Compression is not always a bad thing. It's not like the audio engineer said to himself, "I'm going to see how bad I can make this sound." In most cases, I suspect, the audio engineer is working within the parameters and guidance of what the people who are paying him want to achieve.

If you are footing the bill for the production and your goal is to sell records, and your demographic research suggests that the music is going to be consumed by a particular age group listening to it via a particular set of environmental circumstances, like a car or ipod, for example, you might see where the use of excessive compression is desirable from the producers point of view. Heavy compression is probably desirable for music consumed by the average listener in a car to compensate for the lower fidelity and background noise.

The logic can be extended to compressing any aspect that you want to emphasize whether it be someone's vocals or electric guitar or whatever the producer thinks is what the consumer is going to focus on.

And, of course, compression is only one part of the reproduction considerations. Performances can be rated quite highly while sonics can be rated rather low. Any combination can touch the listener in a way that engages them or leaves them cold.

I would add, also, that liking the music and being engaged doesn't mean the recording is of good quality. The recording is what it is, whether it is enjoyed or not. That's totally up to the preferences of the listener.

Michael, Would be interesting to get your thoughts on the album and see what you are hearing. Maybe we can talk about the first track? After listening a few times, I think the reason this album is so hit and miss is it seems rather difficult to play back.

Here is what I mean.

Bass: the song actually has a surprising amount of detail in the lower registry which my main speakers weren’t able to portray on their own. You could tell it was there but really needed to switch on a sub to add the weight needed

Treble: I found the splash symbols a bit fatiguing without the benefit of the bass throughout the song. If I turned off the sub, the highs just became to direct and present for my liking. The track seemed to lose its bottom dimension which was very nice

Room: I think this hits on the above, but this track seems very susceptible to the playback room. This is also why I really want to hear Michaels take as it would be a great comparison. As many know I have gone down the traditional acoustic room setup (I would venture to guess if you called every panel maker they would recommend this setup (front boundary traps for the speaker, front acoustic panels for room/flutter echo, corner traps for the bass, and rear bass traps for bass buildup and again acoustic absorption from room echo). What I found with this setup was that Dylan’s voice was very raspy and natural. Never got to heavy but had a good weight to it. With that said, the cymbals seemed a bit relax and didn’t have a shine to them (potentially from the paneling). Taking it up to more of a reference volume (75db) the issue was less noticeable. So interesting point for comparison on the room and why I want to hear Michael’s description, the room also doubles as a home theater room so I dropped the screen down for the projector and listened again. The cymbals regained their shine at lower volumes, but Dylan’s voice lost some of its raspy sound and seemed to sound a bit brighter, hard to describe but it almost sounded more nasally. I’ve seen the effect of dropping the screen on other tracks but this was much more apparent than I’m used to seeing which is why I say this may be a difficult track to play back. I’m considering adding a membrane to the upper acoustic panels since the headphones seemed to have a bit more highs than when the screen was up, but also didn’t get as apparent and coloration shift as when the screen was down. Will also mentioned that with the screen down, the vocals were reinforced any Dylan didn’t settle into or blend with the soundstage as much. (he stood out a bit more).

Catch22 wrote,

"And, of course, compression is only one part of the reproduction considerations. Performances can be rated quite highly while sonics can be rated rather low. Any combination can touch the listener in a way that engages them or leaves them cold."

I should think a better way to state that sentiment might be: compression is only one audio characteristic of many, including but not limited to frequency response, tonality, resolution, bass performance, soundstage,separation of instruments, distortion, and musicality. What I found (with Modern Times) was that while there may be compression involved it is not a fatal flaw at all, in that the overall effect is one of dynamics and clarity along with many of the aforementioned sonic virtues.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

It's when compression is taken too far that the real damage to all those things your mention starts happening. Depending on the complexity of the music, that level is somewhat of a moving target. But, the moment the dynamic range starts being limited with compression, other aspects start being affected...to the point of clipping the waveform.

I'll give you an interesting and easy idea to consider trying, as I did this many years ago when the whole loudness war became an issue and people started actually publishing some of the measured results of recordings. Make a list of some of your favorite and often played recordings, and then make a list of some of the ones you rarely find yourself reaching for and that you realize you get listening fatigue rather quickly when you do listen to them.

Then compare your lists with the Loudness Wars data base and see if you notice anything in common.

The ultimate irony in all this, at least for the nutty audiophile crowd is that audiophiles howled at the poor quality of CDs when they first came out...only to realize many years later that the CD was fine, it was the gear that couldn't handle them well. Now...and this is delicious irony indeed, the old CDs are the ones that sound good and the new ones really do sound like crap and the gear is extremely capable! Hah!

Thanks Michael, after reading you post and re-reading mine I’m realizing how difficult it really is to describe the sound we are hearing. We have a lot of descriptive words but it’s hard to really get a sense of the sound.
The CD just came in the mail so I’ll try to put that on so I have a better reference since my initial listen was with an mp3. One question to you is in regards to the cymbals. You describe them as a cool sound. Would you be able to elaborate on this a bit since your description of the vocals seems to match mine being a chesty/throaty sound that is rather raspy. For the cymbals would you say they are a bit more relaxed on your system. For instance you know how some recordings, the cymbals can be a mixed a bit “hot” and almost be overbearing, and I didn’t get that sense from this recording. To be it sounded very mellow almost as if it was routed through a piece of analog gear (potentially tubes) on the recording end. The reason I ask, is I put on some music last night that has some bells / other HF instruments and the sounded very nice and didn’t seem mellowed out at all. I just got a real time room analyzer in that I’m playing around and notice that I do have a roll off in the +16 to 20K region in the room, hard to know if it’s the room or the equipment since the sound from the speakers is very similar to the beyerdyanmic T1’s. (with that said I am having some problems getting the software to work so not sure how much i trust the results until i can get the software to actually give me a frequency sweep and a decay curve, so far just getting error messages – the RTA was based on results from what I assume is white noise but not knowing all the calibrations it’s hard to know if it’s really working)

Should also mention that I’m quite happy with the sound, and in fact it’s the best my system has ever sounded, but just trying to see if it can’t get better. To give you a sense after listening, bringing the screen down did increase the HF intensity, but I also think it sounded less natural as I mentioned the vocal lost its throaty sound and shifted a to the thinner more nasally sound. Now I agree dropping a 100 inch screen between your speakers probably isn’t the best acoustic move for listening, but I am wondering about adding membranes to the top 4 panels, which would preserve more of the highs. I’m still questioning the move since things are sounding more right than wrong and I definitely don’t want the tonality to shift up like it did when I brought down the screen. Of course I’m also very hesitant to mess around with something that for lack of a better word “works” since I truly believe it’s one of the better sounding rooms I have heard not saying it couldn’t get better). Should add that the room is very problematic and I truly believe the last statement shouldn’t be true, so not sure if it’s a reflection of what you can do with some trial and error and room treatment (as it literally started as one of the worst sounding rooms I have ever heard – ear pricing highs and the worst room nodes I have ever heard) or a statement of the industry not paying attention to the rooms in general).

To through into the situation, I have been moving around for work every few years so what works in this room may not work in another, which makes me question if I would invest more money into tweaking the panels further. Michael I know you fundamentally disagree with removing sound, but digging a bit deeper into your post, you do seem to agree it needs to be employed in certain situations. Put another way the room is an amp and you need to tune that amp to play flat and decay sound in a uniform and equal manner. I’ve looked at your setups on your site (room tunes) and from what I know it don’t seem to radically different than a lot of acoustic treatments (not saying it’s not a unique setup) but don’t think we are saying the world is round vs the world is flat. I could be wrong on that statement and if I am please correct me.

Catch22 wrote:

It's when compression is taken too far that the real damage to all those things your mention starts happening. Depending on the complexity of the music, that level is somewhat of a moving target. But, the moment the dynamic range starts being limited with compression, other aspects start being affected...to the point of clipping the waveform.

I'll give you an interesting and easy idea to consider trying, as I did this many years ago when the whole loudness war became an issue and people started actually publishing some of the measured results of recordings. Make a list of some of your favorite and often played recordings, and then make a list of some of the ones you rarely find yourself reaching for and that you realize you get listening fatigue rather quickly when you do listen to them.

Then compare your lists with the Loudness Wars data base and see if you notice anything in common.

The ultimate irony in all this, at least for the nutty audiophile crowd is that audiophiles howled at the poor quality of CDs when they first came out...only to realize many years later that the CD was fine, it was the gear that couldn't handle them well. Now...and this is delicious irony indeed, the old CDs are the ones that sound good and the new ones really do sound like crap and the gear is extremely capable! Hah!

I suspect you might possibly have missed it when I opined that Modern Times might possibly be a great record, based on its power and clarity, especially of Dylan's voice but also all the guitar work, not to mention the performance and extra cool lyrics, and that (compression victim) Led Zeppelin's Mothership is one of my favorite recordings, pretty much for the same reasons. I think the whole idea of just how far you can go with all this tweaking and tuning stuff might possibly have escaped you. Keep your dial tuned to this station. You should maybe put your listening ears on as Judge Judy is fond of saying. Recall I already stated for the record (cough, cough) that I cannot listen to an untreated CD. They ALL suck. They ALL sound compressed. Hel-loo!

Geoff Kait
Machina Diabolical

Really, I do. Honest. The things that I find objectionable with Modern Times are the things that "aren't" in the recording to begin with. You can't tweak or tune them back into it. Those things no doubt existed at the time it was being created, and then they were obliterated out of the music to achieve some other goal. Perhaps the goal was to achieve the Dylan vocals that were rendered on the final CD and that meant all the other stuff had to be traded away into the black hole of compression?

Nobody is saying that you can't like a bad recording or that you can't tune a bad recording to like it even more. It just doesn't make a bad recording a good one.

None of this stuff we are talking about is new. This is how the whole loudness war issue started in the first place.

Michael,

I think you misinterpreted SG's use of "tired" in reference to this record. He was talking about the tiredness of having to keep hearing this type of sound over and over with every new record that is coming out hotter and hotter. At least that was my impression. I've not heard anyone take issue with Dylan's vocals on this record. It's quite possible the record was destroyed trying to enhance Dylan's vocals.

Assuming this topic is about headphones, given the title and the forum it's in, I don't see any real relevance to "the room is the system" or vice-versa. It's impossible to tune a headphone to be neutral and yet "right" or "enjoyable" for all recordings. I've been EQ'ing some premium headphones for decades, most recently the Beyer T1 (and previously the Senn HD800), and short of creating a DSP with EQ at a thousand frequency points as Dirac more-or-less does, what you get is always a compromise. You *can* affect resonances and other anomalies with EQ and other treatments, and you *can* improve soundstage to a point, but you either stop short because other parameters start to go the wrong way, or you don't stop and you end up with something that sounds artificial.

Recording experts and other experts have known for decades that the recording has to take headphones into account, either with binaural techniques or other recording magic, or you end up with "headphone sound" and there's nothing that will fix it and still retain the full musical experience.

Or is this just a "room and speaker" discussion that's in the wrong place?

I've ventured into tweaking only enough to realize my system (which is different from year to year) is sitting in a huge magnetic/electrical field, and the more isolation I can achieve the better (usually). But that's looking at the problem from a defensive standpoint. There is also the view from taking the offensive - generating more power as early on as you can. There's a recent Stereophile article that describes why playing records produces a more visceral sound - because the pickup generates its own current from the grooves whereas all other playback methods require the electronics to generate that first stage of power. I assumed the article referred to moving magnet pickups? Don't know. In the low-power headphone field, using batteries everywhere is advantageous in isolating from AC lines. Perhaps that could work for very efficient speakers with low-power amps. Certainly you can spend a fortune on isolating cables etc., but..... And using wood supports, cabinetry, circuit boards -- there's something interesting there. One mfr./designer who makes the $260k speakers featured recently fills part of his cabinets with "crushed" marble or some such material - presumably to deaden resonances. The long-term solution to damping resonances, whether physical or electrical, is to turn them into random noise more or less - that's what a resonance is, yes? The ultimate in non-randomness? Computer designs using most materials don't do that very well. I can't recommend anything specific, except that I think users should focus on that one thing - creating randomness everywhere outside of the signal path. Wood is natural if not too highly treated, and is more random than plastics and metals. I'm not even sure that crushed stone is a perfect solution, because even though that creates billions of randomly-facing small surfaces of hard material - it's still hard material, and it still reflects.

dalethorn wrote:

I've ventured into tweaking only enough to realize my system (which is different from year to year) is sitting in a huge magnetic/electrical field, and the more isolation I can achieve the better (usually). But that's looking at the problem from a defensive standpoint. There is also the view from taking the offensive - generating more power as early on as you can. There's a recent Stereophile article that describes why playing records produces a more visceral sound - because the pickup generates its own current from the grooves whereas all other playback methods require the electronics to generate that first stage of power. I assumed the article referred to moving magnet pickups? Don't know. In the low-power headphone field, using batteries everywhere is advantageous in isolating from AC lines. Perhaps that could work for very efficient speakers with low-power amps. Certainly you can spend a fortune on isolating cables etc., but..... And using wood supports, cabinetry, circuit boards -- there's something interesting there. One mfr./designer who makes the $260k speakers featured recently fills part of his cabinets with "crushed" marble or some such material - presumably to deaden resonances. The long-term solution to damping resonances, whether physical or electrical, is to turn them into random noise more or less - that's what a resonance is, yes? The ultimate in non-randomness? Computer designs using most materials don't do that very well. I can't recommend anything specific, except that I think users should focus on that one thing - creating randomness everywhere outside of the signal path. Wood is natural if not too highly treated, and is more random than plastics and metals. I'm not even sure that crushed stone is a perfect solution, because even though that creates billions of randomly-facing small surfaces of hard material - it's still hard material, and it still reflects.

I'm a big fan of damping and isolation and my first product was a sub Hertz iso stand. I also am rather fond of very hard materials like ceramics, but not because they're reflective but because they transfer or offload energy very efficiently. I am especially high on Gilden Sound's NASA grade ceramic cones, the ceramic material of which is the next hardest to diamond. I eschew rubbery materials with one exception, viscoelastic material, which I actually employ in one of my products a contrained layer damper. Isolating the sensitive electronics and mechanical bits like tonearms, and CD transports from structureborne vibration and from the vibration produced by the CD transport motor and transformer can be quite challenging. Isolating the circuit boards with all of the sensitive ICs and other little doodads on board is also worth pursuing. Nor am I enamored of magnetic fields, not the ones around the circuit breaker box, the ones in the vicinity of input or output transformers, or even the ones self induced by cables, power cords and interconnects.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
Advanced Audio Conceits

michael green wrote:

And on this I would be the opposite from dampening. We set free the energy then tune it in. This way you can choose at what point you want your control. This is why you see people who tune having far bigger soundstages. Take a look here and you'll see how much bigger http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

With a dampened system as far as in room goes you have to have a huge room to come close to a small room tuned (stage wise). With the headphone system if you want the stage to break way outside of the head you will need to set the energy free as well. When we did our studio tests in Nashville we built our own studio to do the tests with and also took our headphone setups to some of the other studios, and all the tests came out the same way. With dampening the stage closed in and with tuning they opened up.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Oh, I dunno, Michael, I'm kind of fond of setting the vibrations free, myself. The objective of the game, I should think, is not to store energy; anyone can over-dump, in the classic words of Acoustic Revive.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

michael green wrote:

Hi Geoff

Sorry, I wasn't picking this up from your posts. Acoustic Revive is a little too dampened for what we do. When we demoed them the music got pretty sucked up. We might be talking about different products though.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

My mistake, that's what conditioning can do. I was thinking of their smokey quartz crystals, the little tiny ones that go on the wall. I happen to be quite high on crystals in the sense they offload energy without over-dumping. Maybe you're thinking of a different product, I suspect they have quite a few, including the Schumann Frequency Generator, are you familiar?

There are so many new products out there it's getting difficult to keep up. Was it really ten years ago the tiny little bowl resonators came out? Now there's a regular renaissance in tweaks going on, from Synergistic Research, Audio Magic and others, Why just the other day I had a major breakthrough, myself.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

Well this has turned out more interesting than I imagined. I was under the impression that 'tuning' was all ad-hoc, but I'm sensing a program of some kind here - unless I misread. So without going back over the entire thread, is there a white paper that makes a formal presentation of your tuning methodologies, or a work-in-progress document? Gosh there are so many things going on now, with developments in small DACs and hires files, not to mention these acoustic issues that should have been settled decades ago. Didn't the AES or acoustic society solve all of the reflection-absorption-resonance issues long ago?

michael green wrote:

Hi Geoff, yes we tested the generator and weren't that crazy about them. Kinda funky. Their crystals didn't work well in the room we were in but that was in the tunable room with all those adjustments, and I know crystals can do cool things if someone takes enough time to play. But they can't just be thrown at a system or room. At my "92" Vegas show I used crystals the first day around the floor to offset the sound of the carpet. Problem though was the crystals were song sensitive and I had to set them in the bathroom and went with clay pots instead.

I do like natural materials though. Everything has it's place.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Yes, you're right about that, crystals need to be played with to find the right locations, they can be a boon or bust, but one thing that helps a lot is a test tone like say 315 Hz and a sound pressure level meter. This way the locations can be rather easily found. Just plopping some down in room corners is pretty much of a no brainer. I have a whole program for crystals, I am pretty sure I was the first to get into crystals in a big way audio wise. Brilliant Pebbles is a whole suite of crystals of different size packages, each size with different types of crystals and its own set of applications around the room. There is now even 10th anniversary models. Lol. Why there was time when I used to support these crystals on little NASA grade ceramic tripods, you would NOT believe the effect of isolating the crystals on dedicated little stands! You know, in terms of real dynamics and real soundstage. Plus there's a whole regimen we have for conditioning the crystals that is beyond scope of discussion. You'll pardon me for saying so, but judging from what you've mentioned about all of these various things you've tried, the Acoustic Revive quartz, the Schumann Frequency generator, the cork, I'm beginning to get the impression you don't have very good luck with tweaks. I know someone like that who keeps almost all of the tweaks he ever tried, over a great many years, in the closet. Have you ever tried playing around with mu metal? I dunno if you follow such things but one can't help notice all the buzz over High Fidelity's new cables and interconnects, you know, the ones that use mu metal for the CONDUCTORS.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
Advanced Audio Concepts

I grew up in a family of carpenters and cabinet makers. As a young man, I built houses with my uncle and grandpa and later worked in my dad's cabinet shop making raised panel doors and cabinets.

Although I have no experience using wood as tuning devices, I can certainly appreciate the various fiber structures of specific species of woood and also the extreme variance within a given species of wood. My daughter plays the viola in her school orchestra and so naturally, I was somewhat curious in the wood selection used by instrument makers. I found no surprise in learning that Carpathian maple was used for the body, but was a little surprised to find that wide grain spruce was used for the top. A combination of very densely structured grain and very soft and wide structure grain. Essentially, a combination of very hard and very soft wood.

That sorta makes me think that a combination of absorption and reflection or dispersion played a big part in making the sound and might play an equally big part in tuning it.

"Didn't the AES or acoustic society solve all of the reflection-absorption-resonance issues long ago?"

Gee, I wouldn't think so. They haven't come to grips with the whole idea that high end cables sound better than Monster Cable yet. Something to do with disobeying the laws of physics or something. Say, isn't the President of AES the guy that's cuckoo for cocoa puffs about controlled blind testing?

Geoff Kait
Machina Dramatic

geoffkait wrote:

"Didn't the AES or acoustic society solve all of the reflection-absorption-resonance issues long ago?"

Gee, I wouldn't think so. They haven't come to grips with the whole idea that high end cables sound better than Monster Cable yet. Something to do with disobeying the laws of physics or something. Say, isn't the President of AES the guy that's cuckoo for cocoa puffs about controlled blind testing?

Geoff Kait
Machina Dramatic

That Harman guy is interesting all right. He says that new products using his findings are on the way, but his K812 headphone ($1500) has not been well-received. Still, I hope he does produce a breakthrough somewhere.

Catch22 wrote:

I grew up in a family of carpenters and cabinet makers. As a young man, I built houses with my uncle and grandpa and later worked in my dad's cabinet shop making raised panel doors and cabinets.

Although I have no experience using wood as tuning devices, I can certainly appreciate the various fiber structures of specific species of woood and also the extreme variance within a given species of wood. My daughter plays the viola in her school orchestra and so naturally, I was somewhat curious in the wood selection used by instrument makers. I found no surprise in learning that Carpathian maple was used for the body, but was a little surprised to find that wide grain spruce was used for the top. A combination of very densely structured grain and very soft and wide structure grain. Essentially, a combination of very hard and very soft wood.

That sorta makes me think that a combination of absorption and reflection or dispersion played a big part in making the sound and might play an equally big part in tuning it.

Wood is certainly an interesting topic, no doubt about it. But wood is not new to audiophiles, and there are plenty of examples of various types of wood, not only for the DIY types but also for audiophiles. So, what audiophile products use wood and how are these products used in the system. A short list of audiophile products includes but is not limited to the notorious Mpingo disc, and the related products Spatial Control Kit (a bracket of some other type wood with three (count 'em) Mpingo discs on board as well as the Mpingo record weight. These products are claimed to work by sympathetic vibration which for those not familiar with the term in loves converting "harmful" mechanical vibrations to "beneficial" vibrations. Of some tangential interest is the observation that the little (1 1/2" diameter) Mpingo disc appears to have a small crystal of some sort embedded in it, at least that appears to be the case, I haven't actually opened one up myself due to the high cost of these little guys and the apparent shortage of Mpingo wood. It should be pointed out that as far as the Mpingo disc and the Spatial Control Kit are concerned, the best locations for them are where there are high sound pressure levels in the room AND/OR reflected acoustic waves OR standing waves. One thing I should mention is that there are quite a few applications for the Mpingo disc that I suspect sheds some light on how they work in some cases. These applications include on top of the (vibrating) CD transport compartment, on top of the (vibrating) speaker cabinet, and on top of the top plate of any isolation stand like the ones I make (mass on spring type). Next up, Shakti Hallographs, tall wooden structures that, not coincidentally, are placed where there are strong acoustic waves radiating from the speakers off to the sides of the speakers between the speakers and the side walls. These may or may not have ebony in them but appear to act somewhat like the ebony discs in terms of resonators/sympathetic vibrators, however you wish to say it.

Another interesting product is the Sugar Cube from the dude that brought you the first tiny little bowl resonators and which are rather tiny 3/4" cubes with 2 small holes drilled into the side facing the room when the adhesive backs cube is placed on a strategic location on the wall. Do these tiny wood cubes act like tiny Helmholtz resonators?

Cork has been mentioned recently OK, so mostly by me), a very powerful tool for controlling resonances on circuit boards and stops the capacitors from vibrating (weave the thin 1/16" strip of cork serpentine fashion through rows of caps, also have had very good luck using thin cork squares to control the resonance of the fins of heat sinks, and other applications almost too numerous to go into here. OK, what's next? Anybody?

Cheers,

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

Michael wrote,

"BTW Geoff I think you mention in a post that I didn't use springs. I meant to say something but forgot I think. I've always used springs. http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t74-mga-specialty-products ."

Well, good on ya, mate! I knew we would find things in common. Was it Toledo who opined my mass on spring systems were not light? :-). I don't recall ever accusing anyone of not having springs since I'm the only one I know who does. I am definitely the only audio manufacturer who sells them.

Springs systems are always moving. Hence the second word in my company name...we tune everything from atoms to The Earth.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

I have been making spring based isolation stands for 18 years, it's all I did audio wise for several years. That was before I got into crystals and things that go BUMP in the night like clocks and Intelligent Chips and Morphic message foils. The springs I use now are cryogenically treated so they don't ring as much and the wire I use for the springs is the same high carbon heat tempered wire they use in pianos. I now use very small springs, mini isolators, about one inch high compressed, which have a huge advantage over the larger springs I used for years in that they have much better lateral support so they can be placed directly under components and they can accommodate objects with high centers of mass. Shucks, they could probably use them in submarines. The other advantage of course is that even very heavy masses can be isolated from the effects of the Earth by employing more springs. Give me enough springs and I can isolate a Verdier Turntable or really big amps like the monster Classe flagship amp. These independent springs, the Mini Isolators, are also amenable to making complicated structures like Dual Layer platforms using two layers of springs and heavy masses. I built a bunch of these dual layer stands in the Golden Sound room at CES back in 2005, the same year the Intelligent Chip from China was released on unsuspecting attendees at the show. So what are the springs doing? They are tuning out the Earth's crust vibration the peak amplitude of which is waay down close to 0 Hz. Of course there are other thing too, traffic, subways, the ocean waves, etc.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

michael green wrote:

Geoff

I have a question for you. Why are you using and doing stuff that is pitch specific?

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

No problem, Did you have something in mind? I can think of a lot of things I do that involve some specific frequency. Like how I find sound pressure peaks in the room or the resonant frequency of my iso systems. Which reminds me, how do you use springs in your system? My springs are designed to yield a specific resonant frequency under load, that frequency being 3 Hz. When searching for sound pressure peaks in the room, you know, back when I had a speaker system, I used to use a test tone of 315 Hz as it was a convenient frequency to use. Is this what you mean by pitch specific? There are some other things I do that are wavelength or frequency specific but probably not what you are thinking of, but maybe. I also design resonantors with specific frequencies, from tiny bowl resonators with diameter of the bowl about 1" to 15 foot long folded Helmholtz resonantors that are tuned to about 75 Hz. You can, of course, tune Helmholtz resonantors to just about any frequency you wish.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
Advanced Audio Concepts

michael green wrote:

Hi Geoff

I don't want to go off into a bunch of stuff here, just want to be more clear.

When I get involved in cryo, I send it off to a lab in Bolder. I also will get instrument parts from time to time if someone is needing a pitch problem fixed, but these are usually for musical instruments. Every time I got into cryo is when someone wanted something fixed. When I am working with opening things up I do it with heat. The instrument companies I have worked with do the same thing. They don't treat the horn with cryo to open it, but to make it sound "one note" based. That's why when the air and vibrations pass through it the sound has more of a chance to be in tune with the other horns. I bring this up cause you mentioned piano strings and some do the same thing with them. But this locks them into a specific pitch and character for that range of cycles. First are we on the same page here?

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Of course swords are tempered using heat, making them stronger, more durable, and able to take a sharper edge. Cryoing them afterwards would probably have some value in terms of durability and strength, but after all of the heat cycles used in sword making not sure cryo would be of much value. I have been using cryo for certain things for 15 years maybe closer to twenty. For example, I used to cryo metals to make them stiffer and less prone to ringing, things like threaded rods, springs, nuts and washers, things I used in my super sensitive iso platform, but also CDs, Electron Tubes, cables, power cords, all of these things really for no other reason than to improve the sound. I also am rather adept at using the trusty home freezer for freezing things, which is a whole other topic. I have not cryo'd any musical instruments so cannot vouch for how it might affect the sound. I would predict that the sound of a brass instrument would be more open, with better voice and the fingering of the valves easier. Am I wrong about that? ;-)

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

I've been meaning to ask you about one of the items you carry. It's those quantum dot cards or whatever that credit card looking thing is that you use to treat discs. Once treated, is the treatment permanent to the CD or does it wear out and require retreating at some point? If so, about how often or within what kind of time frame?

michael green wrote:

Hi Geoff

I hope you don't feel I am downing the things you believe in, but when I have a different experence and when others do too I have to go with what my experience leads me to. You mentioned earlier that I have bad luck with tweaks. In reality I'm just extremely thorough, and I always back up my testing by having others doing their version of the same tests. Not saying you don't, just saying I do.

The question that I have about cryo treating the springs and stuff is this. I have found that the cryo treatment to shift the pitch upward as you can read so did the other testers and the King Rep, when I put cryo treated springs in my tuning systems everything goes brittle and bright, how do you keep this from happening?

When I use heat treated springs I get far more warmth and inner harmonic detail and bigger stage. So why do you see the cryo springs to be better than the heat treated ones?

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

"When I use heat treated springs I get far more warmth and inner harmonic detail and bigger stage. So why do you see the cryo springs to be better than the heat treated ones?"

That's a great question and the answer is: I don't know. The reason I say that is I have always used heat tempered springs as the baseline, and I have them fabricated and heat treated by the manufacturer according to my spec for the spring, in terms of size and spring rate. Then I send them to the cryo lab for vapor cryo. One thing you may or may not be aware of is that one must exercise due care when A/Bing cryo'd CDs, springs, musical instruments, etc. Because the cryo process - even though the labs perform very slow ramp down to temperature and long dwell time and slow ramp up to room temperature - thermal shock does come into play so that judgements as to the effects on the materials, even CDs and especially the effects on SOUND should be reserved for at least a WEEK after the items are returned from the cryo lab. This thermal shock makes the cryo'd thing sound a little funky, pinched, strange until it wears off. Then everything should open up and the tone should sound correct. I know some folks high up in the food chain who concluded cryo is a bad thing because they jumped to the conclusion too hastily.

I am also not sure I go along with the one guy's statement that cryo does not affect brass. Cryo affects almost all materials in a positive way, metals, plastics, signal conductors, dielectic materials, taking into account the temporary thermal shock, in terms of making the atoms and molecules more homogeneous, thus the material becomes stronger, more durable, with less stress and strain, like a super material, especially for things like trumpets and similar musical instruments that undergo a lot of bending and hammering, etc., things that are drawn, formed, pressed, stretched, etc. I am also just a little uncomfortable when people use the term PLACEBO in the context of the experiment as if that explains ANY positive results someone else has. It's quite possible the experiment that concluded cryo has no effect on the sound was simply not carried out properly for any number of reasons. Who knows? One thing is for sure, when it comes to sound and tweaks like cryogenic treatment you can always find positive and negative results of experiments and listening tests.

Did you know that almost all high end cable manufacturers employ cryo?

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

Catch22 wrote:

I've been meaning to ask you about one of the items you carry. It's those quantum dot cards or whatever that credit card looking thing is that you use to treat discs. Once treated, is the treatment permanent to the CD or does it wear out and require retreating at some point? If so, about how often or within what kind of time frame?

There used to be a product I carried, not designed, from the same dude that came up with the original Intelligent chip, called the Intelligent Box that employed an Intelligent Card that was about the size of a credit card. The card was actually the delivery device and contained a ultra thin layer of quantum dots between layers of the card. Thus when a corner of the card was cut off the layer of dots was exposed to the laser inside the Intelligent Box. The Intelligent Box was reviewed about 6 years ago by the two PhDs from Netherlands and their review can be found on 6 Moons at:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/machinadynamica2/ib.html

What I sell these days is the evolution of the Intelligent Box/ Intelligent Card - the Super Intelligent Chip, which I designed and which is fabricated with the help of a well known nanotechnology company, and which incorporates the latest quantum technology, light years ahead of the Original Intelligent Chip and Intelligent Card, is inserted into the player along with the disc to be treated. Then the disc is allowed to play for 2 seconds, which is just to confirm the laser came on, the chain reaction occurs in the blink of an eye, then the disc is PERMANENTLY upgraded, like a remastered disc. Each Super Intelligent Chip treats 14 discs. The Intelligent Card treated 100 discs for comparison, but the card was expensive and you had to buy the box which was also expensive. The reason these quantum dot thingies run out of steam and can't be used indefinitely is because the laser exposure changes the chemical make-up of the stuff inside the device so at some point it can't do its thing, as it were. The Super Intelligent Chip is a small silver disc about 1/2" diameter that is adhesive backed so it can be attached to the CD tray somewhere for example on the Mini Disc portion of the tray. The chip is light sensitive so when not in use it should always be stored in its foil wrapper.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
We do artificial atoms right

The link was interesting reading. I think you should "borrow" their term, "Photon Cannon."

Catch22 wrote:

The link was interesting reading. I think you should "borrow" their term, "Photon Cannon."

The original Photon Cannons article in 6 Moons concerns itself with the enigmatic Intelligent Chip and the Nespa. Here's the link:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/photoncannons/photoncannons.html

With respect to the two PhDs and their effort in producing the review I was amused by their assumption that the Quantum Dots that were contained in the Intelligent Card were located in the black dots on the front of the card, visible in the photos in the 6 Moons review of the Intelligent Box. Actually the black dots are just ordinary ink and are part of the company logo. :-). The quantum dots are actually located between the two layers that comprise the card, like a thin film of quantum dots. So, the Card acts like what we call an edge emitter.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
We do artificial atoms right

michael green wrote:

Hi Geoff

I didn't know that most of the cables were cryo treated. I've been using my own. Sometimes I will test others but they usually sound bright or strangly dull. A lot of cables to us sound artifical. I was asked to ask you what temp to set my cryo treatment at? I'm going to have a couple of CD's done.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

I think the labs have a pretty good idea how to set up the computer in terms of ramp down time, dwell time and ramp up time. There is also the consideration that you probably do not wish to expose anything to the pure nitrogen liquid since that is much colder than the vapor. Almost all cryo labs use these large cryo coolers that look like big ice chests that are constructed so that the items being cryo'd are only exposed to the nitrogen vapor. Jena Labs the ex NASA dude like yours truly does dip the item being cryo'd into the pure liquid nitrogen, which is somewhat colder than the vapor, for a short unspecified period of time at the end of the dwell cycle. Whether this step is good, bad or indifferent, is a little debatable, due to the potential for hurting the material, but I think the point is that you certainly don't want to dip whatever you are cryoing into the pure liquid nitrogen for very long, IF AT ALL. If I recall correctly the pure liquid nitrogen temperature is about -325 F and the nitrogen vapor temperature is -300 F. If you are going to do the cryo yourself I would use vapor only, at -300F but I think the critical part of the whole process is controlling the temperature, lowering the temperature VERY SLOWLY from room temperature to -300 F then keeping the temperature constant for say 12 hours or so then returning the thing to room temperature VERY SLOWLY. For those reasons cryo labs are highly recommended.

The reason why I say dipping the item being cryo'd into liquid nitrogen during the final stage of the dwell cycle (or at any time) is debatable, by the way, is because if anyone is going to nitpick about a temperature difference of 25 degrees, then you have to ask yourself IF the lowest possible temperature really is SUPERIOR and would be SUPERIOR FOR THE SOUND why hasn't some enterprising soul developed a cryo lab based on liquid hydrogen which in its liquid state is - 429 F ? Avoiding thermal shock, albeit temporary, which is the thing that makes the sound pinched, weird, unmusical, etc. Is one reason I use the freezer section of the fridge for home cryo. And yes I know the temperature in the freezer is not really cryo temperature so any audiophiles out there listening to this please don't send me any long explanations about how a home freezer isn't cold enough and is not permanent. Lol

I have my own cables cryo'd at Cryopro in Missouri. I also have all of my cables burned in on the AudioDharma Cable Cooker at Audio Excellence, I figure better safe than sorry.

Cheers,

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica