The Shun Mook Affair JS page 5

Super Passive Diamond Resonators
A fully tricked-out Shun Mook installation would include a few sets of the $400 Super Passive Diamond Resonators. These unique, beautiful counterfeet (sold in sets of three), fashioned from African Ebony, measure roughly 2 1/2" in diameter, stand almost 2" tall, and include an embedded, diamond-tipped steel shaft which protrudes about 1/4" from the bottom. The Resonators also are directional; the hammer-and-nail trick works just as well for marking them as it does for the Mpingos. They're usually placed in a triangle under front-end electronics, with two Resonators in front and one center-rear, with about 8" separating all three for proper balance. Even if you have a side-tray front-loader CD transport or player, or if the unit's transformer isn't located center-rear, triangulate the Resonators.

However, all rules are made to be broken---so if you have a top-loading CD transport (like the ever-liquid and seductive C.E.C. TL 1, which looks like a big, gold Japanese robot), you'll want to place one Resonator directly under the shaft of the turntable, and the other two under the rear corners, as you would with the Esoteric P2S. Dr. Peter Forsell, who does nothing like anyone else, locates the air-bearing CD turntable in the center of his amazing-looking and musical-sounding transport, so a standard two-in-front, one-in-rear will do ya. (Try to avoid the ubiquitous pants-pressing joke when regarding this uniquely thought out and unusually designed transport, okay?)

Once you've got the Resonators in position under the DIQ (Device In Question), you must orient them for directionality (a snap if you've given them a whack!). Here's how: Rotate the center-rear Resonator to 6 o'clock (SM point facing the front of the DIQ), and rotate the two front Resonators to 7 o'clock left and 5 o'clock right. As with the speakers, an inward rotation of the Resonators will give you a richer frequency response (more highs); an outward rotation will give you more bass. As with the Mpingos in the speakers' "control area," the position (as opposed to the rotation) of the Resonators under the DIQ makes a difference. If you move the front pair toward each other, you'll get more bass; if you move them apart by 1/4" or so, you'll get more highs.

I use the Super Passive Resonators under the CAT and get an excellent effect, but I find they don't bring out the best of the Jadis JP 80. I used them under the Forsell Air Bearing CD transport while it was mounted on a stiff but light metal stand with a thick plexiglass top-plate, but found the Resonators were too full in the bass with the Forsell sitting low on a maple butcherblock slab, directly on the four leveled sheet-metal screws in the floor. So the larger, economy-sized Goldmunds are currently serving to keep the bass in line (footnote 3). But I'm going to try the Resonators again and do a little tuning. Since they're so adjustable, I consider the Resonators advantageous for almost any application---tubed or solid-state, analog or digital. Their sound is your sound.

Rooting Around The Veldt
The very special Ebony Root Shun Mook Record Weight, which we've been using on our Forsell Air Force One Mk.II for some time now, is certainly the best record weight I've heard, bar none. It's costly at $895, but, as I recall, the out-of-production Goldmund Gold weight was $1500, so there's some precedent. Besides, I bet it isn't easy finding someone who'll willingly tramp across the African Veldt, nose to Terra Firma in search of ebony. In comparison to the heavy record weight supplied as standard with the Forsell turntable, the Shun Mook weight is more exciting, alive, open, and "bloomy" than the over-damping Forsell weight. It seems to allow images to form in a distinctly more palpable manner, and doesn't stop the formation of those all-important leading-edge transients. If you can swing the freight on this one, do it---it's the record weight of choice for any high-end 'table. Trust me, it's killer.

COMMENTS
jvjessen's picture

Edit: Stuff like this really should require a blind test with multiple staff to give a more credible review.

ishis's picture

It's fun reading these old letters written by foaming-at-the-mouth Nay-Sayers, 26 years later. Other manufacturers of accessories (vibration control, room-tuning discs, etc) that have been proven to work in the years that followed, have gained the respect of Audio Lovers everywhere. People have to be open-minded about new ideas and discoveries of things we were not aware-of before. If you 'dump' on things you do not understand, you just sound stupid later!

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