has anyone else tried Lloyd Walkers latest tweak

If in fact the crystal works by "reducing the EMI/RFI and static electrical noise at your cartridge and record while it is playing," as stated at Mr. Walker's website, a point that occurs to me is that it is likely to not be as effective with high output cartridges as with low output cartridges.

That is in part because in the case of low output moving coil cartridges the inductance of the cartridge and the capacitance of the cabling and phono stage input form a resonant peak at RF frequencies, which will greatly increase sensitivity to some of those frequencies. And it is also because the bandwidth of LOMCs generally extends to much higher frequencies than the bandwidth of high output cartridges.

The results can also be expected to be phono stage dependent, because the effects at audible frequencies that will result from RF frequencies that are input to the phono stage will vary greatly depending on the design of the particular phono stage. And also, for that matter, depending on the value of the load resistance that is being used.

Regards,
-- Al

Wow! only $325 for a quartz crystal that probably cost the better part of a dollar. Seems reasonable, but wait, why don't we just go to a mineral or gem shop/show and buy a bunch of different size crystals for peanuts and then try different ones and use the one that works best. It may be $300 of work or intellectual property to have it pre-sorted for us and Lloyd is a most enterprizing guy... I think I'll opt for DIY on this one. Thanks for the tips Almarg and Perditty.

Perditty, you should go for the pretty light green peridot crystal. :)

Yea it's the old joke about fixing the pentagon computer buy hitting it with a rubber hammer, for hitting it $2 for knowing where $9998

Maybe geoff and lloyd can partner up and market a rose colored crystal. New company:

Pink Fraud

Al, interesting theory. It's also possible the crystal does no such thing and is simply a very efficient vibration absorber. If it were absorbing RFI/EMI I imagine the crystal would have to attract the offending electromagnetic fields like a magnet. No?