Peter Belt / PWB headphones

[DSJR]

It was when Jimmy told me that PB reached out of his window and "polarised the moon" that I began to have serious doubts as to JMH's sanity...

Sorry, I was eighteen once and took in almost every new thing I was shown. Only later did I start to question the more outlandish things and yes, I still have CD's with green and black pen marks round the edges, others with bits of foil stuck on them and some magic safety pins with assorted washers and nuts on them hidden away somewhere.

One of the best "upgrades" I made to my Meridian 207 CD player/preamp when I had one was to make up some "shorting" phono-plugs with the wire some centimetres long and with a reef-knot in the middle. I used to routinely tie a reef knot in all our mains leads too. The shorting plugs plugged in to unused inputs on the Meridian did seem to improve things a tiny bit.

[Alex_UK]

Quite possibly more than you ever wanted to know about Foo...

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt

Thanks Nick, (I think!) - I was aware of "FUBAR" (FOOBAR) but didn't realise the connection. Best quote on that link...
"Many smoke but foo men chew"

[Soundhaspriority]

[QUOTE=Beechwoods;71558]

Excellent first post, Shippy! Welcome to The Art Of Sound. When you get the chance, it would be great if you could post up something of your own system and what you like, in the Welcome forum. See it as 'setting out your stall'

Peter Belt definitely polarises opinion, and it's interesting to hear from such a firm advocate of his methods and products. Aside from the 'mains plug notches' tweak, have you tried any of them first hand?

It's certainly good to hear he's still going!

Thanks, Beechwoods. To answer Alex, I did indeed come across the forum on a Google search. I was actually searching on Google images to see if I could find a photo of Peter Belt, to see what he looks like. Came up empty, but this thread popped up. And since it was filled with the usual misinformation I often see regarding Peter and his products, and since he isn't on the net to defend himself, and since the last post here wasn't that long ago (compare to some other threads here that have been revived), I felt it my duty to respond; and perhaps have at least a balanced outlook on the issue. Because otherwise, other Google searchers who may come across this thread, and who know little to nothing about PWB, will have no option but to blindly assume whatever disdainful tripe is said about him, with no counterpoint. Just because someone fits your stereotype of what you believe them to be, is no rational reason to condemn them.

I have tried many of Peter's tweaks first hand. In fact, I have a website that offers many of his tweaks for free, including some of my own, based on his principles (aka "Beltism"). One of which includes my version of the mains plug notch tweak (I couldn't remember how many notches or how they were supposed to go, neither could anyone IIRC, so I experimented with different configurations, and published the best method I could come up with at the time). The thing most people don't know about that tweak, as I discovered myself only recently, is that it improves the sound of a passive plug, very nearly as much as one connected to the mains supply. IOW, its mechanism has nothing to do with 'cleaning the plug', as one forumer here suggested, or the physical flow of electrons. Now how many people back in the 80's even experimented enough to discover that for themselves? I also found other "tweaks" about mains plugs that affect the sound in our environment, that even Peter Belt doesn't know about.

It's an undiscovered world, so the field is wide open. Not only is he still going and still developing unique new products, amazingly enough, but there are people like me experimenting with his principles, discovering new things, new professional audio reviewers discovering these products, and manufacturers using his princples on new products of their own. But so long as it remains an alternative science, and is viewed with the kind of hostile skepticism (if I can even call it "skepticism"..) as seen on audio chat boards, the benefits to be had with this unconventional approach will remain among a small, albeit avant garde, minority of the audiophile community. (Itself a small minority of the consumer audio market).

[Soundhaspriority]

It was when Jimmy told me that PB reached out of his window and "polarised the moon" that I began to have serious doubts as to JMH's sanity...

Not sure what this would have to do with Hughes sanity. I understand that Hughes has helped a lot of readers improve their sound with tweaks. So I guess "insanity", however it may be defined, is pretty beneficial to sound, then.

Sorry, I was eighteen once and took in almost every new thing I was shown. Only later did I start to question the more outlandish things and yes, I still have CD's with green and black pen marks round the edges, others with bits of foil stuck on them and some magic safety pins with assorted washers and nuts on them hidden away somewhere.

Apart from questioning them, did you listen to them without prejudice? I was 18 once too, except I'm as open minded now as I was then. But I didn't have the same listening skills then that I do now. So, without adequate listening skills, if I held a bias against these "outlandish" things, putting the two together, it would be no surprise if I couldn't hear any effect from them. Particularly since they rarely change the sound on a single basis, as much as a major component upgrade might. Fortunately, I experimented with ALL of the items you just mentioned, some years later, when I had acquired adequate listening skills; that could help me identify the nature of the changes they effected. As such, I am able to repeatedly identify the changes brought about by all those objects/ideas you mention (and no, there is nothing "magic" about the treated safety pins - and they are one of the only things that can improve live concert hall sound for the critical listener).

In the role of an audio consumer, as opposed to a researcher, it has never been my concern why something helps to improve sound (in whatever way it might); only that it does, and that it does so in a way that brings more music out of the sound (not as easy as it sounds). IOW, I've never allowed ideology (one way or the other) dictate the "art of my sound". When it comes to my audio, I am not influenced in the slightest by reviews, marketing, audio forum peers, hifi authorities, spec sheets, blind tests, James Randi, or the supremely silly idea that anything that is "scientific" and "factual" is already known and on record. Or if there is any chance that something that hasn't passed the validation of scientific scrutiny is legit, then its mechanism must make perfect "sense" to me, before I can ever hope to believe in it for myself. Maybe that's why I have had more success in vastly improving the sound of both my systems, and those of every other that I have used those "outlandish things" on. Those very things you have tucked away somewhere, as a reminder of the folly of your youth.

One of the best "upgrades" I made to my Meridian 207 CD player/preamp when I had one was to make up some "shorting" phono-plugs with the wire some centimetres long and with a reef-knot in the middle. I used to routinely tie a reef knot in all our mains leads too. The shorting plugs plugged in to unused inputs on the Meridian did seem to improve things a tiny bit.

Even so, did you ever ask yourself "why"? Why would a reef knot help? Did you ever try the shorting plugs on passive devices, not connected to your stereo? Because it'll yield the same improvement. So will the notches on AC plugs. I understand that many since the introduction of PWB's new principles wrote them off, even when they thought there might be something to it. The unconventional is too uncomfortable for many to deal with, because it means dealing with the scary unknown. So in all cases, people who had come into contact with and then rejected or abandoned the PWB tweaks, did so without ever taking the time and trouble to understand the phenomenon. Yet those same listeners pretend to champion science, when there is nothing "scientific" about having such dismissive attitudes to new ideas. That's the difference between them and Belt. Trying to go further in understanding how we are affected by sound is what caused Peter to veer course from his conventional training, and arrive at this new approach in audio.

When Tiefenbrun said that speakers were a problem in a listening room, because they were acting as passive radiators, and he introduced his single dem principle (which all Linn dealers had to follow), Peter Belt took the time and trouble to try to understand what Ivor was on about. Was it really the passive speakers that were the problem, moving in sympathy to the active ones? Or something else? When Peter removed each component of the loudspeaker and the sound of the active one had not degraded, until the magnet in the basket was removed, he discovered Ivor was on the right track, but wrong about the principle behind the phenomenon. It is the magnets themselves that are the problem. It is why that you can remove anything in your listening room that contains magnets (including video and audio tapes), and expect the sound to improve.

[aquapiranha]

You are 'soundhaspriority' and I claim my £5..


http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/s...ght=peter+belt


I am out of this one chaps. you simply cannot argue with deluded nut-jobs.

[Marco]

Hi Shippy,

Welcome to AoS

What's your (proper) first name and where are you from? As we're a community of real people here, and not merely a 'faceless' message board, we like to know a little about each other.

Have you created a thread in the Welcome area yet introducing yourself and your system? If not, please pop in there when you get a chance.

Cheers and enjoy!

Marco.

[Haselsh1]

You cynical bunch of buggers...!!! This is funny though.

[Alex_UK]

I spent half-an hour or so on Peter Belt's website this morning. This quote certainly looks interesting, but I am not sure what the improvements are supposed to be - power? economy? comfort? Maybe I could also get a flux capacitor - anyone got a spare? Not sure about putting a safety pin through my leather seats though - would leaving this tweak out make the rest of them pointless?

Motor Car treatments.

With the above packs (the Beginners Pack and the Intermediate Pack), you will have enough devices on hand to extend treatments to your car. The automobile is your own mini environment. You will have the general purpose Rainbow Foil and Cream-Electret, the Red 'x' Pen for signing your name or initials and for writing your own beneficial morphic messages.

The 12 mm diameter Spiratube is suitable not only for treating the water and central heating pipes in the home but a small section should be attached around the metal bars of the accelerator pedal and around any exposed metal supports under the car seats. If the metal supports under the car seats are too thick to treat with the 12 mm Spiratube or have an unusual shape (as in the case of our own car), then we would recommend attaching strips of any of the Foils to anywhere suitable on the metal supports.
The CCU Ring Tie on a safety pin can be experimented with by fastening it into the upholstery of the car seat.
All the various Foils can be used to treat the sound system of the car in exactly the same way you would use them in your home

Taken from http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/product/bpaip.html

[The Grand Wazoo]

Here's an account of my (limited) experience with the PWB products.
I read all the articles (mostly, but not exclusively written by Jimmy Hughes) in Hi-Fi Answers when they were published. I found it all a little strange & unbelievable, but was glad of the opportunity to try it out for myself when the little foils came free with one copy. I heard no difference at the time when I placed one on the labels of several LP's – I didn't own a CD player & wasn't interested in owning one at the time but the articles suggested the foils would work equally well on records as CD's. I say I heard no difference, but as I didn't have duplicate copies of any records I couldn't exactly conduct a particularly scientifically rigorous experiment – it was a case of only having one opportunity to tell whether there was a change to the sound (i.e. during the first play after the placing of the foil on the label).
Then there was an article which described things that could be done without the need for using any of the exotically priced products. This detailed the scoring of mains plugs, shorting plugs & the tying of knots in cables. I tried these out & thought I heard something with some of them, but couldn't really say it gave night and day improvements. I do remember moving a spare set of speakers and the TV out of the room & not noticing a thing while I was doing it (well, I wouldn't, would I? – being in a different room) but my wife said that, as I passed the threshold of the room each time I carried something out she noticed a difference – she described it as speeding up the tempo of the tune. Perhaps as a result of auto-suggestion, when I sat down & had a proper listen, I had to agree there was a slightly more refined sense of clarity & sense of rhythm. Whether PWB or Ivor's theory was right, I don't know – but there was an effect.
The next article detailing the free stuff talked about attaching knotted cables to water pipes & suchlike. JHM spoke of keeping the room tidy, making sure there were odd numbers of books, CD's & records on each shelf, placing a piece of paper under one leg of each chair & table in the room (to make it three legged) & the paper in the book trick. I don't think I tried too many of these techniques. There was also a tale of having one CD case that was treated & (I think) an improvement could apparently be had depending on whether it was one way up or the other, or sticking out from the others on the shelf.
Next thing I know, Paul Benson was writing in Hi-Fi Review about his conversion to the Belt cause – a Damascene journey of discovery. I only read this magazine because it used to make me laugh out loud at the ridiculous statements made in support of the 'approved and anointed' kit to the detriment of all else – In reality, I used to throw each magazine across the room in frustration at least once! Anyway, I remember thinking that Benson was perhaps one of the least likely people on the planet to be a convert to PWB's way of thinking.
I spent a long time in the PWB room at one of the shows. I don't know how many treatments were demonstrated to me during that time (there were a lot though, some of them demonstated a couple of times). After each treatment was conducted, PWB asked for a show of hands as to who had detected a change in sound.

• The audience changed throughout the time I was there, so I don't think there were stooges (or if there were, then there can't have been that many of them).
• Sometimes we were told that a change was to be made & none occurred.
• When a genuine change was made there were always a number of people who raised their hands.
• When no change was made a very few people sometimes raised their hands.
• People who raised their hands were not always the same people.
• The 'Yes people' only twice outnumbered the 'No people', but on many occasions it was approximately 50:50.
• Many people walked out muttering less than neighbourly sentiments, but they were usually those that didn't actually listen to the demo for long.
• Paul Benson was perched on a table at the side of the room and was obviously using the Linn dealer tactic of nodding his head & tapping his feet at the appropriate times. He also nodded his head vigorously & was the first person to raise his hand every time we were expected to hear a change.

Did I hear any changes to the sound?
Well, yes, I did hear some but not many. However, those that I did hear were always for the better.

What's my assessment?
Well, actually, I still don't know what to think. I never paid any cash for the products & put it all down as an interesting diversion.

HFN did some articles & experiments that I seem to remember were fairly inconclusive.

I don't dismiss it as rubbish, though & I don't think I'm deluded, or that it was a con-trick. That day at the show, I heard enough changes & saw enough people who said they heard a difference to make me believe that something was going on. I'm a strong believer in the incompleteness of science – just because we don't understand something, can't measure it or can't fit it into our current definition of scientific knowledge doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We should welcome challenges to our scientific thinking. If such challenges were never to happen then science would never have been advanced – ever.

[Marco]

You are 'soundhaspriority' and I claim my £5..


http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/s...ght=peter+belt


I am out of this one chaps. you simply cannot argue with deluded nut-jobs.

Hi Steve,

Interesting. Do you know what he was banned for on pfm?

Regardless though, he isn't banned here, so let's find out what he's about before we possibly jump to the wrong conclusions

Marco.

P.S We'll need to arrange another visit for you so you can hear the Tannoys (and the Croft) now they've been fully modified