Schumann Resonator

On the contrary. Believers in homeopathy become more and more convinced over time that their water has healing properties. They seek confirmation biases and use them as ‘proof’. We see it all the time, even on this forum. In a life of 70 years there will be nights of good sleep and nights of poor sleep. Put a box and a cat under your bed, and when the next night is a good sleep then that is due to the box. And the cat. Or the cat. Or maybe the effect of going to bed convinced you are going to get a good nights sleep. Or random chance.

FIRST-My critic has confused these 2 very distinct concepts affirming that all my cumulative embeddings controls over 2 years were only the "effect of taking placebos", the "tweaks" being ineffective.... It is possible for some case NOT FOR ALL INCREMENTAL additions or modifications implemented in my system...All drugs like all tweaks are accompanied by their "placebo effects" and like in medecine, in audio we must unmask the real effect of a tweak like for a drug from the placebo effects associated with it...BUT REDUCING all "placebos effects" associated with a drug or with a tweak to the" effects of a pure placebo" taking is not science...It is SOPHISM.....It is not an argument but a confusion of concepts...

I never denied the existence of a "placebo effect" associated with the taking of a drug or with a tweak but i denied the reduction of all tweaks or all drugs in their possible effects to be ONLY the "effects of a placebo" associated with them.... This is logical and distinguishing the 2 is pure science.... Confusing the two like in this post is ideological biased position with no desire to experiment and only a PREJUDICE begging the question for the answer....

SECOND- the buying of any UPGRADE to an audio system, being it speakers, amplifiers or dac could also be vulnerable to the same effect of taking a placebo and to the placebo effect...We must distinguish the 2 concepts also when making ourselves vulnerable to the consumerism conditioning market when buying gear...

Then we must ask to ourself at what point in our own audio history it is better to think about the implementation of the right method and the right devices to control effectively the working embedding 3 dimensions of any audio system: mechanical,electrical or acoustical... Is it better to buy the new costly amplifier or speakers or dac or better to think about the way we can improve considerably what we already own by installing it rightfuly in this three working dimensions...

A "tweak" is not an embedding controls by itself....It is only an help in this direction...We must separate the universal placebo effect related to any wishful change, be it an upgrade or a tweak, from the real effective working of the upgrading product or of the so called "tweaks"....

All my approah is to say that the working embeddings three dimensions of controls are more important and less deceitful than buying an upgrade if we are not satisfied by our system AT SOME POINT....

What is important in audio: it is not the upgrading process that is the more important factor, but for almost all of us without one million dollars, it is the way by which we will succeed in INSTALLING rightfully in the mechanical electrical and acoustical working dimensions any piece of gear and the system itself AT THE LEAST POSSIBLE COST...

Is a single tweak able to do that?
NO

Is it necessary to pay high money to do that?
NO

Is it possible to separate the placebo effect linked to a costly new gear or costly tweak from his real working effective or ineffective contribution?
YES by experiment

Is it possible to replicate or replace costly tweaks with cheap one to a certain degree?
YES it is my experience for 2 years

Is the Schumann generator a deceiving product which work only by the placebo effect?
In my experience and experiments NO

Is there here anyway some placebo effect could be playing?
YES like in ANY upgrade or addition of anything which we wish to be positive there is a placebo effect related to it...

Is a 10 bucks product "snake oil"?
No it is a cheap experiment proposal, not a costly product advised for miraculous effect...Buying a cheap chinese device is not the same thing that buying a costly Acoustic Revive product.... Confusing the 2 is bad faith...

Is the S.G. a general solution to the 3 embeddings problems by itself?
Not at all....It is only an interesting experiment giving a positive results for many and it is easy to verify its effects...

Is the general trend considering upgrading the ONLY MEANS there is to buy a real audiophile experience something deceitful? A market practice? A conditioning of customer? A placebo effect cleverly planned?
YES it is also that and not only real pure and objective improvement in all cases...

Because learning how to control and tune a system or a piece of gear in his 3 working dimensions is at least as important than buying a good gear....Read this sentence twice please....






In conclusion my audio room is my laboratory and it is not possible to do with a living room what i did in my audio room...

Then attacking my "room" cleanliness is not fair.... This has nothing to do with a specific "tweak" or anything to do with my embeddings controls .... Some can use only a few of them and make them more clean and more esthetical...I am more creative than crafty.... 😁

I succeeded with my audio system at peanuts costs and it is the only important factor for me .... I learned something and i communicated here in the process... Something very few at best has ever dare to say here :

It is possible to buy audiophile experience at relatively low cost if we learn how to do it....

And advice and maxim is : dont upgrade to anything before learning HOW to embed everything right...

If you call my audio system experience only wishful thinking or placebo.... Myself i could call all these costly audio systems marketing, so called "audiophile", limited in their power to deliver real audiophile experience by the way they are well embed or not, in the 3 working dimensions of any system.... This is not a QUESTION of price.... This is a question about simple possible low cost methods used to control vibrations, electrical noise floor and acoustic settings...


By the way dont call me "nuts", it is easy to put everydody unorthdodox in the same bag.... I know very well that some of my devices or experiments are "nuts" but not all the experience is....

Who is nut, those who chase with big money their tails or me satisfied with a low cost well embed system ?

Plugging a new gear in the wall is NOT the way to reach audiophile experience in general.....Sorry...I dont mind the high price paid for the gear...

Hi Maghister - I’d never call you or anyone ‘nuts’ !  And I’ve always included myself and indeed all of us as persons vulnerable to placebo and confirmation bias.  And I am totally with you when it comes to experimentation, especially the affordable type!

At least you acknowledge the existence and role of confirmation bias. I’ve enjoyed hearing your experiments.  What is a red rag for me is when some posters here either refuse to accept these phemonema exist, or refuse to accept they are vulnerable to them. 
Over and again we have “I turned my fuse around to improve my sound and I’m sure it improved my sound. Therefore turning a fuse around makes systems sound better. And you can’t deny it because I trust my ears!”

We all of us should acknowledge our confirmation/optimism bias as a factor in tweaking, or produce some evidence which is free of that bias, before suggesting folks should part with their hard-earned money.

Hi Maghister - I’d never call you or anyone ‘nuts’ !

I apologize to you for answering some other post in my answer to you...You are respectful and i thank you for that...

At least you acknowledge the existence and role of confirmation bias.

it is IMPOSSIBLE and pure ignorance to contest the placebo effect or bias impact on perceptions... It is and always was evident for me and i always think it must evident for all...

BUT attributing all my final results to bias or placebos by principle and about anything called "tweaks" by principle is for me deceptive and unfaithful to the experiments like denying bias and placebo effect also are...Separating placebo effects from the real impact or not of any device is the crux of the audio experiment...

I will repeat myself, placebo or not, i bought nothing except peanuts costs devices, i created and modified most myself and replicated with homemade materials mostly from inspirational branded costly devices...

My results are there in the form of my ONLY advice:

Dont buy anything new ever BEFORE embedding what you had already in the rightfull manner....

It is not consumerism advice all over the place not "snake oil" marketing here with me....

It is a learning process in the 3 working dimensions of any audio system: mechanical, electrical and acoustical...

It is not the magical "tweak" in itself that interest me, it is the way and method to reach an optimal experience, never mind the specific gear...My way is learning through a set of listenings experiments with low cost artefact and means...

Audiophile hearing is a learning habit experiments in a KNOWN room and with KNOWN gear, not an innate infaillible gift usable everywhere with any system like suggested by some ....

@audio2design, nobody likes being the fool. 

@cd318, that dark side has always existed but science has also been de-legitimized by marketers making false claims under the guise of science. "Dr George Peebrain PhD in aquatic afterlife discovers that jellyfish pixie dust cures Alzheimer's disease." 
Real science really works. You hold it in your hand right now. 25 years ago that thing was the size of your average brief case and only did one thing. Make phone calls and it was not all that good at it. I just recently downloaded a seismometer app. I can put the phone down on any surface, tap or bang around and see if it registers on the phone. How cool is that?

Mahgister - you are not nuts. Like you say, you are conducting experiments in a lab type environment. You are not imposing a lab look into your living area like Chuck McGill on Better Call Saul. Sounds like you are having fun which is what this hobby is all about. I like hearing about your experiments.

It consumed Chuck's life and literally drove him nuts.

Double blind tests eliminate any bias, so long as they are conducted properly, which is not easy. Warm up times, adding or removing (or not changing) the variable, playing the passage exactly the same way, having the moderator not inadvertantly disclosing cues at whether or not they did anything, etc. An offhand comment about something sounding muddy when a speaker was moved off a cable elevator does not cut it.

If something does not have a logical description of how or why it works, then we should be skeptical. If something does, then it is up to the individual to determine the effect on the sound and if any, if it is worth the expenditure. 

The easier it is to understand the logical description by someone with a basic understanding of science and the scientific method, the greater the probability that it is worth consideration. People who dismiss double blind testing obviously do not have that and can't imagine an experiment on how to measure gravity's effect on falling objects for example, they just beleive it. Do they even know that the force due to gravity changes on the moon? Do they even care?