Miracles in Audio, by luck, by good choices,by design or by tweaking...


I owned a low cost headphone for many years, the Fostex TH7B, first version( a new one close version exist Fostex TH7BK), semi-open headphone...I was never completely satisfied by any headphones I ever owned: Hifiman 400, Stax basic lamda, Stax 5 gold,Akg 340,Akg 701, beyerdynamic 990, and T150... Because in each of them with all their qualities I never listen to at the same times, a confortable headphone with natural timbre and voicing, with a good imaging and a realistic soundstage(not too close to my ears)...


For the last days I tweaked this Fostex, to damp his internal resonance I used sorbothane, I put some shungite stones at the exterior part of the cups and I use some Herkimer diamond in the interior pads( 3 at 120 degree) … Now this low cost headphones crush all my others if I sum all his qualities... For example his mids and voicing cannot beat the AKG 340 but among all my other headphones it is the best that is near that mids and it is more confortable, and with longer cable than the 340...His imaging is better and more realistic than the 340 etc etc...It is the same if I compare with the others...


His most important qualities is natural timbre and clear imaging,very precise pinned point accuracy and natural, so clear it crush for that ALL the others to dust...In the French audio circle the reviews were more than very positive few years ago...Diapason d’or and choc Classica...I am not the only one impressed buy the ratio quality/price... But remember that thesae reviewers dont tweak their headphone...The difference between before and after the tweaks are staggering...


Yes Miracles happens in Audio: cost is under 100 American dollars... Few years ago they cost me 50 bucks new... I never dreamed that I will go back to headphones...


I will enjoy your miracles stories of any kind ….My best to all...
128x128mahgister

Showing 21 responses by geoffkait

It was all explained rather simply almost 20 years ago. There is no need for all the metaphysical drama, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I give you A for enthusiasm. 🤗
As I’ve been saying all along the Schumann device is subject to outside influences. Such as low frequency seismic vibration. Other examples? OK, fuses, cables, vacuum tubes, CD players, turntables. There’s no end to it. 🔚 There’s nothing new under the sun. ☀️ I hate to judge before all the facts are in but this is starting to look like a fairly obvious case of not invented here. 😛
Sorry, the “synchronization” of the Schumann generators doesn’t make sense. If it doesn’t make sense it’s not true. It would be like trying to synchronize some clocks in the room to all give the same time all the time. Since the accuracy/precision of the Schumann frequency devices appears to be an issue with them, then I’d say the pathway to the stars is by obtaining more accurate generators and isolating them. You may have to apply damping as well. I suspect your imagination and or your English translation might be a possible culprit in this. 🤗
Somebody hasn’t heard of the Hierarchy of Sound. I won’t mention any names. The gist of it is, a tweaked inexpensive system can be made to sound better than an un-tweaked moderate price system. And a tweaked moderate price system can be made to sound better than an un-tweaked expensive system. The only constraints are the ones you bring with you. 
You might be interested to know I bought a prototype David Berning amp, if I recall it was EA- 230 some 40 years ago. Berning lived just down the street in MD from Bruce Wenger, (now BWS Consulting in Arlington, VA), another high end amp designer, whose high power Class A tube mono-blocks and power supplies tip the scales at 600 lbs, shipping weight.

- Your humble scribe and audio insider from the future.
Since I am unable to go back that far in time, IIRC the Berning amp sounded quite good (why wouldn’t it? 😬), even when he was starting out. If memory serves I sold the Berning EA-230 and got a modified Fisher 500c receiver from Bruce Wenger, remember, Berning’s neighbor. The Fisher 500c was outfitted with aircraft output tubes, a more robust PS and other niceties. That is all ancient history, and crystals, intelligent chips, spooky clocks and springy things were not yet a gleam in my eye 👁
Sometime we should sit down and have a nice long talk about the difference between damping and isolation. This is not to say I don’t like your idea of throwing everything at the problem except the kitchen sink. 🤗
“Because it’s what I choose to believe.” - Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, Chief Science Officer, Prometheus

I promise I will go back and read your entire post, mahgister. 😃
Most likely the Himalayan salt lamps are placebos. They look pretty, though. Such a nice color of pink. 
I am waiting, waiting for someone to come out of somewhere.

Get smart, get well, hang around the ink well.

Sometimes to create you must first destroy.

Made the scene, week to week
Day to day, hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through, break on through
Break on through, break on through
I dare say we’re entering The Teleportation Tweak territory, men. I have been counseling lo these many years telephones 📞 and cellphones 📱 are bad news for the sound. Imagine how bad the sound is in a room at CES filled with a bunch of people with cellphones. 😩
It’s human nature to become more and more attached to one’s own ingenuity and to embrace his results and conclusions with great fervor. But, I caution you, gentle readers, one must be open minded at all times and ready to change directions at the drop of a hat 🎩 It can be quite difficult to break out of the lower energy orbit into a higher energy orbit. As John Lennon advised, there is nothing to get hung about. Sometimes we benefit from taking a break from our daily routines. As Groucho Marx advised to his guest with ten children, I like my cigar but I take it out sometimes. 
OMG! That was a close one! For a second I thought you were going to say you put a photo in your freezer. 🥶
Many years ago a very wise man named Bernard Baruch took me aside and put his arm around my shoulder. "Harpo my boy," he said, "I'm going to give you three pieces of advice, three things you should always remember." My heart jumped and I glowed with expectation. I was going to hear the magic password to a rich, full life from the master himself. "Yes sir?" I said. And he told me the three things. I regret that I've forgotten what they were. - Harpo Marx
The home telephone system, land line or cellphone, is not connected to the audio system AC power lines. It looks like you’ve unwittingly stumbled onto embedding no. 4 - Information fields. 😬 The most insidious and rampant embedding of them all! You can’t escape it and you can’t detect it. They’re coming in through the TV, too, like the little girl in the movie The Ring. Be afraid, be very afraid!

It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.
But do you believe the shungite plates are preventing RF from entering the router box and thus from entering the audio circuits? Do you believe the shungite plates are somehow absorbing RF that may be inside the router box? Be very careful before answering. 😀
People have certain beliefs because that’s what they choose to believe. - Pewee Herman
I never claimed or even suggested shungite was piezoelectric. Only crystals can be piezoelectric. So, there’s that. But my point seems to have gone wooosh! over your head because shungite can not (rpt not) act on EM waves by shielding or absorption because the entire component would have to covered with shungite. RF would simply do and end run around the shungite. 🏈

Shungite is not like a Bounty Towel, the Quicker Picker Upper. So what left? Well, there is placebo effect. Don’t get me wrong. I would not object to a placebo effect every once in a while. It occurs to me the latest and greatest audiophile products employ Graphene, not shungite. But maybe there is a market for shungite, too. Let’s wait and see. 👀

Pop quiz! 🤗 What do Graphene, shungite, graphite and carbon fiber all have in common?
They blindfolded a pledge in college and told him they were going to brand his arm with a hot branding iron as part of his initiation into the fraternity. They showed him the hot coals with the the branding iron Glowing Red Hot in the coals just before applying the blindfold. Then they told him, now we’re going to brand you, but instead of the branding iron they held an ice cube to his arm for three seconds and put the hot branding iron on a piece of raw liver at the same time so that the blindfolded college dude was convinced he was really being branded. When his blindfold was removed he and everyone was surprised to see a huge welt on his farm, the kind of welt that only a branding iron would make.