Vibratory or Not?

Everybody knows phono pickups (cartridges), loudspeakers, and microphones are considered transducers because they convert one form of energy to another; pickups from groove modulations to an electronic signal, loudspeakers form an electronic signal to acoustic sound waves, a microphone acoustic sound waves to an electronic signal. Once acoustic energy has been converted to an electronic signal, to what degree is that signal effected by vibrations?

Power transformers create enough mechanical vibration that removing one from a high-gain component (an RIAA phono stage, for example) may provide a worthwhile improvement. Rich Schultz did just that in his modification of the Audible Illusions Modulus pre-amp. Will lifting the wires in a pre-amp off it’s chassis result in improved sound? Will doing so make a Modulus sound as good as an ARC Ref 5 or Atma-Sphere MP-3?

Douglas’ main point above is very well taken; to focus on tweaking an inherently-flawed product instead of replacing it with a superior one is pretty silly; tweaking can do only so much. A power amp exhibiting poor linearity, stability when clipping, power supply ripple, etc., is not going to be transformed by any form of "tuning"; the amp is still going to exhibit those poor characteristics. Why put high-performance tires on a car with a poor suspension?

The most serious vibrations created by a hi-fi system are those of the loudspeaker in the room (the two are inseparable). Room acoustics products convert sound waves to heat via friction, and are the most cost-effective means of improving the sound of any system.

For myself it’s a no brainer as to what HEA folks want to call things and I don’t much get involved in the debating team. The signal is highly tunable and that’s the part I care about. Saying that, I’ve always studied in the area of the four fundamental forces (interactions) and don’t see many in this part of the industry talking much about this. The basics though are that these are the four interactions that all other interactions boil down to. All of these are forces and motion and all are a part of vibratory structures. Where the audiophile world wants to weigh in on this is really a variation on the variables.

Glupson said "Sound is, in the simplest term, a vibration. No vibration, no sound." and this is the basic building block. No matter what audio science theory wants there are they must be a part of the fundamentals. Everything else is fun but many times speculation.

What I have found to be true is, I feel, most important to audio here’s why. If the four fundamental forces ring true this means there is no such thing as absolute isolation, no such thing as absolute inert, no such thing as absolute measuring and no such thing as being void of motion. This turns many HEA beliefs on their heads and needs to.

The ultimate technology to successful playback is going to be a variable. That means that at the end of the day there is one basic method for dictating how anything sounds if we are going to be in control "The Method of Tuning". This changes our industry paradigm. It changes the way we look at audio because being variable sets in motion a whole galaxy of old rules that we have over looked.

I’ve attempted to present this many times to our hobby and each time there has been a certain amount of progress but in the end the money that ruled didn’t want to take the marketing wheel this direction. It didn’t change the truth but it effected the reality of the marketplace. Now that we have started to move beyond the paperback days and have gone through the internet cycle of trolling we can get down to business and give a righteous birth to our inevitable future "variable audio". We’ve always had it but got sidetracked by Plug & Play and the money game.

Once our technical heads have a meeting of the minds Tunable Audio will become the norm and the (I don’t want to say next) industry will adapt a more physics based path. Not a what if path but a basic fundamental foundation.

mg

Hi Erik

My point of this thread is the same as I have been telling, teaching and showing the audio industry for all my life. The method of tuning is the method of audio performance. It's not a fixed quantity but a variable one.

mg

Gentleman

On these threads there are many debates about the making and use of tweaks, some of them get vary heated. I myself could careless about the heated debates here and who thinks who is right or wrong. I'm here for one purpose and one only. HEA has incompletely manufactured itself. Because of this tweaks came along as correction devices. There are many examples to go through and when the egos settle down and the marketing has run dry on the over built and incomplete designing the correct designing can be made. First we are going to have to find the correct platform to present these things and after that challenge is met the products of the audiophile will take on a new shape form and function.

None of this is new it has just been kept from you as buyers. The internet plus the slow down of purchasing the overbuilt has made way for the next chapter.

mg