"Besides, doesn’t MG use springs?"
Yes. Michael is an equal opportunity tuner. With the rising number of listeners moving from higher to lower mass systems the original audiopoint that MG introduced in the early 90's worked well with some of the amps of that time, but by the time the mid 90's were here the brass "zing" was becoming obvious as products changed their component materials. This is when MG changed the configuration of the cone and the way the outer surface was done. Along with this MG designed and or used other MTD's (mechanical transfer devices) to work better with the newer age of components. If you look at TuneLand you can see the evolution of components and the need for several different types of mechanical grounding methods and tools.
As the changes in materials being used for listening continued to evolve so did the need for different transfer devices. This meant other materials needed to be used along with brass and of course so did the shapes used.
Yesterday MG showed me what happens to the sound as he introduced an Audiopoint MTD Harmonic Spring AAB-R and LTR Block into the system. Pretty remarkable differences. MG is about the variables and took me through 3 recordings and showed me how different they are as well. After we took a break Michael then showed me what happens as a transformer is tuned in relationship to the capacitors in a CDP and Amp. That was a revelation. He explained that only CD Players that use very small and low mass transformers should be used any where near the chips and bigger transformers in CDPs corrupt the signal. MG is giving the system time to settle and after is going to show me what happens when brass is put close to the chips and transformers.