Do you believe in Magic?

Outstanding post, Bryon. Beautifully said!

Best,
-- Al

I honestly don't know if I'm a Believer or a Skeptic.

Hi Bryon,

That is a good thing, as I see it, because IMO the positions at both ends of the ideological spectrum are fundamentally flawed in numerous ways (that I won’t belabor here), and go hand-in-hand with dogmatism and closed-mindedness. If I may make a somewhat presumptuous comment, your intellectual sincerity and open-mindedness are both refreshing and commendable.

No, I do not believe in magic (although I do like the John Sebastian song :-)).

But my background in electronic design (unrelated to audio) has taught me that many things can occur in a system that are subtle, counter-intuitive, and inherently unpredictable.

Coupling of electrical noise between circuits that are ostensibly unrelated is a leading example. EMI/RFI effects are another example. While those kinds of effects can often be explained in a general sense, once the design has been implemented they can only be addressed by experimentation and trial-and-error. I don’t see anything that is technically implausible, btw, in the experience you described with the particular tweak.

Concerning the broader philosophical questions you raise, my feeling is that each issue and each tweak should be considered on an individual basis, and broad latitude should be allowed for the possibility that subtle and counter-intuitive phenomena may be at play. But that latitude should remain WITHIN FINITE BOUNDS OF PLAUSIBILITY!! A technical understanding of how the elements of a system work and how they interact, and of the theory behind a specific tweak, if applied with a reasonably open mind, can help assure that perceived effects are being attributed to the correct variable, and to better distinguish between the plausible and the implausible, the reasonable and the outlandish, and between pointless overkill and the possibility of significant benefit.

Rather than a believer or a skeptic, I guess you could call me a pragmatist with a technical background.

Best,
--Al

Can you conjure an explanation for how this Magic Cloth works?

Hi Bryon,

Electromagnetic field theory has never been a strong point of mine, but I’ll give it a try.

The core of the material consists of interwoven strands of conductive material. Placing any conductive surface in the path of radiated electromagnetic energy will perturb and alter that electromagnetic field, to some degree.

I would draw a parallel with placing a physical object in an acoustic field. Some of the sound energy will reflect off of the object back toward the source. The path of some of the energy will also, to some degree, be diverted and spread around (“diffused”). Some minimal amount of that energy will also be absorbed and dissipated in the material, as a result of vibration that is induced. The degree to which those effects occur will depend in part on the relation between the size of the object and the wavelengths of the spectral components of the sound (wavelength being inversely proportional to frequency).

Similarly, placing a conductive surface in the path of radiated electromagnetic energy will result in some amount of the energy being reflected back toward the source. That is the underlying principle of radar. The path of some of the energy will also be altered and diffused. Some small degree of energy dissipation (“absorption”) will also result, related I believe to the displacement of charge carriers (e.g., electrons) along the conductive surface, that displacement being induced by the electromagnetic field.

I suspect that the point to the braided construction is mainly to provide flexibility and to thereby facilitate physical placement in various configurations.

It is probably also reasonable to view the material as functioning in a manner that is similar to a shield, except that the energy that strikes the material is not being shunted to a meaningful ground. Its path is being diverted instead, for the most part (I suspect that the diffusion and reflection effects are more significant than the absorption effect).

Or something like that :-)

In any event, their reference to reflection, diffusion, and absorption effects intuitively strikes me as not being the kind of implausible marketing pseudo-science that is often seen in tweak-related literature. Which is not to say that it will necessarily be beneficial in any given application.

Best,
--Al

How is it that SO LITTLE conductive material can have a perceptible effect on sound quality? Am I wrong in my assumption that diffusion/reflection/absorption of EMI/RFI typically requires something more substantial?

Hi Bryon,

That's a good question, and I would think the answer is that it is only a small subset of the digital and analog circuit points in the components that need to be protected from the effects of rfi.

Assuming reasonably good design, the only digital circuit points that would be susceptible to rfi-related noise are those at which jitter might be an issue. That might be a small handful of circuit points, or even fewer. And only a few kinds of analog circuit points are likely to be susceptible, such as what are known as "summing junctions" that are within wideband feedback loops. So judicious placement of the material near those points, or near sources of rfi that could affect those points, would presumably be sufficient to make a difference.

I note that the Stillpoints web page on the ERS material states that "effectiveness will be maximized when placed internally near either EMI/RFI generating or EMI/RFI susceptible circuitry within the enclosure."

Best,

-- Al

You're welcome, Bryon! Glad I was helpful.

Among the stranger things commonly reported about ERS fabric is that using too much of it tends to diminish high frequencies, as Chad described in this thread. That is puzzling to me. Could it be that using too much ERS fabric somehow affects certain circuits in the way that high capacitance interconnects can act as a low pass filter?

I suppose it's conceivable that the presence of the material could affect the amount of stray capacitance that exists between various circuit points. But I would expect the sonic effects of that, if any, to be highly inconsistent among different components, and among different positionings of the material.

A much more likely explanation, I would think, is that low level broadband noise (i.e., hiss) in the upper treble region is being reduced, and that is being subjectively perceived as a diminution of the highs.

I've seen it stated in a number of articles that I've read in the past that low level high frequency hiss tends to be subjectively perceived as "air" and ambience. Which would seem to make sense.

That reduction in high frequency low level noise could conceivably occur either in digital circuitry, via effects on the amplitude or spectral characteristics of jitter, or in analog circuitry, via effects on the amount of noise that is directly coupled into the signal path.

That's my speculation, anyway.

Best,

-- Al

I second Bryon's response to your kind comments, Learsfool. And I've learned a great deal from your posts as well.

Best regards,
-- Al

Wasnt that song by the Loving Spoonful.

Yes it was! John Sebastian, to whom I referred earlier, was their lead singer, and the composer of the song.

Do You Believe In Magic?

Great song, IMO.

Regards,
-- Al

03-15-12: Cbw723
Bryon, I agree with one of your earlier comments: they should just say “we don’t know why it works, but it does.” And then offer a money back guarantee.

That is my feeling also. To me it is a turnoff when an explanation is presented that I know to be techno-gibberish.

Concerning the broader issues that are being argued/discussed, IMO the bottom line is as I stated early in this thread:

01-22-12: Almarg
Each issue and each tweak should be considered on an individual basis, and broad latitude should be allowed for the possibility that subtle and counter-intuitive phenomena may be at play. But that latitude should remain WITHIN FINITE BOUNDS OF PLAUSIBILITY!!

As a fellow audiophile said in a thread here some years ago, one doesn't have to jump out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a parachute in order to determine that it's not a good idea. Some things are sufficiently implausible that they can be discounted "a priori".

Regards,
-- Al

03-17-12: Geoffkait
I am fairly certain we all have differing bounds of plausibility, and differing views on what constitutes a "satisfactory" explanation. If we default to the most skeptical opinions, those with the narrowest definition of the "finite bounds of plausibility," how will that affect progress in many fields of human endeavor? ....

03-17-12: Tbg
Almarg, the only real question is do we all agree as to what is implausible and on how implausible it needs to be to be rejected a priori. EEs seem to have a lower level of implausible, probably as that is their training....

The opinions of EE's will differ on these kinds of questions just as they will among the general population. Keep in mind that the majority of the general population would probably consider all high end audiophiles to be at least a little bit wacko :-)

For example, many EE's would assert that all cables, and even all amplifiers, sound exactly the same. Whereas one EE in this thread (me) asserted early on that Bryon's findings with the ERS paper, although not readily and precisely explainable, were certainly not outside the bounds of plausibility.

The real issue, as both of you alluded to, is where to draw the line between plausibility and implausibility. Obviously the choice of where to draw that line will generally be subjective, debatable, and imprecise. For that reason, among others, I said that "broad latitude should be allowed for the possibility that subtle and counter-intuitive phenomena may be at play." That is the antithesis of "defaulting to the most skeptical opinions."

My basic point is that reason, judgment, common sense, and technical understanding (as well as open-mindedness) need not be and should not be left at the door when a listening room is entered.

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks, Bryon, for the perceptive and instructive analysis, and for the compliment.

Yes, "informed sense" is a better term than "common sense" for what I was trying to express. It comes down to having a good instinct for where to draw the line separating the plausible from the implausible. Experience, research, empirical assessment, and a good understanding of the underlying technological principles, if applied cautiously and with an open mind, are complementary to each other in improving that instinct.

With regard to the technological element, a good understanding of those principles can help to provide a quantitative perspective on effects that may seem plausible when described qualitatively, but which may or may not be significant quantitatively.

Also, that understanding can help to enable recognition and control of extraneous variables, which may otherwise lead to attribution of a perceived effect to something other than its true cause. It has been my feeling that in many cases of disagreement between those who claim to perceive effects that seemingly make no sense, and those who allege that the placebo effect is in play, what is really going on is a failure to recognize and control extraneous variables, and/or an over-generalization of the applicability of the results.

One word which has not yet been mentioned in this thread is "discipline." Perhaps that's what it all comes down to.

Thanks again. Best,

-- Al

Hi Bryon,

Given your disciplined approach to things, a lot of the following has probably already occurred to you. But fwiw here is a list of conceivable extraneous variables that comes to mind, which I think need to be eliminated before the difference you perceived can be attributed to the pigtails with a reasonable degree of confidence.

Obviously, a way to eliminate most or all of these possibilities would be to go back and forth several times between having the pigtails in place and not having them in place.

1)Improved contact between the speaker terminals and the speaker cables, resulting from increased pressure and/or scraping away of oxidation that may have occurred during the loosening and re-tightening of the connections.

2)Changes in room temperature. Temperature is a parameter that is fundamental to the physics of transistors and other semiconductor devices.

3)Changes in AC line voltage.

4)Changes in AC line noise.

5)Changes in rfi/emi conditions, such as may be caused by wifi signals, cellphone traffic, nearby radio stations which may broadcast at different power levels during the day vs. at night, etc.

6)Ongoing aging, breakin, loss of breakin, or re-breakin of system components or the speakers.

7)Components being in a different state of warmup during the "before" and "after" parts of the comparison.

Undoubtedly there are other possible extraneous variables that I'm not thinking of.

Best,
-- Al

Hi Bryon,

Thanks for the update. My one comment is that in assessing the effects of the upgraded fuses on the power amp I would suggest that you make a point of separately assessing the results with music having narrow dynamic range and modest peak volume levels, that presumably would not cause your amp to leave Class A, and, for example, symphonic music having wide dynamic range and brief peaks that reach very high volume levels.

My expectation is that the fuses would be most likely to make a difference when the amount of current flowing through them fluctuates widely and rapidly with the music, which it will not do in the case of analog components that are operating in Class A.

Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Bryon,

Interesting update. I have very little familiarity with Mac's, but in connection with the volume increase, does it seem conceivable that it might somehow have been attributable to a difference in the software installation on the new internal SDD, compared to what was on the original internal HDD? Either in the operating system software, the application program, the codec that may be in use to decompress the files (if they are losslessly compressed), or settings or updates that may be applicable to any of those things.

Did you implement the software installation to the new internal SSD by installing everything from scratch, or by using an imaging program to restore a recently generated image file containing the entire contents of the original HDD, or by using a cloning program?

Did the volume increase seem like it might perhaps have amounted to 6 db (keeping in mind the rough rule of thumb that a 10 db increase is subjectively perceived as twice as loud)? A 6 db increase would correspond to the bits in each digital sample being shifted up by one bit location. In other words, if at some point in the data path through the computer a 32 or 64 bit word length were being used, and the audio data comprises 16 or 24 bits, if the 16 or 24 bits were shifted up by l bit location toward the most significant of the 32 or 64 bits, that would result in a 6 db volume increase, corresponding to twice the voltage at any given instant.

Just some (obviously very speculative) thoughts.

Best,

-- Al

Geoff, could you explain precisely what you mean by "mind-matter interaction," which was your answer to most of the questions in the quiz you presented a few posts back. And which, if I followed your subsequent responses correctly, is unrelated to anything psychological or subliminal, among many other things you appeared to say it is unrelated to. Thanks.

-- Al

Geoff, thanks for the clarification. Wouldn't that better be referred to, though, as "reaction" of the subconscious mind to the matter around it, rather than as "interaction"? "Interaction" would seem to imply that in addition to the mind subconsciously reacting to its surroundings, the (inanimate) surroundings are somehow reacting to the mind.

-- Al