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Re: Let's be really clear about something May

Hi May. There's a lot here to reply to. I probably won't have time to deal with all of it, but I'll give it a try.

Please understand that when I say I have a fresh perspective, that's not some schtick I have adopted. Not unlike your theories, it's an after-the-fact observation, a tentative, interim assessment.

Your list is a curious mixture of things that make no sense--for which no mechanism is conceivable--and things that are fairly reasonable from a mechanistic perspective--which is to say that a lot of scientists wouldn't believe it would be audible, but most would acknowledge that there's a chance because potential mechanisms DO exist. So what you dismiss with a sneer as "my having heard the word once in science" (which if I were more sensitive I would find offensive, having spent many years struggling to understand the theories--by Feynman and many others--that you have encountered, if at all, only rendered into prose accessible by people who haven't paid their technical dues. But I digress) is in fact an awareness that, though it would require further study to determine whether the effect is real, there are cases in which it is at least POSSIBLE that it's real, and then there are the utter absurdities, like the chip and photos in the freezer and generalized, ethical "threat fields" that work the same way for chemicals as they do for e/m fields.)

If you think I'm intentionally avoiding offending anyone, I'l dispense with that right now.

myrtle wood blocks: may high-end manufacturers incorporate anti-mechanical-resonance technology in their designs, most often a big chunk of metal. A lot of attention is paid (by more skilled designers) to where their circuit boards are supported (i.e, whre you put the screws). Why? Because (as is well established and not the least bit controversial) mechanical vibrations do affect the performance of electronic circuits. I think people would find that those designs that pay the most attention to vibration control are improved the least by wood blocks (myrtle or otherwise). Supporting a component on wood blocks is a vibrational band-aid, and a reasonable ones. Does the type of wood matter? That seems a lot goofier, but I defer judgment on that out of respect for the accomplishments of Charles Hansen. "Golden ratio" dimensions? I don't believe this makes any difference at all. Marketing. And yes, I know about the Cardas connection, and their cables. (BTW, I bought some Jenga blocks a few weeks ago and tried them out. My son loves to play with them, but I haven't heard any effect in my system.)

* Shakti stones. Having played with these literally for years (along with the onlines) I'm a bit less charitable about these--but, again, theres a clear and obvious mechanism. They're a poor value, but they DO work. They don't do anything that (eg) a big glass of water wouldn't do, but who wants to put a big glass of water on top of their expensive preamp? (probably there are other materials that work just as well) Again, it's a band-aid. Well designed equipment is, well, probably not completely immune to RFI, but mostly immune. Do they work? I've never concluded that they affect the sound in my system--and I've listened to A LOT of different stuff, but they certainly reduce RFI, if only by a very small amount. Could be the power of suggestion--yes, my Stereophile colleagues are also susceptible, as I am--but it's also possible that they do something. Wes is a great writer and I trust his insights on audio.

Vinyl demagnetizers make no sense to me, but I haven't given it a lot of thought. Is MF wrong about those? Could be? Or there could be something else going on besides "demagnetizing." And I could be wrong.

A special lacquer on a speaker cabinet shouldn't make any difference except for speakers (like, I think, those Bosendorfer thingies--are they still around?) where the cabinets are SUPPOSED to vibrate as part of the characteristic sound. I've not listened to Sonus Faber speakers to any significant extent, but my impression is that their cabinets are very solid and non-resonant. If so, I would be stunned if a special lacquer made any difference. I suspect this is a marketing claim, intended to exploit an implied connection to the fine Italian string instruments some of their speakers are named after. Notice that "friendly to audio" is pretty vague. An empty claim.

Nordost liquid? Never heard of it, never tried it. A static charge on speaker cables could affect the sound in principle, but I doubt it.

As for your Feynman interpretations, he's dead, so we'll never know what he would have thought. I'm pretty sure, though, that he would not have shared your irrational aversion to explanations that invoke the fallibility of human perception. This seems to be a blind spot for you--you reject it too easily and with too little reason. You seem not to understand--even after I (and no doubt others) have explained it repeatedly, that it's uncontroversial and (in human terms) universal. Feyman would, I'm sure, have had far less trouble than you accepting this. If you could only get past this, you would see that the mystical explanations you dream up are unnecessary. Feynman would have seen that right off.

Jim


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