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Showing 50 responses by glupson
geoffkait, "It certainly makes sense that you would back a two time loser. But he was a good guy. At least he had a candy named after him."It does take some guts to ridicule the achievements of Nikola Tesla. It would take guts if you were Marconi yourself and not only geoffkait. Well, maybe not guts but a bit of a self-inflicted comedy. There is a subtle difference between being a successful inventor of New Dark Matter and being Nikola Tesla. |
geoffkait, I suggest you read a bit about Tesla's work, too. If for nothing else, but because Marconi was using a number of his patents for his work. Seventeen, if I remember correctly but I may be way off (many years have passed since I was in early grades of elementary school where I learned it). I am not trying to argue about it in any way, but the story, with all of its twists and turns, is not as simple as it seems and, check it for yourself, Tesla actually did get awarded patent for radio. There is a number of, often romanticized, stories about those events on the Internet so "cum grano salis" applies. |
geoffkait, The thickness of the membrane(s) surrounding a brain was one of the parameters I had on my mind earlier in this thread about vibration. I would guess that Dura accounts for more than Pia and Arachnoidea together and would consider it much more significant during these discussions. Before you make fun of my language skills, consider the fact that your English seems to be slightly underdeveloped for a native speaker/writer. Try "Sounds familiar?" instead of "Sound familiar? next time. |
It is possible to do something without knowing why it worked. The problem is when one tries too hard to explain why it works and gets tangled in that. At the same time, good theory is always a good start, but does not guarantee real-life outcome. There is nothing wrong with theoretical discussion, it is amusing indeed, and there is nothing wrong with having practical experience and not being able to pinpoint the explanation. Not every good car mechanic can explain details about physics that goes into car functioning on molecular level . Does anyone think less of them because of that? It is fun understanding how it all works, though. |
Wow, people actually used newspapers as a part of audio manipulation. "Removing all telephone books, in fact all books and magazines and newspapers from the house does wonders for the sound."We must be living in the golden age of sound now. Not many phone books around, probably not even regular books. "Save the trees" |
michaelgreen, As a completely theoretical/semantic/babbling exercise, and to come back to the title of this thread, would you consider paper (think: stack of magazines or newspapers) placed somewhere where usual wood is commonly used for vibration control, as "using wood for vibration control"? I am not saying "do it", "what are your experiences", or anything like that. Just "would it be wood for vibration control", regardless of outcome. If it worked, that would be a cheap one. I am basing that only on "save the trees" statements that sometimes urge you not to use paper. |
michaelgreen, I do not think you used "big conspiracy", but that is how it feels reading your thoughts about HEA. Like some monster decided to fool everyone and started doing things to prepare for a scam that would follow. Kind of like detaching power cords to prepare for selling them aftermarket. That is how your thoughts about HEA development come across, at least some of your thoughts. Not that I have love for any industry, but it might have all just been a gradual and unplanned development. HEA may be getting smaller these days, I do not know the numbers, but it still seems that every day I read about a product from a company I have never heard of. And they happen to be more and more expensive. Maybe to accommodate for smaller numbers sold? I have no idea, just observations. |
michaelgreen, I get the idea of tuning as an ongoing project, but I doubt that things you mentioned about High End Audio were that deliberate and wise product of a big conspiracy. More likely that someone jumped on the opportunity. Take your example of power cords that became detached. How many of the manufacturers of "boxes" started marketing their aftermarket power cords at that time? I am not sure that even today, decades later, there is a flood of power cords from manufacturers of amplifiers. What you seem to neglect in your approach is that many people do have more concerns than sound and windmills. Making a perfect room, stands, springs, whatever, is all fine but people have jobs, children to take to ballet classes, and dogs roaming the living room. For them, convenience accounts for lot. If they can change the sound by buying new piece of equipment instead of rearranging a living space and that over a long time, they are willing to accept a trade off. They have no time and energy to move things around a few times a day, or ever. And they do not feel scammed. Price is sometimes smaller factor that it seems at first. Those who enjoy their world of tuning must be a happy bunch. Nothing wrong with doing it and I am sure results may be great. It is just that it is not for everyone. Banana plugs are, for some of us, wonderful invention. Neat, convenient, perfect. Maybe there is some loss of audio quality for those who do not mind wires sticking out, but for the rest of us banana plugs are just fine. Whoever invented them does deserve whatever money she/he made with it. Theoretical discussions about why they are bad are great and may lead to improvement, but in practice, many people prefer them. Not because they got fooled by HEA industry. |
This time both may be right. Tuning the way michaelgreen does certainly seems time-consuming and, at least in the long beginning, "hit or miss". Inefficient from time and effort perspective. At the same time, many people like doing things and figuring them out, perfecting their skills. They end up with good results after a while. Much less of "hit or miss" and much more predictable. That may be where michaelgreen is now. I doubt even he would say it was all smooth in the beginning. Heck, some people spend days trying to get a golf ball in a hole somewhere far. No real use for it, but they have fun along the way. I would walk there and put it in by hand, but that is not what drives them. They love the feeling they got so good that they can do it from the distance in a very inconvenient way. No harm done. |
Most anything that isolates, connects at the same time. Springs included. Which of these properties will practically prevail may depend on execution (materials, shape, construction, something else) and it may not be generalized. There may be certain spring that isolates better than certain wood, but it may not be every spring and every wood combination. This is not even physics, it is slightly more than a tunnel vision approach. Kind of a view that many parents try to teach their preschoolers. |
"Like Robert at Star Sound Michael Green believes that there is no such thing as isolation. I.e., you cannot prevent vibrations from coming up from the floor..."...and then in the next line... "While it’s actually is true that even the very best isolation techniques do not block 100% of ALL vibrations..."What we have here is universal agreement between both relevant, and one unsuspecting, parties. |
geoffkait, "...of whether tis better to let vibrations roam free and unfettered or to try to harness and constrain them."I see that you are switching from annihilation of vibrations ("dead vibrations are only good vibrations", or whatever cutesy it was) to using them with certain control. Inconvenient news is that you are slightly behind. michaelgreen has been on that path first. Maybe you should go over to TuneLand for a little bit. I see you've come around. |
geoffkait, Your last post appears to be worth thinking about. Emphasis on word "appears". Those two statements are not contradictory. They are so removed from reality that they are really not funny anymore. Have you ever gotten a chance to consider that there is no such thing as audio signal? Misnomers abound around here, but everybody and his brother knows that what most like to call audio signal is vibration. Even many sisters agree. |
geoffkait, On which planet do these two statements, you wrote within a day or two, come together? "Yes, the Sony Walkman is not (rpt not) susceptible to vibration......…..Not to mention my 12 ounce system does not have a whole lot of mass and stuff hanging off it to even vibrate." "Some unwanted consequences of vibration:...…... 2. CD laser assembly vibrating due to external forces." |
geoffkait, michaelgreen did not convince me in any way you seem to be convinced he did. However, I give people credit when I think they are due. I cannot disagree with him more on many things, but some things he is right about, for all I know. Including that it is, to say it politely, silly to aim to annihilate all the vibrations. Hearing sounds is a little more than just some electrical signal in the wire. It really is. It is actually much more than that. Unfortunately, it takes more than "directionality", "only dead vibrations are good vibrations", and a few more cute quasi-deep statements to get even a superficial grasp of it. |
boxer12, When I was writing that thing with unicorns I was, sort of, serious. I followed the logic. Green pen used to do some magic. These days, black stickers do some magic. Why not black stickers that glow in the right shade of green, but only when placed in the darkness of the CD player? Ok, it does not have to be unicorn, but how would you resist it? Not to mention that unicorn has smooth irregular shapes, so any possibility of standing waves, bouncing stray something, or whatever else may get mentioned on Audiogon, would be minimized. The idea is really not that much more bizarre than many we read about here. Still, I am afraid that not much that involves me would end up being a thing of beauty. Who knows, maybe with geoffkait’s imposing presence, it is possible. Otherwise, my business skills are dismal. I could not sell a sandwich to a starving billionaire. Whole venture with unicorns would probably collapse with less sales than NDM has now. |
On a less business note, but more audio related, I noticed you sell one SONY D-F200 CD player with radio. Does low mass and assumed resistance to vibrations benefit the sound on AM radio, or is it just when playing CDs? Is there any radio-related circuitry inside that may interfere with CD playback? It is a very cramped quarters, it would be hard to isolate. |
geoffkait, You must be correct. SONY Walkman cannot even vibrate. It never skips, but with a few New Dark Matter stickers, ESP or not, it does cook dinner. By the way, I saw similar stickers in some sticker book. They even glow in the dark. One had unicorn on it, but only in the dark. Have you ever thought of upgrading to VNDM (Very New Dark Matter)? Greenish glow nullifies any already non-existent vibration. It would be a hit. |
Contrary to popular belief, I am really not trying to pick on anybody, but I see some not-entirely-correct assumptions in one of the above posts. "My headphone system is completely independent of…...echos, standing waves.....early reflections....."All those may be less prominent in headphones, even less in earphones, but "completely" may be an exaggeration. Above statement may be mildly insulting to any serious headphone designer. "I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies.....speaker cables,"True, if Bluetooth is in play. Otherwise, just a different name for the same thing. Speaker cable, headphone cable, ear speaker cable. "I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses."Are there small capacitors anywhere? If yes, are they perfect for this purpose? "Immunity to vibration."Smaller devices, namely SONY Walkmen and Discmen (CD Walkman, to cut that debate short) were so prone to vibration that SONY and other manufacturers included ESP (Electronic Skip Protection) in many on their products. Not to make them perfect in some theoretical sense discussed on Audiogon, but to make them playable at all. They were so sensitive to vibration that it is not even funny to make fun of the above statement. |
"I would have no desire to be on an audio forum if I didn’t even have an in-room stereo to talk about and use daily to explore with."That is understandable. People pick and choose how to divide their time and interests. Some like reading. At the same time, many people, if not most of those, who watch basketball do not have basketball courts at home. Some can barely run a few steps, some play only on weekends, and some actually do have a court and practice often. They all comment on some really good game that happened in the city they have never been to. Nothing wrong with theoretical discussion. It keeps "I did it" bragging at bay with a little bit colder and much less subjective approach. Question is would having Mpingo wood floor on the basketball court influence the game and why. |
michaelgreen, For whatever it is worth, as it is someone's review, although I really think promo material had similar statements... "This is due to the resonant properties and rigidity of the wood, as it was harvested during the winters in Japan when the trees contracted the most to rid themselves of excess moisture from sap. This tight wood pattern is evident when you closely view the cups, and the tightness maximizes the resonant properties of the Japanese elm."https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sony-mdr-r10.12589/reviews |
michaelgreen, I found that piece about harvesting wood... "The SS-AR2’s baffle board is made from laminated instrument grade maple, harvested on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido in November, when the grain is tightest."http://www.sonypremiumhome.com/ar-speakers/SS-AR2.php I think there was a similar statement about headphones 20-30 years ago which included wet/dry season references, but cannot find it now. |
michaelgreen, Speaking of wood, let's say walnut as above, do you take into consideration the time/season it was harvested? Once upon a time, it was emphasized in some of the products. I am not sure if it was more for marketing purposes or it really mattered that much. There was something about density of the wood depending on the season (wet, dry, something like that). For a casual follower, it does make theoretical sense at least. If true, accurate comparison of different wood samples would have to include harvesting timing. |
geoffkait, I get it. You simply do not get it. Your comparison of whatever with car shock absorbers was unfortunate choice as car shock absorbers have changed/developed since 1965. Proof by inspection. Much more goes into them than a semantic game of the word "springs" would make you believe. Your example is quite good when oversimplified, thinking of two coil springs on top of each other and ignoring the fact that less of a spring will yield similarly unpleasant result. When picking and choosing, try to make sure you do not leave out something important. With understanding of your misunderstanding, but continuing the word game you play not-so-well, I would like to remind you that there are no sound waves at all. They do not exist. Can you wrap your thoughts about that? Hint: take a physiology book, Wikipedia will make you confused. As it frequently has. |
"consider the case of a car going down the highway with two (2) sets of shock absorbers for each wheel, one on top of the other."Not the best comparison, although understandable one. Shock absorbers are not exactly springs anymore and much more physics goes into their construction these days. Including electrical charge at times. If they were just springs, two would make it an unpleasant, probably nauseating, ride. If there was only one, it may be better, but if you shorten and shorten that one, it may end up being bumpier again. It is about just the right amount. So the comparison may be a good one, after all. Some vibrations may enhance final sound although too many may deteriorate it. If I understand michaelgreen’s approach, it is about "controlled application" of vibrations or some similar description of it. It does not come across as "give me all the vibrations you can and it will be great". Maybe I am wrong. |