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In Reply to: RE: Another Crystals Application Thread posted by Awe-d-o-file on January 09, 2015 at 08:17:23
... in a private e-mail that I should open my Furutech AC connectors (both male plug and female IEC, FI-11 Cu variety) and fill them with the crystals from one of his circuit breaker filter boxes. Nice result, and allows for complete coverage and immediate proximity to the conductors for maximum effectiveness. Reduce the volume of crystals if results are too reductive or otherwise undesirable.
He also said he used anti-static fabric softener on the little crystals (Downey?), and simply coated them a number of times by putting the crystals in a strainer and pouring the fabric softener over them, letting them dry, flipping the crystals over and doing it a few times to provide complete coverage. As I recall, he suggested that the crystals be gently heated so the fabric softener coating would be as thin as possible as it dried. He used an oven for this at the lowest setting, IIRC, but I cannot recall the time for curing. (See AA Tweaks Archives for more, better details on all this.)
He employed clear quartz in his CBFs, XXX and XX small sizes, which can be had on ebay fairly cheaply. He used tumbled, rather than rough quartz, to allow more freedom of movement amongst the crystals.
This tweak can be VERY reductive and should be approached cautiously, though, he told me, as the close proximity to the conductors means this tweak could be a bit 'much' in some systems. YMMV and all that, of course.
Al Sekela disagreed completely with Alan there, preferring that the crystals go outside, over and around the outside of the barrel of the IEC and male connectors, as Al felt the fields that needed attenuating were those around the exterior of the connector's barrel, and that getting right up against the conductors would not be a good position for placing the crystals, and could make things sound much worse.
Try both ways and see for yourself. No doubt, each approach definitely sounds different. Better? Well, that's a choice only for you to make in your own system and with your own taste and judgements.
Could be a great thread if others chime in with their experiences, too (like Uncle Stu, hint, hint!)
Thanks Awe-D. Let's see where this goes. Could be fun.
Follow Ups:
I experimented with them and brought them to Al Sekela's attention. Then we experimented together with various ways of treating different piezoelectric and pyroelectric silicate crystals and discussed theory at length.
I alerted Al to the effectiveness of Alan Maher's devices of the day. We did not open them up or reverse engineer them. We devised our own from theory. And I came up with the treatment of them with warmed mineral oil, which Al built upon in his successive applications of the oil and paraffin. Again, built on theory of how to damp electrical fields using piezoelectric materials to dissipate RFI.
Also, surmising how some manufacturers of the day might be using granulated crystalline materials in their electrical products, I made matrices of tourmaline, silica, and one other crystal I cannot recall in acrylic resin. Used those in my sleeves on my PC plugs along with CF, as well as in the base of my power distributors to good effect.
Al's ultimate suggestions aren't exactly as described here, to my recollection. He suggested to me that they needed to be between and behind the place in the plug barrel where the wires trifurcated. He also suggested that I try using them at various nodes along the power cords.
You can see my observations and experiments with pix on older posts, and I can assure you that they were effective. Their impact also conformed to the theory as Al formulated.
At one point I was going to surround an entire power cord in a casing containing either silica sand or that and a combination of silicate crystals. Al said this would be too much, though it would provide larger scale vibrational damping.
BTW, for your information, Al surrounded his entire power cords with Don Palmer's wire wrap and he loved the effect. Something he picked up from Don, literally as well as figuratively, as Don supplied the wire wrap.
At the end of his life Al was experimenting more with both crystals and AC parallel filters. There were many private discussions that I'm not allowed to reveal with at least one manufacturer. My AC filters of the day incorporated both the crystals and the parallel R-C-R formula Al devised. Al kept his AC filters with just the R-C-R configuration without crystals.
There is one other tweak that you all were never apprised of from Al: "electropoop". That was his nickname for a barium titanate mix in a resin substrate. The nickname derived from the shape, which looked like a large animal fecal dropping. It came from another manufacturer's byproduct, which again I cannot reveal to you, other than the chemical composition. I have inherited his electropoop. Placed above the tranny coils in my amp and CDP it was equally effective as it had been in Al's more sensitive system. This is NOT a joke, BTW.
So now I've given you something else to pursue! LOL
Please remember our friend Al for the spirited and helpful EE he was. As I write this it brought back many wonderful memories and I realize I have never recovered from the loss of Al in my life. I have appreciated the advice and friendship here of several of you, including "Awe-d-o-file", Alan Maher, unclestu and Winston Smith. Though I've backed away from audionervosa, the years spent in conspiracy with you all were among my happiest in the tinkering avocation.
always good to hear you chime in. Thanks for the detailed post and electropoop! I've noticed you're not here as much so it is great to see a post. Everytime I miss Al I just do a search here and also just look at various posts of people using his ideas.
Earl Thomas
I check in once in a while, Earl. Have sort of backed away from audio for a while; personal stuff.
Futzing around with various tweaks suits my temperament, as well as my meager wallet. With Al around it was a deeply shared experience. When Al passed a lot of the heart went out of it for me and I found myself drifting away and forgetting all kinds of stuff. I got over the obsession, though I'd gladly obsess about anything on earth if it would bring our good friend back.
Hope all is well and I sure enjoy when you do post.
E
T
I use Al's method of treatment and do agree with his placement ideas. I found not much of a change putting crystals in either the male AC plug or the IEC plug where the cord goes into the gear.
The CBF's on the 2 gauge feeders of my mains panel really helped too. I have not had any negative from adding alot of crystals. I put at least a pound in a CDP with great results.
E
T
we are becoming more and aware of EMF. we need both to isolate the AC carrying conductors from emitting them and then conversely to keep them from absorbing stray fields.
I believe you are familiar with the Z sleeves, modified zero gauss chambers. Their effectiveness point the seriousness of the magnetic and electrical field interactions.
Remember any and ALL AC fields will emit both a magnetic and electrical field. IT is definitely not two dimensional field but a three dimensional one. THe fields generated are helical shaped around a straight conductor.
PIcturing this field is perhaps the most difficult concept to accept. Once mastered though, one can see exactly where crystals, mu metal and the like can be most effectively placed.
Much earlier I explained that I believe the crystals work on the piezo effect. Their effectiveness is best when placed in sites where 360 degree access is not available, or not feasible. ( space limitations, etc.). That being said, the crystals are NOT highly magnetic and they are working primarily on the spurious electrical fields being generate.
That they work at all, I find rather amazing. The more effective crystals like Aqua Aura have a coating ( gold in the case of AA), which makes the surface of the rock more accepting of the electrical fields.
Also bearing in mind the shape of the EMF, I find beads work better when using individual crystals in specific EMF emitters. Remember magnetic fields both in emission and absorption do NOT like hard corners. Hard corners seem to impart an edginess to sonics, IMHE.
Good info.
E
T
I believe Alan has gone past the crystal method now and is using various forms of EMI filtering material and ceramics.
I have a whole host of his products but all the crystal ones are now removed as they are no longer compatible with his new stuff.
Check out his new website. Google search it.
He recommended me to check it out a few years ago. I did. Very pricey stuff. Wasn't interested.
It seems he's employing a type of pulse gen technology. The Pulse Gen Zx unit from Audio Magic is such a device, and I would not be surprised if Alan is using this exact approach that Audio Magic is, which is a pulse gen unit smothered in quartz crystals. Except a really big, powerful pulse gen board, in Maher's new product's case. And did I mention it being pricey?
Might be worth every penny. I wouldn't know, as they were thousands of dollars each at the time, and I was frankly tired of the AMD new-pricier-product-every-week approach he seemed to be taking previously with his ever-expanding line of boxed quartz crystals, and now especially his newest 'total backwards incompatibility' approach to maximizing AMD profits, so I moved on.
The OP was about crystals, though. Thus, I made no mention of his current stuff, which seemed off topic. But you've mentioned it, and invited me to 'check it out', so I figured I'd let you know it was old news for me and probably a lot of other folks around here, too, but thanks for the head's up anyway. Cool. :-)
Cheers,
WS
... QPIs are the best things I ever added to my system and perhaps my entire house electricity supply.
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