I received my two SR Black outlets today and I have to say that they are not outwardly impressive in any way. Black plastic, a steel back-strap stamped "spec grade" and the code-required tamper-resistant nylon "shutters" over the hot and neutral slots. About the only externally visible mod is what may be black UEF paint on the heads of the hot terminal screws. I'm planning on installing them tomorrow, replacing the existing PS Audio Power Ports as the first receptacles in line with each of my two dedicated 20 amp circuits. Updates promised.
The crazy thing I did today (or maybe just one of the crazy things I did today) was to install two 14 pound 12" x 8" x 2" Himalayan salt blocks under my Primaluna tube monos. The amps have long been supported on Herbie's Balls and Iso Cups which in turn were placed on three smallish granite tiles I used to "couple" them to my living room's oriental rug. It has always sounded pretty good to me (and better than the amps just plopped on the carpet), but changing to the salt slabs clearly exposed a significant weakness to this approach.
The soundstage expanded yet again in all dimensions with rock (salt) solid edge-less images floating within and even better bass depth and definition--akin to the sonic improvements generated by the SR Black fuses (hello, almost-the-original-thread-topic!), the HFTs, the Atmosphere and the FEQ.
The simple explanation for this is that by substituting a single fairly massive slab base under the three-point Herbie's footers was way better than my three tiles on the carpet approach. In fact I have long considered what chunk of something I could cost-effectively place under the amps, be it granite, butcher block, acrylic, etc. And it's probably true that by ditching the tiles in favor of almost any kind of slab would make for better sonics. Science demands I experiment further (with other slabs or other footers), but at present I am disinclined.
So, why did I choose the salt blocks? I can't quite remember how I got the idea (they're advertised for cooking), but at about $60 for two, I figured I couldn't lose as I could always gift them to my cooking-nerd friends if they didn't improve things audio-wise. From an audio voo-doo perspective, salt is said to have a resonance very near the Schumann Resonance of the earth, which just happens to be the (claimed) operating mechanism of the SR Atmosphere and FEQ field generators, not to mention that they generate negative (good) ions when heated, pretty much making me a genius and finally providing the sure-fire path to fame and riches that has always eluded me.
Or perhaps not...
The crazy thing I did today (or maybe just one of the crazy things I did today) was to install two 14 pound 12" x 8" x 2" Himalayan salt blocks under my Primaluna tube monos. The amps have long been supported on Herbie's Balls and Iso Cups which in turn were placed on three smallish granite tiles I used to "couple" them to my living room's oriental rug. It has always sounded pretty good to me (and better than the amps just plopped on the carpet), but changing to the salt slabs clearly exposed a significant weakness to this approach.
The soundstage expanded yet again in all dimensions with rock (salt) solid edge-less images floating within and even better bass depth and definition--akin to the sonic improvements generated by the SR Black fuses (hello, almost-the-original-thread-topic!), the HFTs, the Atmosphere and the FEQ.
The simple explanation for this is that by substituting a single fairly massive slab base under the three-point Herbie's footers was way better than my three tiles on the carpet approach. In fact I have long considered what chunk of something I could cost-effectively place under the amps, be it granite, butcher block, acrylic, etc. And it's probably true that by ditching the tiles in favor of almost any kind of slab would make for better sonics. Science demands I experiment further (with other slabs or other footers), but at present I am disinclined.
So, why did I choose the salt blocks? I can't quite remember how I got the idea (they're advertised for cooking), but at about $60 for two, I figured I couldn't lose as I could always gift them to my cooking-nerd friends if they didn't improve things audio-wise. From an audio voo-doo perspective, salt is said to have a resonance very near the Schumann Resonance of the earth, which just happens to be the (claimed) operating mechanism of the SR Atmosphere and FEQ field generators, not to mention that they generate negative (good) ions when heated, pretty much making me a genius and finally providing the sure-fire path to fame and riches that has always eluded me.
Or perhaps not...