Do you believe in Magic?

03-28-12: Geoffkait
Only when the stuff was taken entirely outside the house did the sound get back to normal. That's some bad juju.

You are the second person on this thread to report that kind of bad juju. Hmm. My unused ERS is sitting on a shelf in the listening room. Maybe I should burn it. :-)

03-29-12: Douglas_schroeder
I submit that the strongest evidence here is the mercurial nature of the experiences with such supposedly wonder-products. That they can be perceived to be efficacious, only later to be eschewed shows they're essentially worthless.

I think there's some truth in that, Douglas. No doubt there are lots of examples of products that are initially impressive but leave something to be desired upon further listening. That may be a consequence of the initial impression being a placebo effect, or a consequence of the subsequent impressions being the result of long-term listening (which, IME, is a more reliable method of evaluating).

In this case, I would speculate that what accounts for the difference between my initial impression of ERS and my later impressions of it may be everything that happened in between, namely, I...

-Added about 15 pounds of internal shielding to the Meridian G68.
-Built new reinforced enclosures for the reclocker and the Sonos.
-Placed a heavy steel plate under the amp.
-Replaced unshielded Cat5 cables with shielded Cat6 cables (my source is computer based).
-Replaced Apple Airport with a simple shielded ethernet switch.
-Replaced the romex for the dedicated line with VH Audio’s cryo’d romex.
-Replaced the outlet for the dedicated line with a Maestro outlet.
-Added about 50 ferrites all over the house, and some in the system.
-Added RFI pigtails to the amp and the preamp.
-Replaced the fuse in the amp with a Hifi Tuning fuse.
-Added grounding pigtails to the negative terminals of the amp.

It was only AFTER all that insanity that I reevaluated ERS and concluded that it was harmful to sound quality. FWIW.

On a slightly different subject...

It's worth pointing out that the last three items on my list -- the RFI pigtails, the Hifi Tuning fuses, and the grounding pigtails -- are most certainly some form of Magic. Actually, I don't know if any of them have any effect whatsoever, so maybe I should call them Black Magic.

Bryon

Douglas_schroeder, actually, in my experience, it is uncommon that have experiences such as the ERS paper. I never liked it at all and made a valiant effort to get it to work. Usually, I am satisfied by a modest improvement if the tweak is not very expensive. At some point later I decide they aren't worth the effort. With quartz products, I basically gave up as requiring too much trial and error fiddling.

perhaps there is a simpler explanation of products which are initially perceived positively , but, after some duration are disliked.

the explanation is the essential unreliability of perception.

the thread initially mentioned the subject of stillpoints ers paper.

i use 4 letter size pieces--one on the power transwers of each vtl amp, one on the ps audio power wave transport, placed over the power supply and one on the cover of the ps audio perfect wave dac, placed over its power supply.

whether the application of the product makes a sonic difference can not be known or proven.

after reading 175 posts , i have concluded that since perception is unreliable and it is the means of interacting with our stereo system, all objective considerations, and arguments are academic.

the problem with critical listening is the potential inconsistency of perception.

what is really needed is a well designed listening test that is repeated 100 times.

what one hears one day, one may not hear on another day, and there is no way to assure certainty of hearing, even when corroborated.

my point is therefore, that the issue of magic is moot since aural perception is unreliable.

Mrtennis it looks like you do believe in magic then!