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Audio System Enhancer

Great answers man, and I fully agree!

lol! Holodeck!? If only that was reality! I'd visit some of the best audio shops on the planet!
 
Slippers,

I listened for a while to several things with them off and in another room both normal gain and Passive and with and without the sub along with the Clearfields.

It was hard to really tell without a doubt if anything changed since volume matching and source material was not 100% consistent.

The last disk I was listening to when deciding to drop them back in was Brian Bromberg - Downright Upright (which you might enjoy) and since I am a Bass Head, I was grooving along to BBs incredible playing and the tone of his bass. Bass Tone is how I test and reference.

In the middle of the disk and middle of a song I climbed behind the rack and put them back on the + leads out of my amp and went back around for a listen. Not really thinking anything changed right away I was kind of taken.

But like you experienced, I started to notice a few things that I can only label as

Sustain of notes, Bass in particular, but Cymbals and other also
Slightly more Detail in the mids to highs
Quiter background leaving a slightly better Separation of Instruments
Less Congested

None of this would be Night and Day for the casual listener and most likely not all gear and rooms will have the same results. It's not N&D for me either, but I think and feel there is something going on.

I am not a Mad Scientist, but if I had to make a "Star Trek" guess as to what is going on, I would have to say that the makeup of the pucks is causing some of the frequencies to get confused and then get to the speaker a milli-second or less slower than other frequencies creating what appears to be longer clearer notes. I know that is Horse Pucky (pun intended) but these things do seem to do something.

For anyone who ordered the full size pucks, please post your finding, Pro or Con.
 
whoaru99 said:
You mean inasmuch as placebo effect, right?
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no...
I don't really like the term placebo effect when used in audio, as it's a medical term and I think it causes more confusion about what may really be going on.
I prefer expectation bias and other terms that relate to these types of possible experiences.

The placebo effect in medicine is for the most part a passive action.
In audio when changes or tweaks are made to a system listeners can be actively "looking" for something.

People often bring up the idea that blind testing is flawed due the "stresses" that these tests put on the listener causing them not to hear what is "obviously" a change.
If this is the case, then why not factors that cause a listener hear something that isn't there?
 
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gvalent said:
Well, yes and no...
I don't really like the term placebo effect when used in audio, as it's a medical term and I think it causes more confusion about what may really be going on.
I prefer expectation bias and other terms that relate to these types of possible experiences.

The placebo effect in medicine is for the most part a passive action.
In audio when changes or tweaks are made to a system listeners can be actively "looking" for something.

People often bring up the idea that blind testing is flawed due the "stresses" that these tests put on the listener causing them not to hear what is "obviously" a change.
If this is the case, then why not factors that cause a listener hear something that isn't there?
Click to expand...

And why is a controlled test so stressful but it is not stressful when you are doing your own personal test?
 
robgmn said:
And why is a controlled test so stressful but it is not stressful when you are doing your own personal test?
Click to expand...

In this particular case the manufacturer of the product actually encourage you to do a blind test with their product.

Maybe some of the people here did that and consequently stressed out and couldn't hear the changes.

I personally try to avoid stress due to the fear of becoming deaf. :D
 
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Hyfi said:
Have you ordered yours and played with them at all?
Click to expand...

No.
But before you raise the question, "then how can you comment on them?", I was not commenting on the merits of this product. I was commenting about possible reasons why people have different opinions of them, just as you did when asked.

Also, just in case, please spare me the dreaded "close minded" card because I have not tried them if you are so inclined.
 
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Hyfi said:
Slippers,

I listened for a while to several things with them off and in another room both normal gain and Passive and with and without the sub along with the Clearfields.

It was hard to really tell without a doubt if anything changed since volume matching and source material was not 100% consistent.

The last disk I was listening to when deciding to drop them back in was Brian Bromberg - Downright Upright (which you might enjoy) and since I am a Bass Head, I was grooving along to BBs incredible playing and the tone of his bass. Bass Tone is how I test and reference.

In the middle of the disk and middle of a song I climbed behind the rack and put them back on the + leads out of my amp and went back around for a listen. Not really thinking anything changed right away I was kind of taken.

But like you experienced, I started to notice a few things that I can only label as

Sustain of notes, Bass in particular, but Cymbals and other also
Slightly more Detail in the mids to highs
Quiter background leaving a slightly better Separation of Instruments
Less Congested

None of this would be Night and Day for the casual listener and most likely not all gear and rooms will have the same results. It's not N&D for me either, but I think and feel there is something going on.

I am not a Mad Scientist, but if I had to make a "Star Trek" guess as to what is going on, I would have to say that the makeup of the pucks is causing some of the frequencies to get confused and then get to the speaker a milli-second or less slower than other frequencies creating what appears to be longer clearer notes. I know that is Horse Pucky (pun intended) but these things do seem to do something.

For anyone who ordered the full size pucks, please post your finding, Pro or Con.
Click to expand...

Thanks Hyfi! Your experience was about what I experienced as well.
 
I received an email back from Mad Scientist Audio today that they will be shipping out my free sample. Does anyone have an idea on what the delivery time would be based on their experience?
 
JoeESP9 said:
If you're already thought crazy, can you be considered crazier? Are there degrees of crazy?

With 3500+LP's and 1600+CD's and four six foot tall speakers in my living room my neighbors probably think I'm crazy. I however, prefer to be thought of as eccentric.
Click to expand...

If you're poor, you're nuts. You're only eccentric if you're rich.:D
 
I received my sample disks on Saturday. I placed them on the amps positive speaker posts to test out. These crazy things do work. They turn up the realism knob another notch. I listened to Kenny Burrell's "Midnight Blue" LP and his guitar strings had more body and reverb, Stanley Turrentine's sax stands out more in the recording. Diana Krall's "Live in Paris" 45 rpm LP reproduces more of the venue's acoustics. It sounds more like a live recording in a concert hall than a studio recording. There is more smoothness and detail to high hats and cymbals. The bass has more depth and fullness to it.

With these findings I went ahead and ordered 6 new disks from Mad Scientist Audio. When those arrive I will try out placing them on power transformers, USB and interconnect cables.
 
Just got mine in, will likely drop them on the amp outputs tonight for a first listen. How much are the non-free discs?
 
For those with Bi-Wireable speakers, I have something else for you to try. I came across some documentation from Nordost on another site about Bi Wiring and Jumpers and 3 methods of wiring with single lead speaker cables.

One interesting thing they noted is that some speakers will sound better bi-wired because the provided cheap jumpers suck.

But aside from that, there are 3 ways to connect your single run of cables and jumpers and in most cases it will result in 3 different sounds.

1- You can connect both L/R to the upper taps on the speakers and allow the jumpers to drive the lower taps.

2- You can connect both to the Bass taps and allow the jumpers to drive the uppers.

3- Connect the Red lead (+) to the Lower (+) speaker connector and the (-) lead to the Upper (-) connector.

I am currently enjoying the effects of #3 along with the trial pucks on the (+) taps on the Amp after years of connecting my cables to the upper taps on the speakers and letting the jumpers drive the bass.

See if anything sounds different when you try this.

http://www.nordost.com/downloads/NorseJumperinstructions.pdf
 
Byron kindly alerted me to this stuff...I've got my share of the discs and the initial impression accords with his observation. But I may be dreaming things up. The difference is subtle. Or is it? I will have to give it some more rigorous testing with attentive listening.

CIMG5844_zpsc622db50.jpg


CIMG5845_zps7f23fc75.jpg
 
Naw, Mi Man! you're not crazy...or as you put it "dreaming things up"! These is some science to their madness. They work.
 
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