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RMAF 2016: Serious Stereo

amirm

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RayDunzl

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They heard you like Tape.
 

tomelex

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My crowd in the late seventies were putting concrete bricks on our speakers, never thought of putting weights on our electronics, but the speakers you could hear the difference and definite improvement, we already knew and were tinkering with audio components to change the sound very easily. We thumped on tubes with our fingernails to see how microphonic they were (not a good idea but tubes were cheap back then) and we surmised that part of the great sound of tubes were the feedback via soundwaves adding a kind of reverb, you could tell it was so by cranking up the amps and noticing it.
 

Sal1950

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I got a kick out of the use of bricks and how they were hanging the wires.
I'm not so sure about their idea to suspend the interconnects directly above the large power & output transformers, power caps and tubes? Not the routing I'd be looking for to minimize induced noise.
Do love the 1930's knobs and dials on the crude passive preamp. Maybe the dude in the picture had them saved from his WW II radio operator days. LOL

never thought of putting weights on our electronics, but the speakers you could hear the difference and definite improvement
Have you forgotten things like the VPI Magic Bricks or Shakti stones all the rage back in the 80s to mass damp components by setting them on top. They also absorbed some types of magic mojo stray energy fields or whatever.
They kind of reminds me of the Entreq grounding box, a wooden casket only that time VPI filled them with transformer laminates inside instead of dirt. For a different breed of vampires I guess. LOL
 

tomelex

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Vibrating electronic components and flexing printed circuit boards can cause minute distortions, but although putting some bricks on your gear if it is suceptable to vibrations (tube gear certainly is in some circumstances) can reduce them but once our passive speakers eat up the first watt in their crossovers you are very unlikely to actually hear any improvements brought forth.
 

fas42

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Yep, this is what I play around with too - if the gear has no issues in the way it's built then it should have zero effect; if it does cause audible changes, then, well, something is not working as well as it should - I thought they paid people to sort these things out, before selling end product to us ... ;).
 

RayDunzl

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Picture #7 - they're using my high-end bricks...

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fas42

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Dennis Fraker, Mr "Serious Stereo", has got his thinking cap on - I checked out some of his posts in a forum, and he appears to have a good handle on the "Everything Matters!" POV ... this is where I have got a lot of my ideas from: someone else got an inkling that some 'weird' thing mattered - and lo and behold, they're right !!
 

Cosmik

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Dennis Fraker, Mr "Serious Stereo", has got his thinking cap on - I checked out some of his posts in a forum, and he appears to have a good handle on the "Everything Matters!" POV ... this is where I have got a lot of my ideas from: someone else got an inkling that some 'weird' thing mattered - and lo and behold, they're right !!
Yes, the human mind is a very mysterious thing. If someone needs a talisman like a brick to put themselves into the frame of mind of 'hearing' something special, then so be it.
 

fas42

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Yes, the human mind is a very mysterious thing. If someone needs a talisman like a brick to put themselves into the frame of mind of 'hearing' something special, then so be it.
More likely, from experience he has found them to be of benefit, so uses them as a matter of course without rigorously testing in every situation. If one looks a little closer, and thinks a little harder, it starts to fall into place: a vibrating box holding the key electronics will unlikely do the quality any favours, so there is value in damping that tendency. The brick acts as a mass damper, with the energy transferred via a supporting pad having the right qualities - straight from mechanical engineering 101 ...
 

Cosmik

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More likely, from experience he has found them to be of benefit, so uses them as a matter of course without rigorously testing in every situation. If one looks a little closer, and thinks a little harder, it starts to fall into place: a vibrating box holding the key electronics will unlikely do the quality any favours, so there is value in damping that tendency. The brick acts as a mass damper, with the energy transferred via a supporting pad having the right qualities - straight from mechanical engineering 101 ...
... that the manufacturer somehow missed..? But a man with a brick fixed. Unlikely, I think!
 

fas42

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... that the manufacturer somehow missed..? But a man with a brick fixed. Unlikely, I think!
We are talking qualities in the sound that many people miss, or are uninterested in - having experimented on and off in these areas over the years, I tend to notice the value of doing this. Obviously, there should be zero impact from doing this sort of fiddling - but often that is not the case. Which is perhaps why some gear is considered more highly than others, for no obvious reasons.
 

Thomas savage

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I love the bricks! I have my balanced transformer on concrete blocks all glued together with expanding glue and a thick bamboo top that my transformer then sits on.. Screwed and glued into the bamboo it's self too!

Makes me feel all safe and warm inside knowing I have provided my beloved iso tx the foundation it deserves.

Not doing this would be plain bonkers..
 

Sal1950

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Yes, the human mind is a very mysterious thing. If someone needs a talisman like a brick to put themselves into the frame of mind of 'hearing' something special, then so be it.
Sometimes the brick would be better utilized by going upside a believers head. :eek:
 

tomelex

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