Do you believe in Magic?

Interesting thread. I have enjoyed Bryon's postings elsewhere on the Gon. I'm actually surprised this one has gotten as acrimonious as it has, since I thought Bryon started with the proposition that some of these 'tweaks,' for lack of a better word, seem to work even if there is no clear explanation for them. Then, the whole give and take with the guy that makes Brilliant Pebbles sort of derailed this, which I think was unfortunate.
I remember walking into a London retailer years ago, and asking him about Peter Belt and what the view was there in the UK. He pulled a box of stuff from under the counter and said, 'Here, you can have it all for X.' [I can't remember how much it was, but it wasn't much]. I still have some of that stuff, including various shiny colored stickers in a plastic envelope that I keep as a novelty in my listening room, unopened. (Who knows, maybe they are doing something just sitting in the bag?)
I'm more from the subjective school, partly because I don't have the engineering or hard science knowledge that others do, but I believe that there are good, solid scientific explanations for some of these tweaks, and for others- who knows? ( I accept the possibility that science cannot explain everything). But, I like to start by sorting out the obvious, and readily explicable, issues with the system first. If there is a noise problem, or a problem with dynamics, I want to get to the bottom of that by looking at the fundmentals first. What's the story with the AC power? How is the system set-up? Are there equipment isolation issues? Do the contacts need to be cleaned or a tube replaced or an equipment stand damper replaced? I will tweak and can hear differences in cable, footers, and the like, down to changes in the ball bearings on which my equipment stands rest. Sometimes, rather than tweaking, I will change out a piece of equipment that- while well regarded, just didn't do it for me, even after much experimentation, tube rolling and adjustment (this happened most recently in connection with my phono stage and man, what a difference!)
I also believe in certain system synergies, which are a form of 'magic,' to the extent the sum is greater than the parts- I'm thinking here about components that just seem to work well together; perhaps there is an engineering explanation, but you'll find a lot of skeptics on things like 'wire' and I'm not one of them.
I remember reading Enid Lumley back in the day- a lot of what she wrote about seemed pretty far fetched at the time, including not only polarity issues, but hard surfaces under equipment making things sound harder, and vice-versa. It all seemed like lunatic fringe stuff then, but now, much of it (or at least some, I'd have to drag out all those old Absolute Sound issues and re-read them to be sure) are accepted, at least within the 'subjective' school of audio.
Tice- not sure if there was any real explanation for the 'clock,' other than that you can plug any number of electrical appliances into an outlet on the same branch as your system and it will have some electrical effect. (Isn't that what those 'noise harvesters' and the fancy stuff by Nordost do too, on a more sophisticated level?) But, he brought AC power to the attention of a lot of audiophiles through the 'Power Block' products, and power conditioners have been an accepted part of the mainstream high-end for quite some time.
So, while I haven't bought one of those fancy brass bowls that sit in the room and change the sound, I'm certainly receptive to the idea that a lot of strange and wonderful things can change our perception of how an audio system sounds. Often, not always, these things can lead to more refinement and understanding and acceptance.
To paraphrase a noted jurist (hey, you guys were quoting obscure philosophers and Einstein), 'it's nice to be on the cutting edge, so long as you are not the salami.'
Best,
Bill Hart

I''ll bite. As annotated below:

1. Removing all telephone books from the house.
I don't see this, unless the telephone books are blocking the speakers or air vents on the equipment. But, if you are using them for isolation under equipment, or to sit on so you are at proper listening height, keep them.

2. Removing all plants and flowers from the listening room.
Plants are good natural acoustic treatments and look nice too. I'd keep them, but you have to be careful not to over water them. Also, watch out for strange infestations of bugs and plant diseases.

3. Removing all empty beer, etc. bottles from the listening room.
Good idea. Probably more sanitary too. Since I don't drink, not much of an issue for me.

4. Removing unused speakers from the listening room.
Probably the most important suggestion, i think, because those cones move sympathetically. Unfortunately, I have a large home theatre system in the same room as my hi-fi (not connected to each other, electrically or through signal cables), but the extra speakers are there, and it would be a giant pita to move them for hi-fi listening. I do turn the amps on that control them, to 'charge them' so they are less compliant and the speaker cones less prone to sympathetic movement.

5. Removing all unused amps and other components and cables from the listening room.
Dunno what this would do - isn't that sorta the old Linn mantra? I have a bunch of equipment for the home theatre system that is rack mounted in an alcove adjacent to the hi-fi, not part of it and those racks aren't going anywhere (they are about 6 feet high and bolted to the floor). I am not looking forward to breaking them down when i move, which- hopefully, will be soon. New dedicated and far less cluttered room to follow in new location.

6. Removing all Sonex from the room.
Sonex is an acoustic treatment, right? I haven't heard that brand name or term in a while. Not sure where you are going with this, some treatment, if properly applied, is good, but I'm not sure about Sonex.
7. Removing speaker grills.
Could improve things if not acoustically transparent.

Dunno if this was intended to be a serious quiz, but I did try to give you straight answers.
So, what's your take, or is it a joke?

By definition, # 17 on Audiofeil's list is impossible. That's what makes this interesting.....

Geoffkait:
For what it's worth, I am in the early throes of thinking about my next room, though I don't have a new house/building locked down yet. Apart from acoustic help, and sorting basic things like power and quiet AC, I'm looking for a large, uncluttered environment. I don't know where I'd even find a phone book these days, but the idea that things in the room can resonate and detract from the sound does not seem far-fetched. On the other hand, I'm not going to be monastic in eliminating everything but me and the system- I will have some comfortable (and comforting) things in the room as well. I probably have on the order of 10,000 records (probably getting closer to 11,000 now) and I would like to see them in my room as well. I will try to take account of this in the design process when i get to that stage.
Taking your views to an extreme ( and I don't mean to single you out), I suppose that once a room is 'spot on,' even having another person in the room in addition to the primary listener/system owner would affect the sound. I'm just not that extreme.
BTW, my moniker is Whart, which is simply a contraction of my name.
Best,
bill hart

NoNoise- No doubt. Musicians can get the gist of a recorded performance over a crappy boombox, because they are listening to the song or performance for artistic reasons, and not the fidelity of reproduction. (Not to say a musician or songwriter can't appreciate a good system, but for artistic purposes, i think they are listening to something different).
Likewise, there are folks who are willing to trade off bandwidth for tonality- i am thinking here of single driver systems or some of the positively ancient designs that come from theatres. (I can accept this trade-off myself, one of the reasons I lived with old Quads, and even traded off dynamics as well for so many years).
There was a little experiment a few of us did on another site, listening over a lo-fi computer set up to a few tracks with the EQ set to max on 1khz and setting everything else down as low as it could go. You could get the gist- the gestalt as you refer to it- even though it was not a 'good' sounding reproduction- things were missing, but the performance was still 'enough' there to be able to go with the music in a non-critical sense.
You are right that we analyze parts, rather than the whole, when trying to capture the fidelity at a higher level. The analytical part of the brain is like the 'specs' in the sense that it is looking for explanations for why something sounds the way it does. When I am in that mode, I am not listening to the music, but it is, I suppose, a necessary evil- there are times when the system is just 'right' sounding and you can relax and enjoy it without dissecting it. For me, it's not easy to switch between the analytical and the more 'relaxed' mode- if I am trying something new in the system, my brain is often in analytical mode. Sometimes (usually with help, it is harder to do by yourself, i think), you can make a change and listen to the difference and change back and listen again, and based on your 'gut' impressions, decide what sounds more natural or more akin to what you think a real musical performance sounds like. I think, sometimes, listening late at night is good, not just because the electrical system may be less 'noisy,' but because you are a little fatigued- your defenses are down- you (or maybe it's just me), are more inclined to just absorb, without thinking.
I think i have pretty 'quick' ears in hearing differences that way (but the analytical part of the brain is kicking again). It's deciding what's better or 'more right' that's often the hard part. And, to complicate things, what works for one piece of program material may not work so well on another. So, rather than changing preamps or cartridges or speakers on a recording by recording basis (perhaps, at least in the case of cartridges, this is practical if you have multiple tonearms already set up), you (or I) try to strike a balance- what works across the board, on as wide a variety of program material as possible.
None of the above is meant to provide an answer to the 'magic' part, just echoing what you said about the 'gestalt' and how my brain- or what's left of it- seems to work in listening to music over a hi-fi system.

My problem with storing records vertically has nothing to do with sonics; unlike a book, which is usually wide enough for the printing on the spine to be legible to me, trying to read the printing on the edge of a record jacket when stored in linear feet of vertical rows is mind-numbing. Of course, I don't have them well-organized and it's hard to find what i'm looking for. But, if I'm in the spirit of this thing, Geoff, maybe that's a good thing?
(PS. I am not mocking you. I live in an area outside of NYC that is filled with folks claiming to have all kinds of spiritual connections to the past, present and future. I'm just too dumb to connect on that level- I have a difficult enough time figuring out what's right in front of me sometimes. But, in keeping with my 'almost anything is possible credo,' I won't dismiss stuff out of hand based on its apparent implausibility.).

didn't peter belt have a whole thing about putting a photo of yourself into the freezer? that's not far removed, geoff. when you said you were a 'beltist,' i assumed that had nothing to do with the thing that holds your pants up, and everything to do with the fringe audio tweak guy in the UK.