Author Topic: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks  (Read 28026 times)

Offline tmazz

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #60 on: March 16, 2018, 12:57:02 PM »
Gary we have a guy in our local audio club who replaced the speaker fuses in a pair of Maggies with a solid copper slug and he swears that the slug sound different if you flip it around. I personally never heard a demo of this, but he is adamant about it.

Made for some interesting discussions with another member who is a college chemistry professor....  :roll:
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Offline gander

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #61 on: March 16, 2018, 03:35:39 PM »
Gary we have a guy in our local audio club who replaced the speaker fuses in a pair of Maggies with a solid copper slug and he swears that the slug sound different if you flip it around. I personally never heard a demo of this, but he is adamant about it.

Made for some interesting discussions with another member who is a college chemistry professor....  :roll:

 I don’t think you understand fully. It’s not just about the fuse itself, or the copper plug, it’s about orientation with the magnetic field of the earth. If you align the voice coils of your speakers with the magnetic field of the earth, then they could sound better. If you reverse something then that could actually make it sound worse. So get your speakers north/south instead of east/west! Hee hee...

 But thinking about it, there could be something to that…

Gary
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #62 on: March 16, 2018, 07:30:42 PM »
I think it’s quite the advantage being a musician like Gary so that you can really judge and appreciate what an instrument truly sounds like. I can only make an educated guess regarding that, but it will have to do. I don’t go to live concerts as much of the music i dont care for or the acoustics are spoiled by audience members. Then there’s the balance that I sometimes struggle with between a live performance and the glam that some speakers produce and that I briefly get attracted to. I appreciate that some guys like to tinker and always improve the sound, but I’m too busy working on inside and outside home improvement projects.
Nick

    Nick really only one instrument to hear as a complete reference. That would be a Piano live maybe in someones home. Frequency range of 28HZ to past your hearing. DONE, reference had.

charles

Charles,
OK, it’s the piano and I’ll take your word on that. It makes sense. But I really hesitate to say this, especially at the peril of what pianists might say, but I really don’t like the piano. I will say that among my favorite instruments are the saxophone, violin, flute, guitar, cello and harp.
Nick

But then again Charles is not advocating listening to piano for musical enjoyment but rather as a test signal for equipment evaluation. These are two separate and distinct functions, so it is not unreasonable to have some recordings you use to listen to sound and others that you play when you want to listen to and enjoy music. And they don't need to be one and the same because the goals of both situations are different.

Just as long as you can keep the two activities separate. I have known too many people over the years who never seem to get out of the test mode and sit down to actually enjoy listening the the system the spend so much time optimizing. Makes me wonder why the bother upgrading if they never actually do any listening. But to each his own........

Yes, it’s a very valid point you are making and I will do that. I have done that in the past using test discs and it has been quite useful. As to that darned piano, I still don’t like it all that much. Would not a harp have a very large range like the piano? Oh, regarding that test disc you mentioned, it is really useful for speaker placement? How would that work?
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #63 on: March 16, 2018, 07:36:13 PM »
Gary we have a guy in our local audio club who replaced the speaker fuses in a pair of Maggies with a solid copper slug and he swears that the slug sound different if you flip it around. I personally never heard a demo of this, but he is adamant about it.

Made for some interesting discussions with another member who is a college chemistry professor....  :roll:

 I don’t think you understand fully. It’s not just about the fuse itself, or the copper plug, it’s about orientation with the magnetic field of the earth. If you align the voice coils of your speakers with the magnetic field of the earth, then they could sound better. If you reverse something then that could actually make it sound worse. So get your speakers north/south instead of east/west! Hee hee...

 But thinking about it, there could be something to that…

Gary

Ummm, well, ok. I think I’ve got it.....
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Offline tmazz

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #64 on: March 16, 2018, 08:57:29 PM »

Yes, it’s a very valid point you are making and I will do that. I have done that in the past using test discs and it has been quite useful. As to that darned piano, I still don’t like it all that much. Would not a harp have a very large range like the piano? Oh, regarding that test disc you mentioned, it is really useful for speaker placement? How would that work?

The In Phase/Out of Phase test is very useful and has become my go to tool for fine tuning the final placement of a set of speakers. There are a number of different tests on the disc but the tracks 2 & 3 are the ones I use for placing speakers. I scanned the instructions for the use of those tracks and they are attached below in 2 pdf files.

And here is a link to info on the disc itself:

https://www.amazon.com/XLO-Reference-Test-Burn-Recordings/dp/B0000015AL/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1521259317&sr=1-1&keywords=xlo%2Freference+recordings+test
« Last Edit: March 16, 2018, 09:03:05 PM by tmazz »
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #65 on: March 16, 2018, 11:22:07 PM »

Yes, it’s a very valid point you are making and I will do that. I have done that in the past using test discs and it has been quite useful. As to that darned piano, I still don’t like it all that much. Would not a harp have a very large range like the piano? Oh, regarding that test disc you mentioned, it is really useful for speaker placement? How would that work?

The In Phase/Out of Phase test is very useful and has become my go to tool for fine tuning the final placement of a set of speakers. There are a number of different tests on the disc but the tracks 2 & 3 are the ones I use for placing speakers. I scanned the instructions for the use of those tracks and they are attached below in 2 pdf files.

And here is a link to info on the disc itself:

https://www.amazon.com/XLO-Reference-Test-Burn-Recordings/dp/B0000015AL/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1521259317&sr=1-1&keywords=xlo%2Freference+recordings+test

Unfortunately, neither pdf could be downloaded or opened in my iPad. I have about 3 or 4 test discs and will have to locate them, but I doubt they have the phase test the XLO does.
Nick
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Offline rollo

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #66 on: March 19, 2018, 08:46:20 AM »
  Nick, violin, harp, Cello all good. Key is knowledge of sound of that instrument live. That simple. Gary North, South orientation ?? If there is science to it it may make a difference. I would have never even think of that.  :o



charles
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Offline gander

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #67 on: March 19, 2018, 11:09:09 AM »
  Nick, violin, harp, Cello all good. Key is knowledge of sound of that instrument live. That simple. Gary North, South orientation ?? If there is science to it it may make a difference. I would have never even think of that.  :o



charles

About the north/south, at first I was kind of joking about it, but this originates from when I heard about that with regard to sleeping, and after I aligned my bed with magnetic north my girlfriend and I sleep better, noticeably better. So maybe someone could try that with speakers and see what happens.  After all, we are talking about two distinct magnetic fields, and when magnetic fields are more aligned typically things may work better.  If I get ambitious I may just try it myself.

Gary
Oppo 103, SSD drive
DIY ultra low capacitance power cords, ICs and speaker cables
Audio Note 2.1B DAC
Tortuga LDR passive pre
Primaluna Dialogue4 tube, Hegel H90 int amp
DIY speakers w/8” Rullit field coil FR drivers

Offline tmazz

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #68 on: March 19, 2018, 10:27:43 PM »
  Nick, violin, harp, Cello all good. Key is knowledge of sound of that instrument live. That simple. Gary North, South orientation ?? If there is science to it it may make a difference. I would have never even think of that.  :o



charles

About the north/south, at first I was kind of joking about it, but this originates from when I heard about that with regard to sleeping, and after I aligned my bed with magnetic north my girlfriend and I sleep better, noticeably better. So maybe someone could try that with speakers and see what happens.  After all, we are talking about two distinct magnetic fields, and when magnetic fields are more aligned typically things may work better.  If I get ambitious I may just try it myself.

Gary

Wow, this brings back memories of some old Enid Lumley articles in TAS. At the time she proposed a number of things that people call her nuts about that have since become accepted ideas in audiophile circles.

Anybody remember when she told us that her stereo sounded better when her refrigerator was unplugged? Pretty radical thinking in the 1980s and now the effect of noise backfed into the power grid by motors and other devices is very common thinking. In many ways Auntie Enid was was ahead of her time.
Remember, it's all about the music........

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• Sunfire True SW Super Jr (2)
• McIntosh MC 275
• ARC SP-9
• VPI HW-19 Mk IV/SDS/SME IV/Soundsmith Carmen Mk II ES
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #69 on: March 19, 2018, 10:38:37 PM »
  Nick, violin, harp, Cello all good. Key is knowledge of sound of that instrument live. That simple. Gary North, South orientation ?? If there is science to it it may make a difference. I would have never even think of that.  :o



charles

About the north/south, at first I was kind of joking about it, but this originates from when I heard about that with regard to sleeping, and after I aligned my bed with magnetic north my girlfriend and I sleep better, noticeably better. So maybe someone could try that with speakers and see what happens.  After all, we are talking about two distinct magnetic fields, and when magnetic fields are more aligned typically things may work better.  If I get ambitious I may just try it myself.

Gary

Wow, this brings back memories of some old Enid Lumley articles in TAS. At the time she proposed a number of things that people call her nuts about that have since become accepted ideas in audiophile circles.

Anybody remember when she told us that her stereo sounded better when her refrigerator was unplugged? Pretty radical thinking in the 1980s and now the effect of noise backfed into the power grid by motors and other devices is very common thinking. In many ways Auntie Enid was was ahead of her time.

Yes, sure do remember Enid and her ideas. Leave it to Gary, the tweakmeister as I call him, to come up with some innovative thinking as well.
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Offline gander

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #70 on: March 20, 2018, 07:43:26 AM »
  Nick, violin, harp, Cello all good. Key is knowledge of sound of that instrument live. That simple. Gary North, South orientation ?? If there is science to it it may make a difference. I would have never even think of that.  :o



charles

About the north/south, at first I was kind of joking about it, but this originates from when I heard about that with regard to sleeping, and after I aligned my bed with magnetic north my girlfriend and I sleep better, noticeably better. So maybe someone could try that with speakers and see what happens.  After all, we are talking about two distinct magnetic fields, and when magnetic fields are more aligned typically things may work better.  If I get ambitious I may just try it myself.

Gary

Wow, this brings back memories of some old Enid Lumley articles in TAS. At the time she proposed a number of things that people call her nuts about that have since become accepted ideas in audiophile circles.

Anybody remember when she told us that her stereo sounded better when her refrigerator was unplugged? Pretty radical thinking in the 1980s and now the effect of noise backfed into the power grid by motors and other devices is very common thinking. In many ways Auntie Enid was was ahead of her time.

 Note that the timer on the refrigerator actually does unplug the refrigerator from the wall, but on a timed basis so it will automatically plug the refrigerator back in and keep your food from being ruined.  And also of course it not only keeps the hum of the refrigerator out of your ears, but the bad electrical effects of the refrigerator out of your home electrical.

Gary
Oppo 103, SSD drive
DIY ultra low capacitance power cords, ICs and speaker cables
Audio Note 2.1B DAC
Tortuga LDR passive pre
Primaluna Dialogue4 tube, Hegel H90 int amp
DIY speakers w/8” Rullit field coil FR drivers

Offline rollo

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #71 on: March 22, 2018, 08:13:06 AM »
   Gary FYI tried the Acoustic Revive RR-888's facing North, South instead of East, West. Well I'll be a Fly in Soup. Increased effect of Shuman resonater. Crazy scienc.


charles
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Offline gander

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #72 on: March 22, 2018, 10:28:04 AM »
   Gary FYI tried the Acoustic Revive RR-888's facing North, South instead of East, West. Well I'll be a Fly in Soup. Increased effect of Shuman resonater. Crazy scienc.


charles

 Hi Charles,
I am interested in the Schumann resonator technology. Would love to try one. But my choices are,  about $800 for the Acoustic Revive RR–888, a knock off or some piece of crap from China on eBay, or a $3500 version from Synergistic Research, which I actually heard at a Los Angeles and Orange county Audio club meeting last month. It definitely made a difference  in the room, and I did like that sound better, but they could not do a quick A/B testing so it was hard to tell what difference it could make. And I probably will not shell out $3500 anytime soon to try something that may not make that great a difference.

However, I recently tried the synergistic research blue fuse, $150 retail (but which I won in a raffle at that meeting for $20 worth of raffle tickets!), and that did make a positive difference in my sound. So I will give them some credit that what they do is valid, but is it worth $3500 for their version of a Schumann resonator ?

Gary

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Offline rollo

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #73 on: March 22, 2018, 10:50:29 AM »
  No not worth $3500. Even Acoustic Revive is not inexpensive. However the improvement wrought is IMO worth every penny. Now if we can find a Shuman Resonater with same or similar coverage it is well worth the try. Besides the sonic benefits I feel much more relaxed in the listening room with device on. Using two oriented North and south. No going back for me ever.



charles
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Offline gander

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Re: Gary’s DIY and Tweaks
« Reply #74 on: March 22, 2018, 11:05:23 AM »
  No not worth $3500. Even Acoustic Revive is not inexpensive. However the improvement wrought is IMO worth every penny. Now if we can find a Shuman Resonater with same or similar coverage it is well worth the try. Besides the sonic benefits I feel much more relaxed in the listening room with device on. Using two oriented North and south. No going back for me ever.



charles

 Can you tell us the source of your RR-888 Schumann resonator? And what did you pay for it, and how long ago?

Gary
Oppo 103, SSD drive
DIY ultra low capacitance power cords, ICs and speaker cables
Audio Note 2.1B DAC
Tortuga LDR passive pre
Primaluna Dialogue4 tube, Hegel H90 int amp
DIY speakers w/8” Rullit field coil FR drivers