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  3. 174821-41

New Synergistic Product: Tuning Discs

I was lucky enough to be asked to try out a prototype of a new Synergistic Research product. For now, I think they are calling it a Tuning disc.

What it looks like is a small wafer (smaller than a dime and is very thin). They are either in gold or purple tops and are attached using some tacking substance. I placed 2 on top of my Shunyata Sigma V2 interconnects.

I wasn’t expecting much but whoa, did these things work! First, I tried the purple on my interconnects and boy did the soundstage widen with lots of air.

Then I tried the gold discs and though the sound stage shrunk perhaps a little but the naturalness of the music was fantastic!

 

Hard to believe that these things work so well, I am really impressed.

ozzy

 

128x128ozzy
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gita
39 posts
 

Gentlemen, let me tell you about something I just discovered. It’s guaranteed to undermine your entire belief system and make you question everything you ever thought you knew. I call it the placebo effect!

wesheadley's avatar
wesheadley
162 posts
 

Yes, the placebo effect. Apparently it has no effect on true believers. Yet, despite being true believers, they don't seem to have total self confidence about their ability to hear the difference between a green and a black Sharpie when I suggested a friendly wager to test how valid those beliefs really are.

I you put little round stickers on your interconnects etc., and suddenly hear blacker backgrounds, greater dynamics, more "air" between the instruments, etc., why is it so hard for anyone to believe that when your mind wants to hear a difference, whether or not there really is one, you will!

My only gripe is that people are being ripped off. When the profit margins are orders of magnitude above the actual costs (and let's be real, what substantial research and development costs could there be in many of these cases?), I think that's not a very cool thing to do to people who are honestly trying to make their systems sound better through tweaks. So who does?

wesheadley's avatar
wesheadley
162 posts
 

"

Answer my questions: How many $20K cables do you have on hand that we can try?How many $5K power cables that we can swap back and forth? Where are you located? What kind of components are we going to test these on? Let me know, and I will see if I can get a set that we can try out...."

My Main System: SOTA Sapphire VI w/ vacuum hold-down, Origin Live Silver arm mkII, Soundsmith Hyperion cart, Genesis III speakers and subs, Musical Fidelity "Vinyl" phone preamp, McCormack DNA Gold Amp & Preamp. Morrow and WireWorld cables.

I have tied cables costing in the thousands-- no better than cables costing in the few hundred dollars on up range. The differences are subtle flavor notes on wines-- not better or worse, just differences. You will never be able to rank them based upon sound quality and price. Even more so with power cables-- above a certain materials and build quality. Of course cheap crappy cables can be bested by well designed and made higher end versions-- but when you get to the thousands of dollars per cable... it just mental booshwa.

I am open to trying stuff on my system. I live in California.

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