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Can a tiny silver bowl affect music reproduction

I am speaking of the Ziplex one half inch wide silver bowls, but the same questions apply to the Synergistic Research ARTs.

About two weeks ago I had four audiophiles in my listening room. We were listening to the impact of the Tripoint Troy Signature. I was standing and noticed that one of the eleven Zilplexes in my room was laying flat on the three silver support rods on the wall. It was the one that is about midway down the left wall and about seven and a half feet off the floor. It is supposed to be at a 45ยบ angle facing the wall. As unobtrusively as possible I stepped on a foot stool that I leave there as this is a common happening and carefully inclined the bowl into a proper condition. I then returned to where I was standing.

Someone asked what did I just do, and I stated the above. They all were in disbelief about how it could have such an effect. I told them that Zilplex had been at CES and at the RMAF about a year or two ago, I repeatedly did their demonstration of removing all eleven Zilplexes. Always those in the audience said exactly what my four friends had said.

Having stumbled onto these a couple of years ago, I said that the inventor and owner really didn't have an explanation for the effect that it was all a trial and error process, which, of course, had taken countless hours. Synergistic Research also has a comparable bowl device, which Ted Denny attributes to his hear Tibetan monks and their bowls. There are of course Tibetan bowls. Syn. Res. ARTs are bigger than the Zilplexes but neither is the size of typical Tibetan bowls.

Tibetan bowls, of course, resonate when struck or rubbed at the rim. SR ARTs ring when knocked together. Zilplex don't ring. I asked Zilplex about this and was told they ring but at a frequency we cannot hear. My question is why would ringing bowls located variously in a room, greatly improve the apparent size of the rooms and the realism of the reproduced music?

All I can say is that they do, and I have heard no real explanation.
tbg
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,363 posts
 
"I suspect, however, that your bowls are just excited at way too low a frequency. LOL!"

Well, you just never know now do you?

Maybe how it works for Yogis is the key. An audio engineer who has never practiced Yoga may have no clue!

"Is that bowls or bowels? HA (I'm bad:)"

Well, look, I may be crazy (who in this hobby is not to some extent) but not sure about that one.

Good Karma can have many positive effects though. Ya never know.....

I have one Yoga teacher who rings a bell during "OM" chant at the end of class (he is my most hardcore instructor) and I have noticed that the chant seems to resonate more holographically that way in that the harmonics do seem to align and hold ones attention better. No joke!!!! Fascinating stuff.....
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
The tiny silver bowls were introduced ten years ago. The whole idea of these type things is not new, they have been been thoroughly reviewed in the press and have been demonstrated a great many times at shows. If there remains ANY mystery as to whether they can have an enormous effect on the sound it is most likely only in the mind of the uninitiated. If there remains any mystery as to HOW they work, well, that may be, at least in part, due to lack of due diligence since many of the reviews go into great detail on the subject, for example the review in 6 Moons by the two PhDs.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Mapman, why would you place them on top of the OHMs. What would you hope to prove? Have you not been following the discussion with respect to the proper locations for the singing bowls?
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Tgb wrote,

"I also know that he tried many bowl sizes and metals and countless placements of the devices as well a many different numbers of those devices. Trial and error are the only alternative if there is no theory on which to base these decisions."

But that's not really true. For ten years, ever since the Franck Tchang tiny silver bowls came out, detailed instructions for placement have been discussed ad nauseum in the many rave reviews, most notably the 6 Moons Review by the two PhDs. I provide simple instructions for my ceramic bowls, which, not very surprisingly, mirror the instructions for other tiny bowls. Now I'm starting to see why you didn't have much luck with the Moingos. Lol
sabai
2,027 posts
 
Mapman,

Been there, done that -- with a very expensive Tibetan bowl -- about $300. It killed the sound. I use it for other purposes.
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