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From ebony pucks to magic foil, mystical and controversial tweaks.

Testing advice?

Hi May,

I very much enjoy your posts, and would like to try and discover if I can hear the effect of "treating" things in the room not directly in the audio chain.

I've been following the threads, read your website and contemplated the info. I guess you could call me a hard-bitten engineer and as such am very sensitive to the importance of conducting experiments properly to try and "get a handle" on what's happening. You've experience is in the same vein so you know the importance of correlating cause and effect by trying to change only a single variable at a time and evaluating the result. A key issue is being able to reset the variable to avoid confusing interactions.

Most of what I've read so far concerning the application of your discoveries don't provide much useful information. ("you just have to try everything", seems to be the result.) Except for Stu, no one seems to be trying to control the experiments. So I'm looking for no more than three things I can try that tend to have the grossest effect. And are resettable. Is there one or more of your free tweaks that you would suggest as the most obvious, reliable and resettable?

You repeatedly mention treating identical or similar devices to the operating ones as proof that something unusual is happening. Does that similarity have an effect on the outcome or is it just an attempt at consistency? For instance I have a power amp sitting around with a steel case but not being used. If I degauss it or align it's screws or paste a sticky note on it with a positive thought will that be more likely to affect my perception than doing the same thing with a steel strongbox?

Finally I have an unrelated question: Since you have made it clear that what is affected is the listener, why not treat the listener directly? I'd be tickled to have a pin or tie-bar that would make things sound better. I could even use it at the symphony.

While I'm unimpressed with the extent explanations, that doesn't mean that the effect may not be real. Like you, I'm also unimpressed with the majority of the the extent explanations on AA. So what? I've found any number of things in my life that have proven true despite having iffy explanations.

Thanks, Rick




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