Tim Mrock, Krissy Mrock, and The Perfect Path
What is the perfect path? Go to school, pick a subject to major in. To study… what? Only what’s already known, right? Anything new, before it can be even be learned, must first be discovered. Right? Now how I wonder do you learn to do that? Discovery studies? Invention 101? Or just roll up your sleeves and get to it?
That's just a little of what’s been swirling round my brain since spending a pleasant few hours talking with Krissy Mrock of Perfect Path Solutions. There’s plenty of happy users and glowing reviews but not much in the way of cool insider details, you know the kind of stuff they drop into Stereophile to boost their cred. And help people “get” the story. Which sometimes the story can be really cool.
Like this one. Because this guy Tim, who absolutely loved music, was raised by parents so strict music was forbidden in the house! No music! Yet somehow he managed to sneak not only music but Heathkit into the house. Seriously. He’s just always been into it.
Krissy actually has some college level physics, but neither of them any formal education in electronics, engineering, or anything like that. Just a love of music, years of building and modifying- oh, and a fanatical drive to make it sound better and better, and better still.
Tim saw promise in graphene right from the beginning back around 2004. But a theoretically useful atomic structure and an actual useful product are two very different things. Getting from the one to the other? Six years.
At which point Tim had a product but no business model, not the foggiest, yet here he was working on a patent. So he hired a consultant. Who looked at everything Tim had done, all the years and all the money, and what was still needed to get a patent, and the potential market, and said, “Tim, you know what you should do? Give up!”
Yeah. Well good thing he didn’t. Because his Omega E-mats are one of the very best things ever to go in my system.
Okay. Fair question. What exactly is my system??
Time out:
4 gauge 240V direct from panel to Audio Consulting silver step-down transformer, to 4 gauge hardwired to Medusa, my power conditioner, a DIY combination of the guts of another conditioner, silver wire, copper wire, Audio Consulting silver isolation transformer, and an assortment of SR Blue, Oyaide and other outlets, the whole thing built on a Black Beauty shelf built for me custom by the late DJ Casser of BDR. Koetsu Black Goldline, Origin Live Conqueror arm, Miller Carbon turntable with (modified) Teres bearing and platter, and Verus motor rim drive. Herron VTPH2A and Melody I880 integrated amp, Talon Khorus, Talon Roc, Synergistic CTS speaker cables (with Michael Spallone modified Tesla MPCs), Synergistic Atmosphere Level 3 Euphoria interconnect, grounded, and some SR Resolution Reference and Shunyata Cobra power cords. Two Dayton sub amps drive four 10” subs. Everything sits on BDR Cones, all the big stuff also has a BDR Shelf, and the rack is my custom 700 lb Solution. All the cables are supported with ceramic insulators, the room and speakers are treated with Synergistic HFT, there’s about a dozen ECT on the electronics, and a couple PHT on the arm and cartridge. The system is regularly (at least nightly) treated with XLO demagnetizing tracks, Static Guard spray, and the Radio Shack Bulk Tape Eraser.
Time in.
Whew! Sorry. But now with that out of the way….
The Omega E-mats arrive in one of those anti-static metallic plastic bags used for computer parts. They look like great big refrigerator magnets. They are magnetic like great big refrigerator magnets. They even X-ray like refrigerator magnets. They are NOT great big refrigerator magnets! I know. I tried. The refrigerator magnet can go back on the refrigerator.
The easiest place to try is under my tube amp and so me being lazy that’s where it went. And I’ll be honest. It wasn’t very good there. Oh there was a nice improvement in image depth, and a wonderful lack of grain. But it went too far. Way beyond lack of grain, beyond liquid even, well into syrupy. Not quite goopy. Oh well, too bad, was my initial reaction. It did improve within a few minutes. Mostly though I thought well what if we flip it over? Big improvement! Same depth, but now more open, less syrupy. The bottom of the Melody is non-metallic, the Mat won’t stick, had to use a book under it. With a thicker book, raising the Mat closer, even better. Now this is more like it!
At this point, under the tube integrated, not at all broken in (mere minutes on it) I would rate it in terms of value as around the same ballpark as most of my other tweaks. This is, again, not a final verdict. Rather it turns out this is just about worst-case: worst component, mere minutes, yet already about as good as some of the best tweaks around selected over many years.
They are supposed to work on panels. Which seems unlikely. But oh well at least the panel, easy on, easy off. Walk back to the room and… huh… what the…? Darn thing worked way better on the panel than under the amp! Way better! Krissy tells me these things seem to work better in the more high power locations. Which is why a week or so later the one under the amp was moved to the Medusa conditioner.
Now moving, not adding but moving from one to the other, if they work the same then it would sound the same. It did not sound the same. It was much, much better! Hugely better.
The most captivating quality a system can have is sophisticated subtle inner detail. Not hyped, not accentuated. Natural. Revealed. Its what I look for in everything, why I have what I have. Its not the only thing, far from it. But its the one thing that time and again over the years has been shown to draw us in. It shows on the face, and in the posture, that look of keen interest, fascination. Everything in my system is geared towards this. Nothing until now was quite so good at it as the Omega E-mat.
Well, there is one that comes close. Its a good one because you can try it yourself and see. Er, hear. For yourself: flip your breakers off. Listen to some music, flip the breakers off, listen, flip em back on. Every wire is an antenna. Breaking the circuits drastically reduces RFI and EMI. Its pretty easy to hear. Background noise level drops, revealing a whole wealth of subtle inner detail. Nothing hyped, no real improvement in dynamics or anything like that. Although the quieter background does make it feel more dynamic. Anyway, this breaker trick is the closest thing I know to being similar to the Omega E-mat. Similar in character, not amount. If the Omega E-mat is reducing RFI then its doing it on a much greater scale.
Krissy tells me the more power the better they work. Which would explain the panel. After a few weeks the tube amp was sounding awful good, but still clearly not making as great a difference as the one on the panel. So I moved it from the amp to my power conditioner. Again, at first, kinda yucky. But then instead of hours it was mere minutes and it was sounding really good. Within an hour it was clear this is the place. Like upgrading to a much better power conditioner. A Synergistic Blue outlet was recently added to the Medusa. The Omega is much better, not so much in terms of what its doing, they are very similar, but in terms of magnitude. People are always wondering about value. The Omega E-mat is relatively speaking a really good value.
Whew! It’s only been a couple weeks. It’ll probably get better, and I’ll update when it does. But that’s enough for now. Reviewing is hard work!
