Do you believe in Magic?

Check out magic powers of ERS fabric layed on the dinner table, say magic word "FEED ME" and close your eyes for 1min. You should see the random meal dishes served.

There are also Harry Potter upgrades available to be able to specify menu and using magic words "FEED ME WITH dish1, dish2..."

THANKS.

Can you conjure an explanation for how this Magic Cloth works?

Hi Bryon,

Electromagnetic field theory has never been a strong point of mine, but I’ll give it a try.

The core of the material consists of interwoven strands of conductive material. Placing any conductive surface in the path of radiated electromagnetic energy will perturb and alter that electromagnetic field, to some degree.

I would draw a parallel with placing a physical object in an acoustic field. Some of the sound energy will reflect off of the object back toward the source. The path of some of the energy will also, to some degree, be diverted and spread around (“diffused”). Some minimal amount of that energy will also be absorbed and dissipated in the material, as a result of vibration that is induced. The degree to which those effects occur will depend in part on the relation between the size of the object and the wavelengths of the spectral components of the sound (wavelength being inversely proportional to frequency).

Similarly, placing a conductive surface in the path of radiated electromagnetic energy will result in some amount of the energy being reflected back toward the source. That is the underlying principle of radar. The path of some of the energy will also be altered and diffused. Some small degree of energy dissipation (“absorption”) will also result, related I believe to the displacement of charge carriers (e.g., electrons) along the conductive surface, that displacement being induced by the electromagnetic field.

I suspect that the point to the braided construction is mainly to provide flexibility and to thereby facilitate physical placement in various configurations.

It is probably also reasonable to view the material as functioning in a manner that is similar to a shield, except that the energy that strikes the material is not being shunted to a meaningful ground. Its path is being diverted instead, for the most part (I suspect that the diffusion and reflection effects are more significant than the absorption effect).

Or something like that :-)

In any event, their reference to reflection, diffusion, and absorption effects intuitively strikes me as not being the kind of implausible marketing pseudo-science that is often seen in tweak-related literature. Which is not to say that it will necessarily be beneficial in any given application.

Best,
--Al

Wow, Al. Stillpoints should hire you to write copy! :-)

Seriously, thank you for your thoughtful answer. You are great at putting things in terms that folks like me can understand. I know that your explanations are partly speculative, but acknowledging that, there is still something that puzzles me...

How is it that SO LITTLE conductive material can have a perceptible effect on sound quality? Am I wrong in my assumption that diffusion/reflection/absorption of EMI/RFI typically requires something more substantial?

bc

How is it that SO LITTLE conductive material can have a perceptible effect on sound quality? Am I wrong in my assumption that diffusion/reflection/absorption of EMI/RFI typically requires something more substantial?

Hi Bryon,

That's a good question, and I would think the answer is that it is only a small subset of the digital and analog circuit points in the components that need to be protected from the effects of rfi.

Assuming reasonably good design, the only digital circuit points that would be susceptible to rfi-related noise are those at which jitter might be an issue. That might be a small handful of circuit points, or even fewer. And only a few kinds of analog circuit points are likely to be susceptible, such as what are known as "summing junctions" that are within wideband feedback loops. So judicious placement of the material near those points, or near sources of rfi that could affect those points, would presumably be sufficient to make a difference.

I note that the Stillpoints web page on the ERS material states that "effectiveness will be maximized when placed internally near either EMI/RFI generating or EMI/RFI susceptible circuitry within the enclosure."

Best,

-- Al

That all makes sense, Al. Still, I feel like there's still a touch of Magic in it, in the sense I stated in the OP.

Among the stranger things commonly reported about ERS fabric is that using too much of it tends to diminish high frequencies, as Chad described in this thread. That is puzzling to me. Could it be that using too much ERS fabric somehow affects certain circuits in the way that high capacitance interconnects can act as a low pass filter?

And something else you said struck me:

...the only digital circuit points that would be susceptible to rfi-related noise are those at which jitter might be an issue.

Eureka! THAT explains my experience with ERS fabric. The two changes I reported in the OP were...

--the decay of notes
--instrument timbres

...both of which I associate with jitter. That association is a result of my experience adding a reclocker to my system. The raison d'être of the reclocker is to reduce jitter. Adding the reclocker provided me with an impression of what jitter sounds like, or more importantly, WHAT THE REDUCTION OF JITTER SOUNDS LIKE...

It sounds like what I heard after installing the ERS fabric.

This explanation is consistent with my placement of the fabric:

1. preamp power supply
2. reclocker (with an Audiocom Superclock 4)
3. preamp master clock (another Audiocom Superclock 4)

#2 and #3 are both digital circuits where the amount of jitter has a significant effect on sound quality. I think I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that the ERS fabric is helping to reduce jitter.

Thank you, Al, for leading me to this realization. I still don't know whether Magic exists, but I am more confident that the changes I heard exist in my listening room and not in my mind.

bc