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In Reply to: RE: I have tried all of the products you listed in the past... posted by cdc on December 22, 2023 at 20:22:31
BTW, this is the closest I have come to feeling like a drug dealer...
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Follow Ups:
The same thought crossed my mind.
especially given the high this tweak gives!!
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Hey DR,
Always nice to see your posts. Gonna hop on the "Salt Train" soon. I had to see why my new streamer (WiiM Pro Plus) was dropping out. Had to replace my router. Oh well, at least now I can listen to old tunes, '49 to '55 when the feeling hits me.
The inmate cdc was VERY kind to share his discovery on AA. Plus, his directions are clear and concise!! Kudos to cdc
Stay well, and hope you have a Happy New Year!!!
Awesome. Knew you would show up to the party! So glad you are around. Bet your salt train exp will be awesome. Yep, cdc was super nice to share this great tweak.
Best for 2024!
hopefully there is no new tweak involving kilo size bags...
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Well, was there not a saying along the lines that music is the opium for the masses? Or something like that :) Happy holidays, to you and all the inmates.
Our good friend OG42 alerted me to this thread. It is good to see you keep experimenting. Since I am away for home, I will have to wait a couple of months before trying this stuff.
A couple of thoughts came to mind as I read the thread. Has anyone tried pill capsules to hold the stuff yet? They come in 1 and .5 gram sizes and, if they can take the mechanical/chemical challenge, they may help in some situations. I wish I could remember where I got the ones I once bought for a little project, which involved hot-gluing them, BTW.
Also, your neighborhood Harbor Freight may have at least one scale that is cheap and accurate enough. (Mine has lasted well beyond the usual HF short life expectancy.)
Have fun!
Hey J,
Good to see your post here!
Wishing you the best in 2024!!!
Hey OG42, I guess you knew I would show up despite my "quiet mode" of late. A compellingly attractive -- if "absurd-sounding" -- tweak PLUS you and Dawnrazor looking into it...can't have you both having all the fun...just like old times :)
Frustratingly, TODAY has been a shocker. So, we are going home in Feb. and I was salivating for my tweaktime with this new "toy" as soon as I get back. Well, as the day progressed, all manner of new "February to-do's" have popped up to impinge on my God-given right to musical joy. Gotta find a way!
Hey J,
Man oh man. You bring back great memories of "Mag-Wire"!! You, DR and I each had our own configuration of Mag-Wire speaker wire on the Pans. I had great fun back then! Measuring, repositioning the Pans, choke tweak and a whole lot more. Me getting great advice from both of you to enjoy my tunes a lot more.
I am betting you will find something to add to this salt tweak even with a late start on implementation...-.
Hope you get some time when you get home to work on your system!
Also, you are still the biggest gentleman I know!!!
Dude those were great times and I remember the excitement of coming to the planar asylum to report or read other reports and get all kind of mud thrown my way. On the magwire I have a convo with a world class electrical guru who pointed out that the maggies don't have the loading like a cone speaker and so its totally possible to use such thin gauges with them/ vs. box speakers. I wish I had that expert years ago so I could have explained what I already knew from experience...
But man things were going so well here and you have to go and fat shame Jben. Sad.
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Hey DR,
"Fat Shame" JBen?????..WHAT???...-You MUST be kidding!! I would NEVER dis JBen. I am proud to call him my friend!!
And if you weren't kidding; in this case "biggest" means "TOP SHELF" gentleman!!!
Yeah it was a bad joke :) one you saw and in my sad sense of humor, funny because you would never act like that.
These days my sense humor has been replaced with sense of tumor. Dud ump ump.
sad. Get to doing this tweak man. I have found it best to do a junction or 2 each day and just go slow, but ymmv.
Happy new year! While 2023 sucked for me, it was actually a great year for audio in that my system is sounding better than ever.
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Hey DR,
Thanks for your post!!
I would start this tweak today, but as I said before, I have a power cord on burn-in and changing the input tubes on the Valhalla...-.As soon as that is finished and I see if I like what I did, I will get to the salt tweak...-
Thanks for the tip on the application!!!
Well, hope '24 will be good to Dawnrazor as well as audio!!!
Well, OG42, tks but whatever the gentleman is, he's got a very rusty brain cell, for a brain. This morning I dreamt that my post to Dawnrazor last night was wrong. Darn, a hobby has no right to intrude so much in my life!
As it turns out, the dream was right, wow! I mentioned Tazsmonn's xover as what produced the imaging effect that had led me to Al Sekelas's choke. Wrong. In fact, it was actually YET ANOTHER suggestion by Dawnrazor for me to try in those days - the capless xover - which led me to Al's tweak.
Now, Dawnrazor never got any flack from neither of us on the magwire, which one way or another still is vital to my system's personality today. My wife does remember my initial skepticism as she helped me tame the thin 10ft-long single threads to each MMG while I kept muttering that this probably was very crazy!
Oh, and I think there is some kind of confusion. He might have meaning my staying away for so long. But then again, he did the same. :)
Weird dreams man. But I think you are wrong about your dream. IIRC Taz had several crossovers and the capless one was the one I tried. So I would say the original post was right.
So glad the magwire is staying and you had the balls to try it.
Ironically this is the one time I have cables that I didn't make. I figured it was just easier to buy them and given my state at the time I was worried about leaving on the soldering iron or something....so I bought some anticables for ICs and running headphones didn't need speaker wire (the electrostat earbuds have a cable that is non detachable).
Its ironic because I have all the raw material to make some ICs but am choosing not to. Maybe one day I will make some cables.
But really things are sounding great with this tweak. The next challenge will be addressing the outlets behind furniture and beds and oh my. Probably just take on the challenge of letting those outlets go...
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Oh, strangely enough, the dream was right. You had experimented and used the capless xover before I joined the Asylum. After I joined, you told me about it -- but not that Taz was ALSO involved with this particular tweak. In any event, I tested it, like it very much, and noted its effect on imaging. Sadly, going capless was not practical in my case. But its imaging effect got me hooked...then Al Sekela's tweak saved the day for me.
Anyway, the testing of "a Taz xover" I mentioned, was done later, based on the currently still available diagrams in the MUG. Until today (I checked the archives) I did not realize that Taz was also involved in the capless xover. More Kudos to him! Ok, some Kudos to you, as well. :)
I know what you mean. Kind of feels like one has to apply at least SOME tweak by ourselves. Otherwise the universe is out of alignment, or something. In fact, having a desired tweak but done by someone else ain't fully right, either. Case in point, I bought my 1.6QR used and they had Razoring already on them. Beats me, but I still fight an occasional impulse to disrobe these Maggies, take the strips off and redo that cumbersome invention of yours again!
Oh yeah, you may want to let those other outlets alone for now. Enjoy what you now gained, and keep your back safe...until the itch returns :)
Hey J,
So glad to hear from you! hope you are well and merry christmas.
I can't wait for you to try it and expect tons of measurements and listening tests. It reminds me of the maggie RF choke tweak in that it creates a clearer background and probably does a similar thing...wonder how much salt you should put on the maggies :) said another way, I wonder if it may also work on other things besides power.
Enjoy your trip and have fun getting to know your home electrical system.
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Great to see you around D!
LOL, you know how it is, tweaking is in our blood, though I've been kind of offline on this longer than I wished. The current Maggies (1.6QR) came Razored and I left that alone, as should be with this creation of yours. They did get their RF chokes, which are doing their imaging thing, as expected. However, I stopped the tweaking there due to...stuff.
This should start changing when I get back home. And this little new tweak may have a very timely chance. By evaluating it before I implement other planned changes, I should be able to perceive changes vs the current known system sound personality.
Like you suspect, it sounds to me like the Salt could add more of the same spicing and charms that the chokes already bring to the plate. We shall see.
Merry Christmas and happy tunes!
The hollow pill capsule idea is interesting but will not work. Three reasons...
1) Works best if the Rochelle salt is spread across a longer distance for more coverage.
2) The width of the hollow pill will or likely will not allow the wall plate to properly fit back into place. Meaning you need a flatter holder of the Rochelle salt.
3) Bag makes tuning easier. Easier to add or remove the Rochelle salt from the bag and weighing.
Interesting, never checked Harbor Freight. Amazon is easy also to get a $10 .01 gram precision scale.
Thanks for the feedback on the pill capsules, CDC.
Have you heard from anyone trying this tweak on isolated power conditioning setups?
While I am months away from being able to try this tweak, I am staying tuned so I can quickly ramp up the testing once I return from this trip. It is likely that when we get back home, my wife will leave again to babysit the granddaughters for several days. That's precious tweaking time for me! Staying home alone - to do as I please - typically works great to tune my audio stuff. Pink noise and loud music tends to get me in trouble... :)
I have what I would consider a isolated power setup for my headphone system.
What do you consider an isolated power setup?
In my case, the full audio system feeds off isolated power conditioning units. Nothing fancy though, largely OneAC medical grade stuff. When I go on "best listening mode", even the ethernet hookups are taken off (I don't do wireless either).
The power isolation helped achieve a significant SQ/imaging jump long ago. Not as obvious with the present Maggies, which are not as tweaked as my previous ones, but resulting in often solid 3D imaging within a (walls-erasing) huge soundstage. To be sure, not everyone can perceive this. However, those who can, will notice that something is amiss if power isolation is off when they return at another time. If playing something they know well, some of them even point to the space where things were expected to be, and no longer are.
That said, there no such thing as full isolation, which I am sure you know. Thus, one fights the macro noise sources and also tends to the less obvious ones. When I do even a little more, the ears usually confirm the fruits of labor.
Along with many other inmates, Dawnrazor and I have tried some radical ideas over the years. Some work and others don't but the average still favors having tried. Which is why the "Salt" deserves to be tried, me thinks. :)
Yes, the tweak works the same with your power conditioning units and setup.
LOL don't snort the stuff. The only thing that matters is does the tweak improve the performance of your sound system?
I was able to do 6 outlets, 3 light switches and one breaker in the sub panel before I snorted all the salt. No tuning, just install. Sorry good luck with me tuning. Anyhow it sounds cleaner and more nuanced with fine details that used to get lost. Bass is more resolving and staging is a touch wider. Will keep at it. Thanks again.
Also, I have some power strips with outlets on them. Will treating those help, or is the outlet enough?
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You can place a 1 gram wrap at the wire out of a SMPS (works well here also) on a power strip but would not treat the individual outlet of a power strip, may over damp. Of course there is nothing preventing you from experimenting.
I personally would stick with treating the junctions, whether on the same circuit or not. Notice the more junctions you treat the more resolving your system is getting? And of course tuning at each junction offers the best balance and performance, but that is your call.
7 outlets
11 light switches
7 SMPS
3 PoE connections on my switch
1 breaker at a sub panelsounding really clean
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Edits: 12/28/23
Nah, nah, none of that "sounding really clean" generality, D! We want details, like CDC seems to suggest. Tell you what, remove half of them salt bags for a comparo, and then remove the rest also. Report the increasing levels of depression felt as you accomplish this.
Anyway, you can be much more colorful about SQ changes. I've seen you do it! :)
Sorry to disappoint. I added some color to a post with cdc below. Everything is just bigger. Bass though is a bit smaller but with more definition. Its like when looking at a microscope and everything is out of focus and when you focus it, the image is now smaller but clearer.
There is a sweet tone too that I am getting.
I will try to get specific. There is a song that is recorded a bit bright and I use it to test the highs. These days I am listening on electrostatic earbuds and the highs are super transparent. Anyhow its harder to listen to that song loud....it gets to a point where its too bright. Anyhow, now I can crank that track and the highs are listenable and even enjoyable. Its like there is enough separation not to overwhelm.
I used to wonder what happened on that track.
Here is the track if you want to listen, though I can't vouch for Youtube quality:
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Yes, I read the one you expanded on earlier, much appreciated.As I read what you posted now, I was reminded of Tazsmonn's xover (which YOU "made me" try:) and of an "imaging effect" it caused. This was in 2009. I was on my way to finalizing the line-level xover for my Maggies and, suddenly, I just knew that I had to find a way to replicate this "imaging effect" with the new xover. This led me to eventually discover Al Sekela's chokes.
The point I'd like to make is that my discovery of Al's choke tweak's virtues was due to the rich and detailed manner in which several people described their effect . It was shocking to hear folks with higher-end Maggies describe what my MMGs were also doing but with Tazsmonn's xover (despite its other limitations). As a result, my MMGs got Al Sekela's chokes (but not Tazsmonn's design limitations), all thanks to those ample descriptions .
Hell, it was YOUR good descriptions of your own MMG's sound which led me to the realization that yours and mine were of the same design generation. Which explained why their highs were so clean and their bass stronger...much more so after tweaks.
Edits: 12/29/23 12/29/23
Cool man. Man audio is a journey. I wish I could set up my maggies and listen. I had just built my stands and was super excited to listen but it never materialized.
It is a good description that "imaging effect" you mention. I think this tweak is working along the same lines. Maybe get a trashcan size bag and fill with salt :)
Are you planning to do measurements/ tuning? Or just jump in like I did?
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Hey DR,
About 2010 or so, I installed those shorting rca plugs in the unused inputs on my pre-amp. I also installed rca caps in the unused outputs on my pre-amp.
This tweak was immediately apparent. Sounded like what you described happened to your treble after you applied the salt packs!
I am going to get started with the salt packs after I finish burning in a power cord and in breaking in a new pair of input tubes.
Glad this salt tweak is working for you and others!!
Exactly. I did the same and even capped unused usb and word clock ins and outs and aes/ebu and rca. So the salt helps even if you have done the shorting plugs.
yikes I just realized the dac I am using has open connections and I am out of shorting plugs. Woe is me...
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Nice, glad you like the tweak. The more of the AC wiring in the home treated, the better the performance. This project became very interesting for me when I realized this.
You mentioned "sounding really clean". Can you elaborate on what you are hearing that changed after applying the tweak as you have?
Soundstage is more 3d and the background is blacker. The sound is "bigger" and more resolving. I find myself playing things louder than before because of the absence of distortion that would equate to loud.
The bass is better defined and while smaller, its def more 3d and warmer.
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Yep..... that description puts us on the same page ;)
I will add that dynamics scale with greater ease and clarity. This especially noticeable on vocals. So basically, I'm getting a less confused presentation when things get dynamic and complex.
Well said. I would also say that there is more 3d texture to those voices.
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