Maybe because they actually tested it and found it works, rather than speculating about it on the internet?
fo.q tape
- Thread starter MarkieW
- Start date
Maybe because they actually tested it and found it works, rather than speculating about it on the internet?
Scotchegg
pfm Member
I saw the picture on the ebay listing and read the op and thought, sure, sounds like foo but it's just a cheap DIY trick, whatever...
Then I saw that this comes from an actual "audio company" and costs £60! LMAO.
According to their website, "the only limit is your imagination." Quite. I'm guessing that applied to the founder of this load of tosh too.
Then I saw that this comes from an actual "audio company" and costs £60! LMAO.
According to their website, "the only limit is your imagination." Quite. I'm guessing that applied to the founder of this load of tosh too.
notevenclose
pfm Member
Don't know about its effectiveness, but I love the 'product pics'.
Brought this to mind.
Brought this to mind.
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
A mate of mine knows a Nigerian Prince with options on a fascinating range of hi fi accessories who would love to do business with MarkieW! In order to establish bona fides, if Mr W could please PM me with his full credit card details then my mate can soon process an erm security check before arranging an intro to the Prince
chiily
PFM Special Builder
Aha, but can they prove it, other than opinion that is!
tricky1
pfm Member
Not sure why people are getting so hot and bothered about this. It's £60. Hardly going to break the bank. Cheaper than most audiophile vinyl pressings. Cheap enough to experiment. Some people might think it does something, others not. Look, people spend far more money on femtoclocks for their DAC and believe it makes a difference. Go for it. Who am I to judge?
Darren
So gentle when he tries to understand.
Sorry Markie, though I'm often interested in this stuff and vibration being transferred into heat is very, very basic physics that I learned when I was eleven.... You wont get a fair hearing on PFM at present. Lots of people already know you are 'wrong' and they are too ill mannered to just leave it alone. There's the usual virtue signalling to contend with as well.
I've just had a brief look around on the internet and see this material was developed through a grant from the the Japan Science and Technology Agency.... so its the real deal.
I'm going to order a strip and have a bit of fun with it around my system - though, lol, I'll probably PM you with my results when I get round to trying it. Thanks for sharing.
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Nice one Darren. Just give it a try. At least you know what to expect on here when you get the results!
Nero
Re: Tired
That's what this hobby is about. One thing I'm sure about is that it probably will make a difference. Whether that difference is to your taste or not is something no keyboard warrior or marketing can tell you
John Phillips
pfm Member
Yes, there's the dilemma. If the OP wants to express his liking then fine. However, the technical story ("turns vibrations into heat and cleans up the sound") is surely fair game for comment when offered.
From 40-ish years of being interested in audio reproduction I have observed that technical stories explaining the basis for tweaks almost always contain a "then a miracle occurs" step in amongst some plausible science. The "vibrations into heat" part - OK. The "and cleans up the sound" part - "I think you should be more specific here in step two" (copyright Sidney Harris).
To me "just try it" needs a better basis for investing my time. But if others are convinced it's their ears and their hobby. This is just a comment on the technical story.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Wikipedia (yes, I know, but this isn't an academic paper) notes that capacitors can be microphonic. Given that, it does provide at least a possible mechanism for improving the sound if you can reduce the vibration, and hence the noise that microphony could create. We are then left with whether the noise would be at a significant level - my view is that requiring it to be audible isn't necessary, and that merely raising or lowering the noise floor can have benefits in terms of the parasitic effect noise has on an amplifier, simply in requiring some of the available power to amplify the noise.
Edit: see also Wayback Machine (archive.org) for a paper cited on that Wiki page. The abstract seems to confirm it.
Edit: see also Wayback Machine (archive.org) for a paper cited on that Wiki page. The abstract seems to confirm it.
John Phillips
pfm Member
Indeed capacitors can be microphonic. The worst are ceramic ones as you reference. But no sane designer lets those near to the signal in audio kit.
Clarity did some work, part funded by the British taxpayer I think, on polypropylene capacitors in crossovers. I have the papers in my files. They are unsatisfactory in several ways but chiefly that they fail to provide key information for others to reproduce the results (which on their own don't amount to much cause for concern anyway).
However "then a miracle occurs" still happens in your explanation above.
- Where do the vibrations come from?
- What amplitude do they have?
- What mechanisms impact the specific cases the OP mentions?
- What is the magnitude of the impact?
- How does that propagate through the audio system?
- How does that compare with other effects from other parts of the system?
On vibrations I did the end-to-end work a few years ago on the impacts mooted then of vibrations from the Lorentz forces arising from multi-amp signal currents in loudspeaker cables. I wrote myself a paper which I still have. The effect is real but the magnitude of the impact can be categorized as "bugger all". A mountain was being made in the audio press from a molehill.
My engineering feel is that answers to the first two questions above couldn't provide anywhere close to the loudspeaker cable case unless you are in an airframe, and that a mountain is being made from a grain of sand. But please tell me what you have for the first two steps and I will think again.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I don't think there's much 'and then a miracle occurs' in what I wrote about my musings about a possible mechanism, but it's your choice of term. Given that the effect is real, and the vibration could come from either external, airborne (loudspeaker-driven), or internal (mechanical vibration of components, triboelectric, perhaps modulated by the signal) then I might challenge your dismissal by observing that that 'the magnitude of the effect can be categorized as "bugger all" ' is just another form of 'and then a miracle occurs'. What you're saying, in effect is 'trust me, it doesn't matter'. Maybe it doesn't, but with a noise floor around -110dB, it doesn't take much voltage to raise that measurably. So we're not arguing over whether it happens, just about how audible it might be. No miracles there, AFAICS.
John Phillips
pfm Member
If you can't trace an effect in sufficient detail all the way from source to impact and assess whether the impact matters or not then I can't see an argument against Sidney Harris's "and then a miracle occurs" cartoon. Sorry to disagree but setting out full end-end stories and their impact assessments has been the bread-and-butter starting point for my engineering work.
If people want to just try and listen then fine. But the technical explanations offered almost always fall well short of my idea of sufficiency. Understanding the engineering of audio kit is part of the hobby for me even if not for others so I am interested in getting to the bottom of explanations. I don't expect everyone to be able to do this but I can hope that some here might be able to enlighten me with detailed argument.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Okay, but you do need to acknowledge that, for a lot of people 'I hear this and the explanation seems plausible' will be sufficient. And for those in that camp, constant demands for greater rigour are a tad tiresome.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I wonder if the most efficient way to dampen all these unwanted vibrations might be to stick a strip behind each ear? Or maybe in front?
gustav_errata
pfm Member
I think it's also beyond a lot of people's personal capacity to trace such effects end to end. So for them, hearing a difference, imagined or not, is sufficient. It's not for laziness, btw, people have just prioritised other pursuits in life. I'd love to be able to do the kind of electronic analysis that John describes but realistically it's not going to happen as all of my technical training and continued learning is in a completely different field.
I would like to pause, though, and thank @John Phillips for being one of the most patient and level-headed members of this forum. I find his posts to be consistently and eminently reasonable and his informed explanations to be very clear and informative. Cheers!
Nero
Re: Tired
what are the absorption characteristics of excessive facial hair?
To be fair to the OP and the product - spent energy does tend ultimately to end up as heat. That's what damping does - it turns mechanical vibrational energy into heat.
That's not to say I'd put much store into the claims for audible improvement in this case though.
Any easy test for HIFI equipment manufacturers would be to
(i)Put an accelerometer on various components to see if any measurable vibration is present (the mains transformer being the most likely source)
(ii)Place an amplifier on a vibration table and see if any measurable (or audible) effect of vibration well in excess of any seen in the above can be reliably detected.
Don't think I've ever seen such reported.
That's not to say I'd put much store into the claims for audible improvement in this case though.
Any easy test for HIFI equipment manufacturers would be to
(i)Put an accelerometer on various components to see if any measurable vibration is present (the mains transformer being the most likely source)
(ii)Place an amplifier on a vibration table and see if any measurable (or audible) effect of vibration well in excess of any seen in the above can be reliably detected.
Don't think I've ever seen such reported.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Yes, very much this, all of it. An inability to do the end to end stuff shouldn't, doesn't, preclude participation in audio, nor discussing it. Nor yet offering opinions on it.
And I completely agree, John's posts of this nature are always measured and reasonable [thanks @John Phillips]. I never feel patronised, or sense any underlying tension or aggression when reading his responses, which can't be said for all contributors from the techy (or should that be 'tetchy') end. Sometimes, some people need to recognise that just because others don't have an in-depth knowledge equal to one's own, that doesn't mean they are ignorant; they may just be eminent in a different field entirely.