Hello from a corn field in the sunny American Midwest!

[sluggish]

Hi everyone. I used to work at a Linn dealer years ago, but have since been living happily with a Marantz CD63, Cambridge A3i, and Spendor SP2s. But then the other day I found myself tying my speaker cables into reef knots; I thought I was past all that...http://s560.photobucket.com/albums/ss49/aos_images/smilies/17429.gif

[Barry]

Hello 'sluggish',

Welcome to AoS. Congratulations, you have avoided the 'welcome police', but we would still like to know of your tastes in music and what your first name is; we like to use first names here.


But then the other day I found myself tying my speaker cables into reef knots; I thought I was past all that...http://s560.photobucket.com/albums/s...lies/17429.gif

Oh dear - I hope this is not 'Beltism' rearing its head again!

Anyway welcome again to AoS.

Regards

[sluggish]

Hi, Barry, hello everyone!

My name is Randy, and I enjoy lots of different kinds of music, especially punk and alternative, and vintage soul and R&B. And I have to admit I'm no Beltist, but I'll grant to the true believers that at least it cheaper than magic alarm clocks and quantum-enhanced blocks of wood!

[Themis]

Hi Randy, welcome to AoS. :)

[Spectral Morn]

Hi Randy

Welcome to AOS

Enjoy the forum.


Regards D S D L

[sluggish]

Hi Neil, thanks!

[sluggish]

Hello Dimitri, I'm glad to be here.

[Barry]

Hi, Barry, hello everyone!

My name is Randy, and I enjoy lots of different kinds of music, especially punk and alternative, and vintage soul and R&B. And I have to admit I'm no Beltist, but I'll grant to the true believers that at least it cheaper than magic alarm clocks and quantum-enhanced blocks of wood!

No complaints there Randy. I assume that by R&B you are not refering to the modern usage :steam: (I really can't believe that this honourable appellation has been appropriated for what I can only describe as unbelievably bad music! :spew:)

Can you really hear the difference in tying a reef knot in your speaker cables? Can you hear the difference between a reef knot and a granny knot? ;)

Regards

[sluggish]

Yes, old school R&B all the way. And I'm not even sure what a reef knot even is -- over here Peter Belt was somebody we saw referred to occasionally in the UK h-ifi mags, but we were never really certain if it was a sincere thing or a Python-esque gag. I guess it was real, then?

[Barry]

Yes, old school R&B all the way. And I'm not even sure what a reef knot even is -- over here Peter Belt was somebody we saw referred to occasionally in the UK h-ifi mags, but we were never really certain if it was a sincere thing or a Python-esque gag. I guess it was real, then?

Oh yes, Peter Belt is a real person.

I first became aware of him through his very well received electrostatic headphone design. Later he started promoting lead (as in the metal, Pb) interconnects as having audible advantages. (Hmm! Could this be similar to Van den Hul's promotion of carbon interconnects?)

Peter Belt's latest thinking and philosophy is, and here I have to choose my words carefully, alternative, if not to say down right singular. I do believe that he genuinely can hear (or thinks he can hear) differences brought about by the ideas he promotes, but on the face of it, they are to me (a hardened scientist and rationalist) so 'off the wall' as to begger belief. But AoS is a subjectivist forum, so I will not come down too heavily against Peter Belt. Suffice it to say, that we recently had a (short lived) member who promoted many of the ideas of Peter Belt and suggested a test that members here could try. Without going into details, of those that tried out this test (myself included - and I did enter into the spirit of the endeavour) couldn't notice any difference. Interestingly there was one member who would not discuss his findings, but generally it was a null test.

In the '80s there were several notable contributors to the UK audio press who got caught up in a wave of 'Beltism' (especially of Peter Belt's de-ionised, de-polarised products) that for a short time lent a brief but certain amount of credence to the Beltist school of thinking, but things quickly went quiet and now I think that some of those disciples would now rather forget their momentary zeal.

Regards

[sluggish]

Wasn't it sort of New Age-y and all about "energies and vibrations," that kind of thing? Or was it more hifi-cum-Derrida hyper relativism? Sounds like it was probably fun though, in a self delusional kind of way.

[Barry]

Wasn't it sort of New Age-y and all about "energies and vibrations," that kind of thing? Or was it more hifi-cum-Derrida hyper relativism? Sounds like it was probably fun though, in a self delusional kind of way.

Yes, as far as understand Belt's thinking, one's environment is flooded with electromagnetic energy fields (true), both passive and man-made. In a similar manner to the theories of Chinese medicine, these energy fields need to be balanced and put in harmony. When applied to matters audio, Belt would claim that the brain then needs to do less work to let the music and the message come through.

How this is done is the cause of much of the incredulity I have with Peter Belt's theories. Basically, according to Belt, odd numbers are better than even. Thus he suggests pinning up the corner of one curtain hanging in your listening room (using a de-polarised safety pin), inserting sheets of paper that have an odd number of piercings or holes between the pages of books in the listening room, and even the wearing of odd socks by the listener.

Now of course proponents of Beltism would argue that if you haven't tried these ideas for yourself, then you have no right to comment. Well yes I can't argue with that - but really, wearing odd socks?

Google will provide you with web sites offering listening enhancing gadgets, based on Beltist ideas for a sum: special alarm clocks; little bags of pebbles; or a tape or CD containing 'positive' messages to create a permanent improvement of you audio system If I didn't find these sites so funny, I would become insensed by their sheer quack charlatanism.

Regards

[sluggish]

OK, so I looked some of this stuff up, and while it pretty wacky stuff ("devices" made out of aspirin tablets and little scraps of paper with pinpricks in them -- really?), I can imagine that investing an afternoon performing Beltist rites might make your hi-fi sound better in the same way spending an afternoon cleaning and waxing the car makes it "seem" to run better, even though you know the feeling is irrational. And rhetorically its not ll that much different from the Linny stuff, like the single speaker dem and the ability of some hi-fi to "communicate" better than others, and thus reduce the stress of listening (which was part of Linn sales training here as well). So while Beltism looks looney to me, I can see where it might work for some. Oh, and I figured out how to tie a ref know, but evens sounded better than odds to me, so I guess that make me a heretic to boot.