Synergistic Research ECT


Many years ago, I'm going to say about 20, a fellow named Michael Greene came out with a rack that purported to improve performance by clamping components between the shelves. Preposterous, I thought, and wrote a letter to the editor telling him so and asking to please not waste my valuable time with such nonsense. A letter I soon came to deeply regret. Because within a year I had heard for myself what vibration control can do. Today the value of vibration control is (or should be) clear to all audiophiles.

So that's Preface Part One: Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

Preface Part Two: Don't be so sure its not there just because you can't hear it. Learning to recognize and describe what you are hearing ain't necessarily easy. I used to drag my wife along to audition CD players, because I wasn't entirely sure myself if what I was hearing was there or in my head. When time after time she said, "yeah it sounds better, I can't say how or why but this one definitely sounds better" I knew it was for real. Now I'm able to hear in a flash what I used to agonize interminably over. But it did take time. And effort.

And so with that out of the way and everyone understanding this review is for those who either have the listening skills or at least would like to develop them, my recent experience with the Synergistic Research ECT.

Now according to Synergistic, and a ton of reviews, these things work pretty much everywhere. Well, to a guy like me, them's fightin' words! Nobody ever said anything about using them on a turntable motor. So that's right where the first one went. Right onto the top of my Teres Audio rim drive Verus motor. Just stuck the thing on there. Its not gonna work. No way it can work. On a motor? No way. Waste of time. Sat back down and... what the.... dang... seriously? Its on the bleedin' motor! How's that work?? BS! Witchcraft! Got up and removed it. Uh, no, bad idea. Put it back. Ahh. Much better.

With the ECT stuck on the motor everything in the soundstage took on a more palpable reality. There was a greater sense of depth, and air or space around each source. Not wider or higher, nothing moved around from where it had been. When I say greater depth, its not like anything moved closer or further away. The feeling of depth is hard to describe. A lot of it comes from a greater sense of being more immersed in the recording space. Bigger recording space, bigger room, greater depth. Something like that. Removed, the presentation went flat and grainy. Funny, never seemed there was any grain or etch before. One New York minute with ECT and remove them though, yeah, there's grain. Stick that thing back on there. Inner detail. Sense of ease. All better now.

That's just one. On the one place nobody said they would work. What about where they ARE supposed to work? I stuck one close to the base in front of the D101 power supply tube on my Melody Integrated. OMG, here we go again! Same thing. Here I also noticed improved dynamics and a lower noise floor. Heard this with the one on the motor too, and its hard to say which location had the greatest effect on which. I guess, to be really systematic about it, you could move one around trying a dozen different spots, looking for the biggest effect. Actually did that a long time ago with a Shakti Stone. Overpriced waste of money, that. Not so these. When something works this good, you just want more.

But first, I did of course try removing it. Just to be sure. Still hard to believe. Putting it back, this time I placed it behind the tube. Same result. What about transformers? The power transformer on the Melody is big and heavy, and encased in some sort of shiny black stuff, plastic or whatever I don't know. For sure there is no way a tiny little dot of aluminum (for the record, I have no clue what its made of) gonna have any effect on something that big and massive. Only, it did. Same. Exact. Results.

Crazy.

For those keeping score at home that's 3 ECT's deployed. They come 5 to a box. Only used about half, already happy. Which gets us to, what's it worth? My longstanding Gold Standard for tweaks is Black Diamond Racing Cones. At $20 each and needing 3 per component they coincidentally come in at the same $60 per ECT. Comparing apples to oranges I would say one ECT comes very close to three Cones. Not quite there. But close. Considering nothing I've ever heard comes close to BDR for the money that's pretty high praise indeed.
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Hey David, Frank, thanks to you guys, not only your comments here but I also read through a lot you had to say on prior threads. Very helpful. Anyway I now have ten HFTs coming.

Obviously this is something I'll be able to figure out myself but I'm wondering how well these will work if I have to stick them on something soft like my screen frame vs being more solidly attached directly on sheet rock wall? It seems like you and others are saying once you find the location with Blue Tack then its better if you glue it. I was already thinking of the outer frame of my screen, just because of where it is, its as close as I can get to where SR says to place these. But that frame is covered in this sort of fuzzy velour fabric (beyond black, reflects almost no light, you have to see it to believe it!) which Blue Tack sounds like a mess, because of which my best idea so far is stick a tack (wood behind fabric, tack will be firm and you'll never see the hole) then Blue Tack the HFT to the tack. Or am I overthinking it, and a bit of double-sided tape will work just as well? How sensitive are these to being solidly mounted?
Double sided 3-M tape is a good plan for fabric. You can evaluate if that is a good location. For long term placement I do like using a hot glue gun. I experience a further improvement when I more firmly afixx the HFT’s to a wall using the glue gun approach. I have them attached to the fabric headliner of my car using the glue gun approach❤️.
I still have my HFT's attached with BlueTac. Had one fall off the ceiling once though. That was interesting too. I could sense something was amiss, then discovered the one missing from the ceiling and found it laying on the carpet. Sensitive little buggers. *lol*
Frank:
Absolutely correct reaction when even just one HFT falls off a wall. After installing two Synergistic Research Blue Wall outlets yesterday, I sat down to listen. First impression was “something is not quite right”. I had bumped a HFT and it was now on the floor. Reattached and the sound stage was now again wonderful.
I do a HFT count after anytime the room is cleaned or my system just sounds OK.

David Pritchard
Hot glueing the HFT’s in place definitely increases their effectiveness compared to attaching with Blue Tac.

David Pritchard