[vcoheda]

those are good rules.

if the majority of people followed them, there might actually be intelligent discussion on this board, or at least more of it.

 

[monolith]

On the other hand, this time using some reason:

Trustworthy opinions:

1. Has tested the effectiveness of the product with a blind test.

Untrustworthy opinions:

1. Hasn't tested the product with a blind test.
2. Has been involved in any way with selling the product.


In any case, even if they improve your sound monumentally, they're still a waste of money for the reasons that have been given. Unless, as goes back to my point before, the Cardas logo adds to the sound. My opinion is that a Nordost logo on the block would really tighten up the bass.

 

[yotacowboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif On the other hand, this time using some reason: Trustworthy opinions: 1. Has tested the effectiveness of the product with a blind test. Untrustworthy opinions: 1. Hasn't tested the product with a blind test. 2. Has been involved in any way with selling the product. In any case, even if they improve your sound monumentally, they're still a waste of money for the reasons that have been given. Unless, as goes back to my point before, the Cardas logo adds to the sound. My opinion is that a Nordost logo on the block would really tighten up the bass.

Have you "blind tested" any of the gear you own?

 

[tom hankins]

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif On the other hand, this time using some reason: Trustworthy opinions: 1. Has tested the effectiveness of the product with a blind test. Untrustworthy opinions: 1. Hasn't tested the product with a blind test. 2. Has been involved in any way with selling the product. In any case, even if they improve your sound monumentally, they're still a waste of money for the reasons that have been given. Unless, as goes back to my point before, the Cardas logo adds to the sound. My opinion is that a Nordost logo on the block would really tighten up the bass.

You have know idea what your talking about. you dont need a blind test to know when your woofers are jumping around from subsonic frequencies in the signal of your vinyl playback. (Mine are traced almost 100% to lack of isolation from the rack itself). All you have to do is look at them. have you ever even owned a vinyl system? If you did you would not be making a fool of yourself about wether or not the blocks work at isolating a product. I tried them. They worked. If they didnt the woofers would still be jumping around.
Before they were all over the place with any album I used. Now I only get a little if I have an album that is warped bad.
Blind test to see if the woofer flutter has gone down or not when the blocks are used VS. not used????? You cant even hear the SUBSONIC FREQ. The point of using the blocks was so my amp and speakers would stop trying to reproduce the sound. ( and working harder than they need) You need to do your homework before you make comments like this. I never said the bass tightened up or anything like that. I said the blocks worked for me. That they gave isolation to my table from subsonic frequencies that were reaching my speakers.

The more you post the more I realize you have zero idea what your talking about, let alone what the purpose of the blocks are for. ISOLATION!!

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom hankins /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have tried to keep the value of other peoples opinions about anything audio in two groups.

Me too... Those who understand the basic principles of how sound reproduction works, and those who take the salesman's word for it.

See ya
Steve

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yotacowboy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Have you "blind tested" any of the gear you own?

Yup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom hankins /img/forum/go_quote.gif You have know idea what your talking about. you dont need a blind test to know when your woofers are jumping around from subsonic frequencies in the signal of your vinyl playback. (Mine are traced almost 100% to lack of isolation from the rack itself). All you have to do is look at them. have you ever even owned a vinyl system? If you did you would not be making a fool of yourself about wether or not the blocks work at isolating a product. I tried them. They worked. If they didnt the woofers would still be jumping around. Before they were all over the place with any album I used. Now I only get a little if I have an album that is warped bad. Blind test to see if the woofer flutter has gone down or not when the blocks are used VS. not used????? You cant even hear the SUBSONIC FREQ. The point of using the blocks was so my amp and speakers would stop trying to reproduce the sound. ( and working harder than they need) You need to do your homework before you make comments like this. I never said the bass tightened up or anything like that. I said the blocks worked for me. That they gave isolation to my table from subsonic frequencies that were reaching my speakers. The more you post the more I realize you have zero idea what your talking about, let alone what the purpose of the blocks are for. ISOLATION!!

Lowering your gaze an inch or two will show you that I have indeed owned a vinyl system.

Anyway, my comments were general ones about the effectiveness of things, especially tweaks. Obviously I'm also not going to hope people try to blind test headphones, as that's impossible. Also, blind testing tells you if things sound different, not if they move differently. Short of being a little distracting, it wouldn't matter if my subwoofer was doing somersaults if front of me if it didn't affect the sound they were putting out.

So have you tried anything else? Seems like a vibration problem could also be solved by something that actually absorbs vibrations, like soft pencil erasers or half tennis balls or something. Our physics department uses half tennis balls under experimental apparatuses that are sensetive to vibrations many orders of magnitude finer than anything you'll experience in audio. These things are sensetive to being looked at the wrong way, and the department has all the money in the world to spend on hard woods and brass spikes.

I'll also thank you not to patronise me. I'd like to think that years of studying physics at least clued me in to what "subsonic" means.

 

[tom hankins]

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yup. Lowering your gaze an inch or two will show you that I have indeed owned a vinyl system. Anyway, my comments were general ones about the effectiveness of things, especially tweaks. Obviously I'm also not going to hope people try to blind test headphones, as that's impossible. Also, blind testing tells you if things sound different, not if they move differently. Short of being a little distracting, it wouldn't matter if my subwoofer was doing somersaults if front of me if it didn't affect the sound they were putting out. So have you tried anything else? Seems like a vibration problem could also be solved by something that actually absorbs vibrations, like soft pencil erasers or half tennis balls or something. Our physics department uses half tennis balls under experimental apparatuses that are sensetive to vibrations many orders of magnitude finer than anything you'll experience in audio. These things are sensetive to being looked at the wrong way, and the department has all the money in the world to spend on hard woods and brass spikes. I'll also thank you not to patronise me. I'd like to think that years of studying physics at least clued me in to what "subsonic" means.

Hmmmmmmm...But I thought you were saying that the blocks could not help any kind of vibration problems.

I also have used hockey pucks, racket balls and other things for vibration control. I agree they work. These Ayre blocks worked too. its that simple. they got rid of a problem by isolating my table. I never said you cant make or find something cheaper. I said they worked for me. Anyway this thread is about the blocks not homemade vibration control.
what they did is get rid of a problem I had in my system. You can try and spin your lack of knowledge about the woofer problems associated with vinyl playback all you want. But for me they worked. get over it. I dont see why its problem.
Does it really bother all the people that have been declaring these things VooDoo (even though they have not one single bit of evidence to support it) I have the evidence that they will isolate gear. In my system they did so by tuning out the subsonic frequencies from getting through to my speakers. the test to see, was as simple as opening my eyes.
I think its irresponsible for you and others to maintain they cant possibly be good for anything when you have never tried them in any way, shape, or form. I hope other readers of this thread will be able to see through your lack of knowledge on this product. Have a great night. i am going to spin some vinyl on my vibration and woofer flutter free system. Glad I'm me and not you.

 

[yotacowboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yup.

so, that's n=1.

if you're talented enough at "science", then please explain to me how statistically significant your "blind test" results were. Did you perform a T test to check your sample size? how many standard deviations? or better yet, do you have documentation of the test? or was it more of a hobbyist's exploit?

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom hankins /img/forum/go_quote.gif I hope other readers of this thread will be able to see through your lack of knowledge on this product. Have a great night. i am going to spin some vinyl on my vibration and woofer flutter free system. Glad I'm me and not you.

I hope the readers of this thread don't read what you or others say and go buy expensive wood blocks to fix audible problems they might have.

I wholeheartedly share that last sentiment. Being you seems to be quite tiresome.


Quote:

Originally Posted by yotacowboy /img/forum/go_quote.gif so, that's n=1. if you're talented enough at "science", then please explain to me how statistically significant your "blind test" results were. Did you perform a T test to check your sample size? how many standard deviations? or better yet, do you have documentation of the test? or was it more of a hobbyist's exploit?

They were significant enough to justify the decision I made from them, which was admittedly a minor one. I was testing to see if it was worth using the lineout of my iPod into a headphone amp over the headphone out of the iPod alone. Using random tracks from my iPod and volume settings matched by my ears, I was blindfolded to my satisfaction and a friend conducted an ABX. For 15 songs I was right 12 times, two of the three misses being very low quality recordings (one badly recorded live concert, one badly recorded black metal).

I didn't bother repeating the experiment many times to get a normal distribution out of it or anything. It was just a casual thing to see if I was wasting my time or not, and a spur of the moment idea between classes. If I bought a much more expensive amp and I had to justify the expense over the one I currently own, or if carrying an amp around was a big bother for me, I might do that. I have a second iPod LOD coming, this time made of cryo copper. I'd be interested to test it against my current one made of Canare Starquad, though I'm already pretty confident what the result would be.

Love the big scary science words though. You musta done read some thick books.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Tom, what kind of phono preamp do you use? Almost all of them use a high pass filter to cut out subsonic frequencies. Those are well known to cause problems for woofers. If you are still experiencing problems, you can build a high pass filter for under $5, more if you want boutique parts.

Also, one cause of rumble is the bearing. They do wear out eventually and are an easy fix. You can usually find them at reasonable prices, too.

And again, I tried golden ratio blocks to no effect. Even if there were subsonic vibrations, they were caught by the subsonic filter, which my phono stage has. Respectfully, I think a high pass filter is the most appropriate solution to subsonic problems. It directly fixes the problem. Anything else is driving screws with a hammer.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom hankins /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have the evidence that they will isolate gear. In my system they did so by tuning out the subsonic frequencies from getting through to my speakers.

Damping the feet of a turntable isn't going to "tune out subsonic frequencies from reaching the speakers", it's the exact opposite. Isolating a turntable prevents vibration from the speakers from reaching the turntable. It's called acoustic feedback. And acoustic feedback isn't "subsonic". It's perfectly audible.

As the previous poster said, a tennis ball cut in half would do a MUCH better job of it than a wooden block. A folded up beach towel, as long as the platter is level and it doesn't cover the vents, would be better still.

See ya
Steve

 

[yotacowboy]

sorry, but the big scary science words are simple statistics terms. from a statistical standpoint, you did little (actually nothing) in terms of showing that there is any validity to your test. Your findings, though admirable, have absolutely no (zero) statistical significance due to your miniscule sample size, no repeatability, and flawed experimental design - and therefore have no relevance to a population (actually, any population). sorry, but your claims of "blind testing" are "scientifically" unfounded, and by applying your own rules, your opinions have absolutely no relevance here. this is simple Statistics 101.

You've been pretty adamant about your position that, unless "blind tested," any differences between audio components are simply subjective. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you've essentially fallen into simple subjective (not objective) conclusions due to the fact that your findings (with regards to any of your gear) have no significance to any group of people. please, don't muddy the clear waters of valid science with your attempts at pseudo-scientific exploits masquerading as some sort of "rule". you're only making yourself out to be someone with a lot of steadfast (and often misinformed) opinions, and little actual experience. It's a good idea not to bring up ABX or double blind, or simple blind experiments unless you actually have some actual experience conducting them and analyzing the results. Hence, the sticky at the top of this forum.

pot, meet kettle.

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yotacowboy /img/forum/go_quote.gif sorry, but the big scary science words are simple statistics terms. from a statistical standpoint, you did little (actually nothing) in terms of showing that there is any validity to your test. Your findings, though admirable, have absolutely no (zero) statistical significance due to your miniscule sample size, no repeatability, and flawed experimental design - and therefore have no relevance to a population (actually, any population). sorry, but your claims of "blind testing" are "scientifically" unfounded, and by applying your own rules, your opinions have absolutely no relevance here. this is simple Statistics 101. You've been pretty adamant about your position that, unless "blind tested," any differences between audio components are simply subjective. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you've essentially fallen into simple subjective (not objective) conclusions due to the fact that your findings (with regards to any of your gear) have no significance to any group of people. please, don't muddy the clear waters of valid science with your attempts at pseudo-scientific exploits masquerading as some sort of "rule". you're only making yourself out to be someone with a lot of steadfast (and often misinformed) opinions, and little actual experience. It's a good idea not to bring up ABX or double blind, or simple blind experiments unless you actually have some actual experience conducting them and analyzing the results. Hence, the sticky at the top of this forum. pot, meet kettle.

My findings have significance to me, because that's what I was testing for. As I said, if I wanted or was willing to come to a conclusion applicable to a population, I'd happily conduct many more tests each with many more runs and analyze it properly, not to mention designing it more rigorously. I spent hours analyzing statistics in the lab before which I did my test. What I did, while simple, is certainly a lot better than most do when deciding what gear to use. I'd be overwhelmingly pleased if most posters could claim about their tweaks and gear what I can about mine, let alone if they could do better (ie. more statistically significant). It showed me that I wasn't wasting my time or space in my bag having that little amp with me.

As for the more important part of your post, me running a small test and not obtaining results applicable to a larger population has nothing to do with me saying such tests (like mine or more rigorous) are worthwhile. Never having conducted a blind test doesn't make one unqualified to say that blind tests are worthwhile. My opinions that blind tests are worthwhile and should be done is steadfast because it's correct.

 

[vcoheda]

soon, all this nonsense will be over.

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif soon, all this nonsense will be over.

Ah yes. The segregation forum is coming along nicely. Soon they'll have separate water fountains and baseball leagues for objectivists and "subjectivists".