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Synergistic Research ECT

Many years ago, I'm going to say about 20, a fellow named Michael Greene came out with a rack that purported to improve performance by clamping components between the shelves. Preposterous, I thought, and wrote a letter to the editor telling him so and asking to please not waste my valuable time with such nonsense. A letter I soon came to deeply regret. Because within a year I had heard for myself what vibration control can do. Today the value of vibration control is (or should be) clear to all audiophiles.

So that's Preface Part One: Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

Preface Part Two: Don't be so sure its not there just because you can't hear it. Learning to recognize and describe what you are hearing ain't necessarily easy. I used to drag my wife along to audition CD players, because I wasn't entirely sure myself if what I was hearing was there or in my head. When time after time she said, "yeah it sounds better, I can't say how or why but this one definitely sounds better" I knew it was for real. Now I'm able to hear in a flash what I used to agonize interminably over. But it did take time. And effort.

And so with that out of the way and everyone understanding this review is for those who either have the listening skills or at least would like to develop them, my recent experience with the Synergistic Research ECT.

Now according to Synergistic, and a ton of reviews, these things work pretty much everywhere. Well, to a guy like me, them's fightin' words! Nobody ever said anything about using them on a turntable motor. So that's right where the first one went. Right onto the top of my Teres Audio rim drive Verus motor. Just stuck the thing on there. Its not gonna work. No way it can work. On a motor? No way. Waste of time. Sat back down and... what the.... dang... seriously? Its on the bleedin' motor! How's that work?? BS! Witchcraft! Got up and removed it. Uh, no, bad idea. Put it back. Ahh. Much better.

With the ECT stuck on the motor everything in the soundstage took on a more palpable reality. There was a greater sense of depth, and air or space around each source. Not wider or higher, nothing moved around from where it had been. When I say greater depth, its not like anything moved closer or further away. The feeling of depth is hard to describe. A lot of it comes from a greater sense of being more immersed in the recording space. Bigger recording space, bigger room, greater depth. Something like that. Removed, the presentation went flat and grainy. Funny, never seemed there was any grain or etch before. One New York minute with ECT and remove them though, yeah, there's grain. Stick that thing back on there. Inner detail. Sense of ease. All better now.

That's just one. On the one place nobody said they would work. What about where they ARE supposed to work? I stuck one close to the base in front of the D101 power supply tube on my Melody Integrated. OMG, here we go again! Same thing. Here I also noticed improved dynamics and a lower noise floor. Heard this with the one on the motor too, and its hard to say which location had the greatest effect on which. I guess, to be really systematic about it, you could move one around trying a dozen different spots, looking for the biggest effect. Actually did that a long time ago with a Shakti Stone. Overpriced waste of money, that. Not so these. When something works this good, you just want more.

But first, I did of course try removing it. Just to be sure. Still hard to believe. Putting it back, this time I placed it behind the tube. Same result. What about transformers? The power transformer on the Melody is big and heavy, and encased in some sort of shiny black stuff, plastic or whatever I don't know. For sure there is no way a tiny little dot of aluminum (for the record, I have no clue what its made of) gonna have any effect on something that big and massive. Only, it did. Same. Exact. Results.

Crazy.

For those keeping score at home that's 3 ECT's deployed. They come 5 to a box. Only used about half, already happy. Which gets us to, what's it worth? My longstanding Gold Standard for tweaks is Black Diamond Racing Cones. At $20 each and needing 3 per component they coincidentally come in at the same $60 per ECT. Comparing apples to oranges I would say one ECT comes very close to three Cones. Not quite there. But close. Considering nothing I've ever heard comes close to BDR for the money that's pretty high praise indeed.
128x128millercarbon
davidpritchard's avatar
davidpritchard
866 posts
 
millercarbon:

I agree the Synergistic Research ECT's are amazing. I find their placement to work well on both audio and video systems. One of the good things about them is the effect is immediate. Try a spot and watch or listen. If improved leave it, If worse or no change remove it.

You can put too many in a component and get a sound that becomes lean. But they are easy to put in and out and so a bit of experimentation is in order. They do come with some suggested sites to try.

When placing them for a temporary listen, I do like to use a dab of DAP brand sticky putty called Blue Stick (bought at Home Depot). Once I have finalized placement, I prefer to more permanently attach them with a High-Temperature glue gun. This adhesive does not melt or run even in a high-temperature environment such as my Pass Lab amplifiers. It just takes one Small drop of glue to affix the ECT. They still can be removed at a later date if necessary.


The ECT is effective, easy to use, and if you do not like them you can send them back.

David Pritchard 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Yeah, and just to be clear as far as video is concerned, the improvement in picture quality is on par with going from 720p to 1080i, or 1080i to 4k. Its about as much or more compared to when I upgraded from standard HDMI to a very good $350 HDMI cable. Or plugging into a good power conditioner.  Its better than when I had my cables cryo'd.

Actually all of these to me still leave a kind of grainy look like you see a lot in stores where they turn everything up too high to catch your eye, while the result with just the one ECT is much more natural and film-like. Or like the way a good 70mm film looks compared to the usual 35mm, if anyone's familiar with that. Greater color saturation, contrast, and incredible detail without grain. This is, again, just from one.

Plus of course the audio improves as well. Considering how much greater this is from just one compared to the cost of alternatives like a power cord, conditioner, HDMI cable or interconnect, and you get 5, these things have got to be considered one of the great bargain tweaks. 
tawa
44 posts
 
Hello all, if i had to choose One tweak from say Total contact, Synergistic Research ECT,HFT ect. 
To the people who actually tried them,which one stands out?
Happy New Year.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
The Last Tweak Syndrome - The last tweak you try will generally be the most amazing thing you ever tried, due to the fact your system has become progressively more resolving and therefore capable of revealing the next thing that comes along in all its glory. Whereas if that particular tweak had been tried first the results would not have been so spectacular. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
For those who don't know, the comment above is from the inventor of Teleportation, Flying Saucers and Codename (Yes, really, Codename) White Poppy.  http://www.machinadynamica.com/index.html

Good luck tawa finding someone credible who has tried all those. Two things you might want to consider in choosing where to spend your hard earned Federal Reserve Notes. All the Synergistic tweaks are super easy to try and then remove and send back if you don't like them. 30 day money back guarantee. And you will know right away, because with ECT and PHT there is zero break-in time. Even assuming Total Contact is as great as its many satisfied customers claim, they also are very clear in saying it takes quite a while to settle in. How long do you plan on enjoying music? Six months or a year or three from now when you may have sold or traded components you will still have your ECT or PHT to tweak the new gear. Meanwhile whatever you had left of your Total Contact will have long since gone bad even if you did try and carefully preserve it in the fridge.

If it was me I'd start with the ECT. They are just so consistently effective and easy to use on so many components. Next would be a toss-up between PHT and HFT. Between those two the deciding factor for me would be which do I think is likely to be improved the most? My room is pretty well dialed in acoustically, and I am free to do more of whatever I want. But if I had a room with problems, and especially a room where I had to be discrete in treatments, then I would probably want to try HFT first. 

Either way I always go into it knowing it really doesn't matter what anyone else has said, it only matters what I hear in my system. And if what I hear sucks then I want to be able to send it back. Because, much more often than not, that is what happens. Can you do that with Total Contact?
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