"Audiophile Rocks"


MY POSITION ON THIS. I am an "audiophile rock" agnostic. I have been sneering and scoffing at the Ebay seller who seems to select rocks from around his front door and paint them different colors to masque their identity so he can sell them for a deceptive markup. They are painted like something my kid would make. I mean, really, if you are just going to rip people off, why not make it look really cool like the "Rodin coil Scalar Wave toroidal field generator module, torsion field, vibrational healing, radionic machine" on Etsy? I love audiophile products but this Ebay guy, not so much.

MY CONFUSION. I was watching a video on YouTube by an audio dealer verbosely and authoritatively denouncing all "tweaks" as snake oil, including cables. He said all of these change the sound but do not actually improve the sound to be of any value. He then held up a 3 pound rose quartz rock, and said, "except for this super cheap rock." Which really caught my attention. He elaborated something to the effect, "This is just a quartz rock from my back yard. I had it in the house and while I was messing with my gear, my wife was sitting there listening and to move the rock out of the way I set it on my component and she looked up and said, ’what was that what did you just do?’ If you think about it, your transformer makes a big electromagnetic field and when you put a large semiconductor on it, it will transform that electromagnetic energy into physical vibrations. Quartz rocks are almost free and you can just find them on the ground, so go put these on your transformers they work."


MY QUESTION. If a guy who denounces "all tweaks" as snake oil is recommending setting a free quartz rock on each of one’s transformers. Have any serious audiophiles experimented with other semiconductor crystal rocks? I don’t want to sound like a mystic, but what’s up with all of this anecdote?

MY CONFESSION. I’m going to buy some rocks on the internet and try them out. I found rose quartz coasters and cheese cutting blocks that I can stealthily slide under my components so that none of my friends think I have healing crystals on my audio gear. If they don’t make rainbows come out of my speakers they can be used for evening wine and cheese.

Thanks for providing input on this!

Halz

128x128holydean

If a guy who denounces "all tweaks" as snake oil is recommending setting a free quartz rock on each of one’s transformers. Have any serious audiophiles experimented with other semiconductor crystal rocks?

People that base their brand on attacking stuff are promoting themselves as being smarter than the next guy. They are shameless self promoters. Gene Dellasalla at audioholics based his brand on attacking cable companies and of course built an audience of people who want to believe that $1 a foot cable sound just like $10 a foot cable. The guy at ASR wraps his attacks with a graph so drew in an audience of people who want to believe a $5 component with a good graph is better than a $500 component with a bad graph. It never ends and when the hysterical guys that are attacking stuff are proved wrong they never apologize, never admit it, they just turn up the volume in an attempt to dupe more people into believing their shameless self promotion.

Best to ignore them and test for your self. Good luck with the rocks and let us know how it works out.

Thanks Kota

On a lighter note...  maybe someone here whose terminal audiophilitis has advanced further than mine has (I can still function in society, more or less) will want to test each of these items out and report back to the rest of us if any are helpful.

 

I can only share what I have previously tested, feel free if you are thinking about something else like power treatments. I haven't tested rocks but did test "heavy hats" made of brass you set on components. Yes they work, but too much $ for the benefit to my system.