mijostyn,

"@glupson, are you ever wrong?"

I was. Third grade elementary school math test. I got one question wrong. I am still considering psychotherapy for that trauma.

As far as "how come that tweaks are always for better" question, I asked that many times. At some point one person here, I think it was oregonpapa and, as usual, I may not be wrong, mentioned some tweak that made things worse. That was after I had asked many times the same question. I concluded that negative tweaks do exist, but do not get advertised as such that often.

I have had more negative experiences than I care to admit but usually not from "tweaks" but from poorly designed or misused equipment. I fell for the marketing. My favorite example being the Transcriptors Vestigial Tonearm. Try not to die laughing but I even tried to put a Koetsu in it and then blamed the Koetsu for poor tracking. When the right bass note came along it would pop right out of the groove. Worse it was on an LP 12.
My formative years. A V15 did not even fare well in that arm.

There was always better equipment to buy. Who wanted to waste money at the margin. The really stupid stuff didn't start until the early 80's and by then I had set up over 100 systems including the entire PA system at Flagler Dog Track. Experience and reading had gotten me well up to speed. The days of falling for marketing were over.

What is the dynamic that make us so gullible when it comes to audio quality.

THe gullibility in audio is NOT reserved to a customer buying a tweak...Half truth is your prefered affirmation...

The purchase of constant upgrade by people who dont understand that we must treat and control vibrations, the electrical grid and the acoustic is also the most visible face of gullibility before upgrading .... The credulous faith in costly electronic pieces upgrades is the motor of this conditioned market...

I have had more negative experiences than I care to admit but usually not from "tweaks" but from poorly designed or misused equipment.

A little self confession can help.... Thanks for a moment of truth....especially the word " usually not" about the tweaks you tried... I dont recommend myself any "tweak" i recommend a method of listening experiments systematically in the mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimensionsof the the audio system....A single tweak is like an equalizer, a useful perhaps tool but only that, NEVER an encompassing solution... A method of listening experiments is....I hope you will learn something from me....

There was always better equipment to buy. Who wanted to waste money at the margin.

But you forget that a piece of audio or any system itself, CANNOT work optimally in non controlled environment....Then you relapse in the lazy consumer mode thinking that only MONEY can buy happiness in audio... Read philosophy that will help your bank account and help you to think like when you were younger and poor, about how to help yourself in audio without buying too much or even almost without buying anything ....


Who is more gullible at the end, me with my peanuts costs "room lens" i improved and corrected yesterday for my room with success or you, with your illusory blind faith that a costly equalizer is THE solution for ALL acoustic problem and not only a tool among other like a Helmholtz bottle for example, which is what a "room lens" is ?

But is "an equalizers owners club" constituted a hobby? Like someone, myself, who for hobby use many other tools of his own making ? the answer is yes.... Then why criticizing and mocking other people different hobby with your posts?

The days of falling for marketing were over.

You begin to understand after throwing big money in your system and now how can someone must admit that audiophile experiences dont necessarily cost a big amount, modulo some experiments and simple devices? it will be admitting your own gullibality....Easy to understand your faith in scientism and consumer market....

Why does all this junk always make things sound better and not worse.

Another half truth.... Stupidity is easy to correct we only need to look for the missing piece...
The main reasons, i cannot detail all the stage of 2 years of experiments and trials here are easy to understand ANY set of experiments is constitued by rectified errors........ This is the INCREMENTAL process that give a constant improvement after a set of trials....Qualifiying "junk" for example a plumber pipe i used to replicate an helmholtz bottle is bad faith....


But sometimes some mistake must be communicated:

example-1 shungite must not be use near a dac a cd player or am amplfier because of the sound conpressing effect...

Example-2 the dimensions of resonators and and location is very important then ensuing errors which were modified by trials...

Why are there always some people who are unable to understand that their hearing, all of our hearing is excellent at playing tricks on us.

Another half truth but this one take the cake...

A set of incremental increase each week or month for 2 years CANNOT be ONLY a placebo effect...

And because you think that this truth represent all the reality, you use your equalizer like if it can replace totally your ears... It is a tool useful for adjusting the speakers numbers to some aspect of the room.... Thats all.... You need your ears for finalisation of any acoustical process...

Do you know the measures numbers fallacy? A circle of measured numbers mesns nothing without EARS to interpret them.... Elementary epistemology...

Lack of understanding/knowledge and ego I think are most to blame. None of us likes to be wrong.

A mirror is the most epistemological tool in life.....

mijostyn

... all of our hearing is excellent at playing tricks on us. Seeing is believing, but hearing is not.

Oh no, the eye is very easily deceived. Using that to advantage is part of the art of many pursuits, such as architecture, illusions ("magic"), and design in all sorts of things, from clothing to cars.

In truth, the eye itself is not deceived, but the brain. The same is true when we listen. It's our brain that tells us what we hear. That is an important distinction because it hints at one of the challenges of conducting a scientifically valid blind listening test, but getting into that here is OT.

Just a word about a simple explanation about "tweaks" that seems to perturb some brain....

It is not the "Riemann hypothesis problem" level of difficulty to understand that:

ANY "tweak" is a tool thay may help or not, it is MOST OF THE TIMES not enough to buy a tweak and think that it will solve completely the problem related to the working dimension where the "tweak" or tool is applied...

This is the reason WHY i dont recommend tweaks in itself, but a set of systematic listening experiments in the mechanical dimension, electrical and acoustical one...All my devices are chap modified low cost product or homemade by the way....I sell creativity not lazy consumerism...

An example:

A set of springs can apparently help to control vibrations...If the number of springs is adjusted finely...

It is a "tweak" but without listening experiments, this tool cannot solve the problem why?

Because it smooth the effect of vibrations yes but not necessarily of speakers internal resonance...And the perception of the instrumental timbre is negatively affected also by resonance .... Then thinking by listening experiments i added an another new set of springs this time on top of the box speakers under an heavy load that was already there damping my speakers... WHY? because the asymmetrical compression of the 2 sets of springs boxes, one under the speakers, the other on top of the speakers under the damping load create an effect of asymmetric elasticity between the top and the bottom of the speakers enclosure smoothing the effect of the inevitable internal resonance...

All that is not the fact of a gullible consumers buying a "tweak" or a tool, being a set of springs or an equalizer...

I called that listening experiments in the mechanical embeddings dimension of an audio system... COST: peanuts....


Now an important remark:

If your electrical grid is too much noisy like ALL non treated electrical grid, if your room acoustic is not enough under sontrol, how could you hear the destruction of musical timbre by internal resonance when putting the springs tool or tweak under your speaker?
You could probably not.... You will think that vibrations being in some controls all is ok....you will satisfy yourself with  the improvement linked to the partial vibrations control.... But it is an illusion linked to the insufficient treatment of the electrical grid and of the room....An illusion also linked to the fact that NO tweak or tool solve all problem by itself....

Do you understand now why i speak not about "tweaks" mainly, but about the relative controls of the embeddings 3 dimensions of ANY audio system by listenings experiments?

Tweaks are plasters in the worst case like many upgrades are, most of the times for most consumers, or in the best case a tool like an equalizer, but NEVER the only solution all by itself...Listening experiments method is the solution....

Or buy a million dollars room and system and call me nut.....It will be less ridiculous than calling me nut because you own a 10,000 bucks equalizer....

More easy to understand than number theory no ?
I can give to you an introduction also...