Miracles in Audio, by luck, by good choices,by design or by tweaking...

I dont know for the others, but I am in no need to go to auditorium, or theater, or symphony hall to listen to a real orchestra to compare it to my stereo system...I dont say that this is not a unique experience, it is, each times I go to one...But for an audiophile, when he listen to his audio system and hear a beautiful 3-d presence of each instrument with his natural timbre in his own space, that is an unmistakable experience...There is indeed "after"and "before"... There is always place for improvement, but "after" we gained this level of accuracy this is only minors improvements...And the feeling of this experience does not need any warrenty, or proof hearing with the real thing: a real concert to compared to...The 2 experience are totally different, but each one convey his "own reality" … No need to compare...


I live trough this moment of truth with my new headphones, that takes many, many modifications and tweaks, but for the first time (after nine headphones that I never loved) I live this truly enlightened hearing experience, when you realized all you had missed " before"...And in this moment only exist music, no more the sound frequencies in itself or for itself, only music, « the real presence of the lived atmosphere of the room» where the musician were playing and the musician themselves there only for you...


The good news is that it takes not so much money to live it, only precautions about vibrations, and treatment for the noise level of the gear, of the room, and of the house...For sure the luck to buy TOTL headphone or speakers for peanuts, and the patience to modify them toward their true potential, correcting defects, for example in the case of my orthodynamic headphone Fostex T10: the horrible microphonic cable that unbeknownst to me was elevating the noise level very high...But after that mods, this is for the first time heaven, only music that i cannot stop to listen to and that I NEVER listen to EVER, even if I own the cd for decades in the past....It takes me 7 years to attain this goal...The Fostex T10 is a TOTL headphone, unknown to most, rare for sure, but priced peanuts if you know his true potential and modify it a little bit...This headphone sound now in league with the priciest headphone in the market or just under, in term of quality level...I am very lucky.... I wishes some luck to you all... We all deserve that...

Tonight I did some more experimenting with shungite. I listening to a track without the shungite and became familiar with it and had it fresh in my mind. I then placed a shungite pyramid on the outside of the breaker box, with the point facing away and the base facing towards where the two hot mains enter the panel. The base of the pyramid is about 3” square and roughly 3” tall. I’m not sure if the shape matters but I included the description here for completeness. I went back to the listening room and listened to the same song. A change in the music was readily apparent. What I noticed most was a change in the midrange frequencies, like they were a bit louder or brought more forward in the soundstage. I went and removed the shungite and listened to the same track again and the sound changed to like before the experiment began. Interesting. In this experiment, I slightly preferred the setup with no shungite. This doesn’t surprise me since I have no clue what I’m doing as far as the following factors are concerned: placement in system, mass of crystal, distance from the cables, number of crystals, etc. At this point I’m not exactly trying to fix or improve something specific in my system; I’m just tinkering. The fact that I could use shungite to seemingly alter the midrange frequencies and/or affect the “forward-ness” of the presentation makes me believe that if one knew what they were doing they could use crystals to tweak their system to achieve a certain sound. Mahgister seems to have done a lot of research here and a few others but overall, crystal applications in audio systems like what’s been discussed in this thread seems like a frontier that needs a lot more research and experimentation.

Just two points. One, shungite is not a crystal. Two, the complete description of the operational characteristics of crystals in audio applications was written by your friend and humble scribe almost twenty years ago in Power to the Pebble. My, how time flies.

http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina17.htm

MKGUS
Thanks for your report...You must experiment with some other stones for example pink quartz with shungite or tourmaline will have a more positive effect probably...Try that...


Shungite is one of the most difficult stone to use in an audio grid... Try to place on top of your router (computer)  ... 

Another little miracle for me, I just bought to try it on a uncontrollable relapse in audiophile disease an Alan Maher  magnetic waveguide (150 bucks) I plug it without break-in in uphill from the power supply of my dac... I added some Tourmaline on top of it +a thin plate of shungite….

Immediately lowering the  noise floor in my speakers, extending the soundstage, refining the imaging also, but more than that in my beloved orthodynamic  Fostex T10 the effect was astoundingly clear...In my heavily tweaked stones grid there is place for new methods for the controls of the house noise floor...I enjoy more of my T10 now, the best headphone I ever own...Better even than my Mission Cyrus speakers for musicality and naturalness...