Talk but not walk?

@grannyring 

However, why continue to derail the thread and waste our precious time as some of us would like to expand our knowledge here.

I believe you may have lost some perspective on the subject of this thread, grannyring.

Look at Michael's OP.   He did not start a thread along the lines of "ask me about my tuning methods" or "let's discuss tweaks and tuning.'

No.

It was a thread explicitly devoted to castigating certain audiophiles.  From the thread title, through the body of the text, to the last line challenging these people - "why fake it?" - it was a call out, to talk about fakers and a challenge to those "fakers."  

How could you reasonably expect this thread would not breed any acrimony, given the negative assessment of other people contained in the OP?

Anyone showing up to challenge Michael's claim IS keeping the thread on topic.  I've been asking Michael for examples to support his claim.  I've been asking if I fit the profile he's talking about.  I've been asking questions about the empiricism and science Michael appealed to in his OP.  I don't think anyone has been MORE on topic of the OP than I have.

Turning the thread in to a Michael Green tuning techniques thread would be making it off topic - he could start any other thread about that specifically.  And if that was in fact the motivation for Michael to make this thread, to evangelize again about his tuning methods, then the thread title and OP would have been deceptive on his part - a bait and switch, "trolling" with a negative post about other people in order to gain eyes to turn the subject to his tuning methods again.

I've at least done Michael the respect of trying to keep this on the topic he started, if that in fact was his motivation for this topic.

Constantly trying to put a negative spin on someone’s motive and methods is just not what these threads are meant for.

Again...did you even read Michael's OP?

He STARTED this thread via a NEGATIVE assessment of other people's motives and methods!   If someone isn't trying out his methods, and is calling upon other experience or resources other than simply trying his tweaks, then he's calling such people fakes.

But no one has to be a fake to voice reasonable skepticism about a claim.

It's fascinating that you so easily see negativity and suspect motivations in others, but everything MG posts is all roses and sunshine.

@theaudiotweak

The following applies to all material surfaces especially 2 or more
dissimilar materials of varied shapes. Adjusting the surface tension
changes the surface shear speed of the materials ..becoming either
separate,combined or somewhere in between. The result is more or less
interfering energy being transferred back and forth between these
surfaces in intimate contact or from the compressive world onto a
solid then becoming shear. So in many examples of using gucci caps
tied down to horrid materials made of sawdust and glue you will have
the sound of that cap altered for sure by the larger mass of the
material it is forced upon. The size and mass of the same substrate
will also give you a different result.The tie down material will also
become part of the sound of the cap. As we know vibration is all
around and cannot be isolated. We can make vibration a useful tool and
most pleasant. Just need to know the why and how..Tom ..
Star Sound Technologies and Tone Acoustics

Even if I take your explanation of resonance at face value...your follow up claims about the audibility of untied caps is very wanting. You make rather large, unsubstantiated leaps of logic.

The question remains: how much vibration is *actually* occurring in any component in question, or in the case of any cap, and then; does it have *audible* consequences.

Your whole explanation just begs the question by presuming what I’ve been asking you to argue for.

A common theme I find in the audiophile tweak world is that the tweaks - be they high end AC cables or whatever - come with a bunch of technospeak giving the air of technical respectability. But suddenly the technical claims are dropped when it actually comes to demonstrating the claims.

So for instance, there will be claims by a boutique AC cable manufacture based on technical claims about impedance, various types of noise to reduce, etc. Now, these are not phenomena they are pulling out of a hat. These things are measurable; that’s how the phenomena was detected and understood in the first place.

And then they talk about how their product addresses the technical issues (e.g. maintaining desirable impedance, rejecting undesirable noise etc). So it’s a technical hypothesis. But in high end audio products, it’s not JUST a hypothesis that the phenomena in question exists; it’s the hypothesis that the tweak, or product, under consideration produces AUDIBLE CHANGES in the output of a stereo system.

And the funny thing is, after all the techno speak by the manufacturer when you ask "Ok, can you show us measurements indicating the audio signal output has been altered in any way by the introduction of your product?" The answer typically boils down to "Why would we do that?"

It’s bizarre.

The claims are technical RIGHT UP to the point where the hypothesis should be validated...and then suddenly technical/engineering problems that can be measured...and then claimed to be fixed by the product...suddenly can't be measured, or don't need measured validation!   Such considerations suddenly disappear and it’s "don’t you hear the difference??"

This is the Big Red Flag in high end audio claims. Appeal to science and engineering all the way up to the point where you ask for measured results, and then suddenly it’s handed off to marketing.

So...bringing these concerns back to your explanation....

My questions would be:

In the case of an average electronic component - say a CD player sitting in my rack or whatever - how much vibration would the unit actually be undergoing? Have you measured this? I can tell you that, at least with my ipad seismometer app (obviously more crude than a professional device) it can easily measure vibration levels I can’t even feel. It registers no detectable vibration when simply sat on any of my components. Zero. And that’s a device *looking* to register vibration.

So right off the bat, this implies that components such as those in my house are, if they are undergoing any vibration, it is very, very low (or below the threshold of what I can feel and measure with my app).

Why should I expect such a low level of vibration to excite resonances, or to cause such havoc on capacitor tied to a circuit board, that this would alter the signal to an audible degree? (I have other reasons to be skeptical of your claims, which I’ll leave out for now).


Do you have measurements showing the average ambient vibration on a component? Do you have measurements showing this ambient vibration actually alters the values or performance of a tied vs untied cap? Those are pretty obvious questions, right?

Then do you have measurements from any output of an audio device that uses capacitors that indicates the audio signal would have changed? How did you measure, how did you test?

If only via listening tests, did you account for listener bias?

I ended my work day early with the hopes that I could experience what I did last night. Sure enough when I approached the door I could hear "Faith" playing on the inside. One thing was different when I walked inside from last night. There are three boxes at the entrance to MG's place. "what are those" Michael explained that every year or two he does a series of listening reviews on different groups of products. He gave me a list of last years components and this year he has switched from products like Accuphase and Bricasti to old school receivers and his Magnavox special CDP. I need to get back to listening.

This is a different hobby! How to describe the sound stage I've just heard is going to take some thinking through. One thing absolutely positively for sure I can tell you is I'm not going back.

mapman,
prof

Facts can be very boring. That’s a fact.

That's a pseudo fact. You guys really have not learned much in this thread.