Tin Foil Hat Audio


As I read the discussions about questionable tweaks I often have to remind myself that just because I can’t hear it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just because there is no instrument capable of objectively quantifying a difference doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just because there is no generally accepted physical mechanism to account for a difference doesn’t mean it isn’t there. 

I think I owe an apology to psychics, mediums, and witches among others. Maybe they also perceive things I just can’t. 

Is it shiny side in or out when making a tin foil hat? How many layers? 
cat_doorman
Equality is a wonderful quality.  As far as I know it is strictly a math concept.  Therefore, there can be no equality outside of math, read that as "everything makes a difference". So, to be redundant, anything I change in my system makes a difference.  This has been readily apparent to me even as a teenager building crazy multi-speaker systems much to my parents chagrin (it was the 60's).

There is much snake-oil out there.  Your job is to figure out where your particular "sweet spot" is. Cables that are priced at $65K strikes me as well over-the-top.  But, I couldn't care less that someone has a system that shows its not insane to purchase them.  I don't have that system, not sure where I would end up if I had unlimited dollars at my disposal. 

As an aside, I feel some empathy for persons who are constantly evaluating their listening skills as it relates to their system.  Seemingly listening for the "weakness".  Been there, done that, past it.  Now its all about the music to me.  

What a great hobby.

Regards, Barts.  President, Department of Redundancy Department.

I want to believe.

Whether you or the rest of your system is the limiting factor, you can only feel what you feel. If you can’t hear the difference between zip cord and nano-fractal unobtainium cables then of course you should save your money or spend it on something else.

Maybe it’s like color vision. Most of us have a standard complement of RGB cones and don’t understand what it’s like to be colorblind. We also don’t understand what tetrachromats can see because of an additional cone - more detail and nuance. My assumption is that some tweaks or refinements in audio are just not discernible by me. 

But once you’ve crossed that threshold into a new level of perception or experience it’s hard to go back. Might be like a junkie searching for that first high again. I suppose it can be similarly mind altering. I can forgive the zeal of the converted for strenuously advocating whatever tweak has brought them such joy even if at times it seems they try too hard. If you find “The Answer” then isn’t there a certain moral imperative to share that information as widely as possible? I think it’s usually the cost of entry that gives me pause. What if I can’t hear the improvement? What if I can’t afford to hear the improvement? Because once I hear it, I’m going to want it even if it’s well beyond my own limit of diminishing returns. That’s sort of how my last few upgrades have gone:

  1. I spent slightly more than I should have. 
  2. I heard minor but distinct improvement.
  3. I can’t go back, even if the improvement isn’t obvious without direct A/B comparison, but I’m also no longer eager for further upgrades to that component.

And if wearing a tin foil hat made your system sound better, we’d all be wearing them. 


These discussions about placebos or snake oil has some limitations of their own in audio experience...To say the least....

First all my methods of controls for the 3 embeddings of my system (mechanical,electrical, and acoustical) are my creation with homemade low cost materials...

Where is the snake oil?

And the placebo or bias explanation dont go all along my road.... No one can explain with that 2 years of listening experiments with various device controls in the same increasing S.Q. direction for the last 2 years...Resulting in a TOTAL transformation of the S.Q. on another level....We dont speak about some new details in sound here, but at the end of my road a complete new S.Q.

It is no more placebos, it is total hallucination, OR by Occam Razor, the most simple explanation:

All audio system are created with a generic design that will be installed in some very particular dimensions pertaining to each different house and which then will need to be rightfully embed in this 3 dimensions...

Plain simple to understand, except by those who dont want to understand anything by reason of omniscience or lazyness....Very easy to verify if someone want to....

Then instead  of hanging on with always the same 2 concepts till the end of times(placebo and snake oil) and instead of being obsessed by others pretenses and experience, be creative and try yourself your own device creations.... If i can anybody can....

Audiophile experience to a very high level can cost peanuts, the rest is myth or marketing....

My best....
     When I booted a schizophrenic roommate, his tinfoil hat was about three inches thick on the sides, and four or more inches on top, which explained why I could never find any aluminum foil, no matter how much I bought.
     He also paid several hundred dollars to line the exteruior walls of his room with a special impregnated plastic looking whatever, at head level, to keep the CIA from controlling his thoughts.
     I suggest you use directional fuses on your hat, and ground it to a water pipe.
Not to be pedantic, but "tin foil" has not existed for perhaps 80 years. Today, we use the much more progressive "aluminum foil hat". Shiny side in always.