Strongest placebo ever

[idc]

There are certain hifi products where they may be something in them which causes people to experience a difference in the overall sound.

Crystals is not one of them.......unless they are of the type that are used to keep time due to their highly accurate, regulated vibrations..... but does that mean crystals can suffer from jitter...have I just accidentally created more audiophile psuedoscience........ bugger!

[Effem]

Our house is brim full of crystals, what with the missus being a crystal healer anawl that.

Have been racking my brain how the magic carpet man has " installed them on the AC power cables and interconnects, etc." and in my mind's I eye I see great big lumps sellotaped onto to all the wiring. Ooer missus.

If this man could enlighten us how he did it I am prepared to give it a lash

[technobear]

I agree with Frank. The method of installation needs to be made crystal clear

As to how it works, I expect the explanation will have many facets

[nat8808]

to those who say it can't effect the sound ..prove it !

Proving a negative is impossible - and used by people with no proof for the positive as evidence.

You need to prove the positive, i.e. that it DOES effect the sound.

MagicCarpetRide has proven it to himself.. which is of course no real proof to others. Need to prove it to yourself.

I've no idea either way.. and don't think I'll bother to find out just yet, not before I'm done with box swapping anyway.

[nat8808]

Our house is brim full of crystals, what with the missus being a crystal healer anawl that.

Have been racking my brain how the magic carpet man has " installed them on the AC power cables and interconnects, etc." and in my mind's I eye I see great big lumps sellotaped onto to all the wiring. Ooer missus.

If this man could enlighten us how he did it I am prepared to give it a lash

That's probably it, lashed to the cables.

I've seen little (expensive) bags of stones sold as similar things, tied to the cable. Of course it was part of a derisory thread of such things and everyone was lol-ing all over the place...

[nat8808]

I've seen photos where people had glues rose quartz crystals inside their amps for supposed benefits. It looks like madness to me but I don't like to completely discount things as nonsense until I've tried them so who knows, maybe this works.

For people that don't know, a piezoelectric crystal is a crystal that when physically "excited" (hit with something) produces a voltages. Or when a voltage is applied to them they vibrate. They are used in various applications from cigarette lighters to cooling/heating plates.

So it appears to me that if these rose quartz crystals are effecting the audio signals though a piezoelectric effect, then it should either be that the presence of a nearby electrical signal is causing the crystal to vibrate, or the presence of vibrations in the room/system are causing the crystal to produce a voltage. The latter seems very unlikely to me as I don't think the vibrations in the room would be strong enough to cause this effect but I'm no expert so who knows.

If the effect is being caused by a piezoelectric effect then it would seem logical that the same effect or an even more pronounced one could be gained from the application of some proper piezoelectric crystals like those found in piezoelectric transducers, peltier coolers or in some fag lighters.

I personally don't have time to strap fag lighters to my hi-fi so I'll leave that to someone else.

Joking aside, that's about all I can hypothesise on the subject but I'd be interested to hear other peoples thoughts or experiences.

That would be an interesting concept - something that kind of absorbed electro-magnetic fields of wires by either turning the electro-magnetic energy into kinetic vibration or perhaps resonating electro-magnetically with the field but with enough time-lag to pull any smearing further back in the time domain so that it didn't confuse the brain so much.. if you see what I mean (probably talking nonsense). Would that be similar to a ferrous ring too?

See, once the idea becomes more tangible, I become more interested..

[magiccarpetride]

Our house is brim full of crystals, what with the missus being a crystal healer anawl that.

Have been racking my brain how the magic carpet man has " installed them on the AC power cables and interconnects, etc." and in my mind's I eye I see great big lumps sellotaped onto to all the wiring. Ooer missus.

If this man could enlighten us how he did it I am prepared to give it a lash

We're now entering the voodoo/witchcraft territory. Sort of like audiophile-grade snow (including the yellow audiophile-grade snow). Snow makes everything sound better, because it's a soft cover on the ground, dampening many unwanted incendiary noises, such as the car alarms going off out on the street.

With crystals, there's more than one school of thought. In general, the near-consensus seems to be that crystals should be grouped using lumps varying in size. Furthermore, one theory insists that such grouping should be lubricated -- some people even use machine oil for that

The rationale is that, as the system is playing and vibrating and RFI is happening, crystals vibrate too, and thus generate tincy wincy tiny little piezo electrical impulses. Somehow (don't ask me how), these are beneficial for reducing the interferences in the electrical signal, or something.

Usually people bundle their crystals in little plastic bags (Ziplock?) and then affix those to various parts of electronic equipment. I was told that the most bang for the buck is to be had at the point where power cables attach to the components. Also, any other points of contact such as where the interconnects attach to the output or to the input sockets, etc.

Finally, complete crackpot nuts tend to open their components and install crystals inside, most likely place would be the transformers in the power amp, etc.

You can go mental about these things, but the bottom line is to strictly verify any changes with your own ears. You will find that some (most?) changes make no audible difference whatsoever, some changes on the other hand may make the sound appear more liquid, more pleasing to the ear.

In case you're a complete skeptic (which we all are), there is a relatively easy test to convince you that something might actually be going on there. That test is called overdoing it. Yes, it is possible to overdo the crystals and to get to the point where you actually royally fuck up the sound. Backing out of that fuckup is easy, just keep removing the darn crystals until your ears feel a much needed relief.

Happy crystallization!

[jostber]

This one has it all:



http://www.wirefresh.com/harman-kard...m-hits-the-uk/

[Marco]

Hey, Alex, good to see you again, dude! Where ya been hiding?

Marco.

[aquapiranha]

Oh ffs.