[Ghoostknight]

1. i might try to place some light layer of wool on the soldered connector, just to see whether i can negate some effects that the solder might potentially have
2. see whether non conducting epoxid makes a difference to the (lightly) uv glue conducting as google says, tho i measured the uv glue and cant measure any resistance... measuring over 1cm of my skin gives 3 megaOhm, i would guess this is good enough to assume the uv glue (i have) is not conducting and the effect i heared was purely because the crystals got stuck into something solid is my guess here
3. see wether encapsulating the crystals in some wool (for the most part) actually isolating the crystals electrically from ground somewhat completely makes a difference, tho i have to probably sieve out smaller crystals here to keep it consistent

4. trying graphite in the mix, i might do a test still with some metal pieces like cut up wire but i think i will end up with the much more consistent graphite, tho i have to see whether i need to compact things to make the graphite actually conducting to form a whole ground grid around the crystals


these points would be kinda the last pieces to settle on some overall construction design to actually build some more consistent/useful prototypes, something like the large prehnite crystal embedded inside the glue i dont even wanna give away

i will buy some more things soon and report back in a few days

 

[Ghoostknight]

i had a thought about the prototypes im building...

so far i noticed construction gives you some benefits but the "overall effect" stays more or less the same when i compare different tourmaline filled caps... so while these are not "final versions" i would still like to 1. get rid of them 2. get people a cheap opportunity to test "whether these do anything"

So when you are interested in testing these, hit me a PM, i will offer one pair for 10 euro + shipping (im located in germany)

 

[Ghoostknight]

So... i made some kind of extensive comparison between two rca caps constructed the same way with:
1. 50% graphite 50% tourmaline
2. 100% tourmaline

i probably switched back and forth around 10 times with different songs.... imo the most obvious thing is that the amount of tourmaline seems to determine the strength of the effect ... i dont really think the graphite does much here on its own (beside taking volume) since the effect the rca cap does is pretty much cut in half with the graphite mix

i also measured resistance on a "heap" of graphite on a paper... i can actually measure around 20-60 kOhm trough the graphite powder, i guess im right with my theory that i would need "compact" the graphite mix to get resistance down
i also measured shungite powder (where i know the stones the powder comes from, they measure around 3ohm) and cant measure anything here, so clearly graphite is better here

-------------------------

@cdacosta said not long ago the effect of the tourmaline chinch caps remind him of "oversaturation" as advertised by entreq... imo this test here clearly showed me that there is probably no such thing as oversaturation BUT you either like the effect or you dont... and i see how people would say tourmaline sounds "bassheavy/dark" and the 50%graphite 50% tourmaline mix would help here to get a bit away from this "bassheavy-ness"

Now... what do i do?

1. making rca caps with the strongest effect and you basicly just decide on different crystals to get the soundsignature you want (so far i can convieniently say tourmaline boosts specially bass and prehnite somewhat emphasizes mids, these are not the only things but the most obvious imo), i probably also have to test how different rca caps types "stack up", for example it could be possible that the bass heavyness of one 100% tourmaline rca cap could be changed by just placing a second different crystal type along it... i have to test how the effects really add up here

2. making mixes that basicly reduces the tourmaline effect itself to make the rca caps essentially less impactful but one would be able to more "finetune" the system

i could actually instead of using graphite to take up volume just try to use some more wool (atleast a comparison with 50% wool and 50% tourmaline would be interesting to double check my theory about graphite in the mix above...) and maybe find some good "midpoint" where the effect is still fairly audible but not "overwhelming" with just one pair of rca caps

-------------------------

Next tests are probably
- compare 50%wool/50%tourmaline to 50%graphite/50%tourmaline
- make a rca cap where i completely isolate the tourmaline from ground ( i probably make some nice package inside heatshrink wrap), just to see what the audible effect of this is

 

[Ghoostknight]

just had a thought about prehnite vs tourmaline again.... i would say its harder to overdo prehnite... i wonder wether this comes from the fact that tourmaline is the stronger piezoelectric crystal

.... i will test 50% tourmaline vs 100% prehnite to see whether i can compensate for the "weaker" prehnite, also rochelle salt should be a good comparison since its another stronger piezoelectric crystal i think

 

[Ghoostknight]

i made a 50% wool 50% tourmaline pair

its definitely not exactly the same as the 50% graphite 50% tourmaline mix... but i would say all of these are "variations" of kinda the same thing (with tourmaline) thats also why i think the prototypes are still worth testing

maybe i messed up the ratio a bit, i kinda had to guess when i filled half the cap with wool, but the 50%wool 50% tourmaline seems to sit in between 100% tourmaline and 50% graphite/ 50% tourmaline in terms of strength of the effect
im wondering whether the conductive graphite grid kinda "dampens" the piezoelectric effect

the 50% wool/50% tourmaline mix is also still "stronger" in effect than the prehnite caps i have, tho i account this partially to the grain size (its 0,5mm (tourmaline) vs 0.5mm-3mm (prehnite)) i have to see and compare once the 0,5mm - 3mm tourmaline arrive

My gut kinda tells me i should just go with wool, its somewhat more consistent to apply, the strength of the effect seems to be mainly determined by the amount and grainsize of the crystal
and im also listening to the 50% wool 50% tourmaline mix for a while now, i kinda start to dig it compared to the 100% tourmaline plugs i used before, i didnt not really get that feeling yesterday with the graphite mix, i might compare tomorrow or so again

 

[Ghoostknight]

btw i use this stuff: https://www.ebay.de/itm/253344700340?var=552504301041 in 5mm thickness, its easy to work with

i also ordered a 8mm punch tool to get the pieces more consistent but it hasnt arrived yet

 

[Ghoostknight]

i will do some more comparisons the next days as long i wait for further materials between
my first prototype (the ground rod one) vs
50% graphite/50% tourmaline vs
50% wool / 50% tourmaline

to confirm my preference for the wool one

then it might be later on just a matter of tweaking the wool amount for tourmaline vs for example prehnite to get the effect to kinda the same strengthness, to make comparisons maybe more consistent here, then i only have to play around with crystal size and wool amount to make different crystal types more comparable to eachother

 

[Ghoostknight]

Today the first order from India arrived...

50g Citrine 1-3mm
50g Smoky Quartz 0,5mm-2mm
50g Pink Tourmaline 1-3mm
100g African Tourmaline 1-3mm
50g Black Tourmaline Dust

---------------

Listening Expierence:

like i noticed in my tests a few years ago (and its "common knowledge" in the german forums) .... the smaller the particle size the more effective its

comparison between tourmaline sorts:
IMO the "base effect" stays more or less the same, tho i got a feeling that pink tourmaline is a bit "leaner"
but it was pretty interesting to see that 50g black tourmaline dust pretty much outperform the 100g african tourmaline 1-3mm (tho it doesnt outperform it to a huge degree, but a bit)

Smoky Quartz vs Citrine was also quite interesting
somehow the Citrine is the first quartz variant where i dont notice a "edge" in the music (it kinda reminds me of low level distortion), this edge was specially apparent with the smoky quartz, but there is a chance that this is either fake citrine (again) but the seller seemed pretty legit, or that the particle size matters (0,5mm-2mm vs 1-3mm) but i also got some 0.X-3mm clear quartz (where i notice the edge), it might be worth trying to sieve everything under 1mm out, i still got some 1mm stainless steel fly-net leftovers i can use here, i will do this later today

 

[Ghoostknight]

So far i was only able to detect 3 different kind of effects to different degrees depending on crystal size/construction

these are overall:
-prehnite
-tourmaline variants
-quartz variants

Now... you can definitely change the effect to some degree (and i think i found a good construction way for the chinch caps so far) but the effect of the crystals is imo more or less the same and seems to be mainly determined by the "crystal family" of the type of crystal you use IME

i also ordered rochelle salt which is on its way from bulgaria, this might be the 4th type of crystal

 

[Ghoostknight]

Nice! i found the last puzzlepiece to make quartz (imo) bearable and maybe a real alternative to tourmaline and prehnite.... dont use crystal sizes under 1mm, no good imo

just to be clear... i had around 100g clear quartz and i sieved everything under 1mm out.... i had two packs roughly the same size in the end and compared them.... the edgy sound i hear with quartz definitely comes from small crystal sizes, nice, i will repeat the same process now with the smoky quartz pack, compare and see what i get, my suspicion is there will be not much difference anymore between citrine/clear quartz/smoky quartz

Tho i also have to say this... it definitely also seems like larger crystal sizes to audibly "less" but it sounds much nicer imo with quartz... with tourmaline i just feel like the effect can get kinda overwhelming but not really "annoying" like the quartz imo

 

[Ghoostknight]

Smoky Quartz: same conclusion ... above 1mm sounds much better than finer stuff

i also compared now Quartz, Citrine and Smoky Quartz (all either 1-2mm or 1-3mm) .... pretty comparable tho maybe not "exactly" the same, i had a feeling that the clear quartz i have is less effective than the smoky quartz (and it was a bit more clear quartz), but not by much

personally i feel like i could even do mixes of the different kinds of quartz variants and get pretty much a similar endresult, crystal size seems to play a big role with quartz apparently (@cdacosta) but the difference is also with tourmaline apparent, just less annoying imo

 

[Ghoostknight]

personally i feel like i could even do mixes of the different kinds of quartz variants and get pretty much a similar endresult

i played a little more around here with the different crystals and combined them, actually they dont seem to produce the "exact" effect, they kinda play in the same ballpark when they are from the tourmaline/quartz family but are not "exactly" the same, tho imo this goes into hard to detect regions, i will build some more prototypes to make sure here...

 

[Ghoostknight]

i played a little more around here with the different crystals and combined them, actually they dont seem to produce the "exact" effect, they kinda play in the same ballpark when they are from the tourmaline/quartz family but are not "exactly" the same, tho imo this goes into hard to detect regions, i will build some more prototypes to make sure here...

Ok i was wrong ...

after testing a pink tourmaline rca cap a bit more its pretty clear that they change the sound in different ways but i kinda get a feeling that prehnite and black tourmaline are the only ones really suitable for longterm listening imo

i have to see what i will do, i bought some more connectors to do some final samples of prehnite and black tourmaline powder vs 1-3mm

the african tourmaline mix (basicly a mix of different coloured tourmaline) wasnt bad, it sounded fairly balanced i would say without anything particular jumping out

in theory i could imagine a mix of african tourmaline, black tourmaline and prehnite would work quite well too

 

[Ghoostknight]

in theory, when we use 1-3mm crystals the space between them could be nicely filled by black tourmaline powder.... i might start experimenting with some mixes here