[Bogart24]

 
Would you like to get a great deal on buying the Brooklyn Bridge?

I am (perhaps all too obviously) not an engineer.  It's all magic to me.

 

[bigshot]

  They may be different, but it makes little sense to separate them in this context.  The initial reviewer spoke both about relatively objective things like improved soundstage and harmonics, but he also spoke about an increase in his emotional attachment to the music.  I know one of the things I like about my AURALiC amp is that I have more of an emotional response to music played through it than my other amps.  I suspect the engineers would argue that audio equipment has nothing to do with something as vague and subjective as "emotional response."

 
My advice is to get yourself a girlfriend for emotional response and only expect your stereo components to have good sound fidelity.

 

[Bogart24]

   
My advice is to get yourself a girlfriend for emotional response and only expect your stereo components to have good sound fidelity.

That is terrible advice.  What do you listen to music for if not an emotional response?

 

[esldude]

  That is terrible advice.  What do you listen to music for if not an emotional response?

He didn't say he wasn't listening for an emotional response.  Just that he doesn't count on gear to provide one.
 
If two devices are equally good in fidelity to the signal, any emotional response is coming from elsewhere.  The gear can't provide that. 

 

[Steve Eddy]

It's possible to verify the existence of things we don't understand yet. In the case of this gizmo, a simple double blind listening test would do the trick.

Properly done double blind tests aren't exactly simple. Also, there are plenty of people who are unable to detect differences that are known to be audible. So who do you pick for the test?

Actually this device would lend itself well to difference testing, using Bill Waslo's DiffMaker. Just make two digital recordings of whatever piece of music you like, one with the HOT and one with a jack/plug wired together. If this thing is altering the signal in any significant way, it will show in the difference file that DiffMaker creates.

se

 

[Bogart24]

 
He didn't say he wasn't listening for an emotional response.  Just that he doesn't count on gear to provide one.
 
If two devices are equally good in fidelity to the signal, any emotional response is coming from elsewhere.  The gear can't provide that. 

That has not been my experience.

 

[bigshot]

  That is terrible advice.  What do you listen to music for if not an emotional response?

I'm not talking about music. I am talking about a black box with wires plugged into it. The dials on the front of my amp say "volume" and "treble", not "heartbreaking" and "joyful". If music gives you an emotional response, all credit should go to Tchaikovsky or the Beatles or Billie Holliday, The appliance in the equipment rack isn't capable of love. It's just an inanimate object. It just works well or it doesn't.
 
But I admire your romantic anthropomorphism of stereo equipment. It must be a fun way of thinking to imagine that every object in your house has a personality and is communicating with you on an emotional plane.

 

[Bogart24]

I'm not talking about music. I am talking about a black box with wires plugged into it. The dials on the front of my amp say "volume" and "treble", not "heartbreaking" and "joyful". If music gives you an emotional response, all credit should go to Tchaikovsky or the Beatles or Billie Holliday, The appliance in the equipment rack isn't capable of love. It's just an inanimate object. It just works well or it doesn't.

But I admire your romantic anthropomorphism of stereo equipment. It must be a fun way of thinking to imagine that every object in your house has a personality and is communicating with you on an emotional plane.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so consistently disrespectful, but if you imagine it adds potency to your arguments you are mistaken. Quite the contrary. It makes you seem childish and insecure.

It is not anthropomorphism to speak of my emotional response to music or to note that some pieces of equipment are more likely to evoke that response than others. I'm not saying my amplifier has an emotional life

 

[bigshot]

Properly done double blind tests aren't exactly simple. Also, there are plenty of people who are unable to detect differences that are known to be audible.

 
The test can be simple if you know exactly what you want out of it. If your goal isn't to detect a minute difference on the very bleeding edge of human perception, it can be a lot of work. If you just want to see if it adds up to more than a hill of beans, a gnat's wing or a molehill, a listening test can be simple. I'm interested in improvements that I can hear. Not ones that I have to stop everything, set up an acoustically sterile environment and then strain with all my might to hear it.
 
There is no reason to chase the last .01% of sound quality when you haven't even dealt with the 99.99% thoroughly yet. I would like to know if there are any people at all in this forum who has gotten 90% of the way to totally drop dead gorgeous sound. If they are listening to headphones, have a system with no equalization, aren't doing multichannel, haven't conquered the problems of room acoustics, and don't have a full set of speakers capable of a full response at loud levels without distortion, then they aren't there yet. Those are huge hurdles I'm not there myself yet. I'm inching towards it, but there are a few pretty big things left to work on before I get to perfection. I'll let you know when I get there!
 
It's important to keep your perspective by keeping your eyes on the prize. The goal is a kick ass stereo system that you can listen to great music on. It isn't about splitting the atom. Broad strokes first. Then work your way down the list of priorities. Noodding details, last.

 

[bigshot]

It is not anthropomorphism to speak of my emotional response to music or to note that some pieces of equipment are more likely to evoke that response than others. I'm not saying my amplifier has an emotional life

 
Do you think that maybe the equipment's technical performance... frequency response, dynamic range, noise floor, distortion levels, etc... all the things that make up *audio fidelity* might be what makes you react emotionally to the music? Because if that is the case, it's a mistake to credit the electronics with the ability to evoke emotions in you. All the electronics is doing is getting out of the way so the musicians can connect with you emotionally.
 
That is the concept of audible transparency, and it is the loftiest goal for a hifi nut. It isn't about picking equipment that makes the sound nicer. It's about equipment that doesn't stand between you and the music.
 
Honestly, I'm having fun here. I'm not being disrespectful. I'm trying to share stuff with you in a fun, non-technical way that is easy to understand. There aren't a lot of people in audio who can do that. Maybe I'm not so great at it either. But I try.

 

[Syn Res]

I have been following BigShots attempt to poison the well for HOT for some time. First he created a thread with no other intent but to slander and mock the HOT and SR in general. In this initial thread he was soliciting Head-Fiers to take advantage of our 30-day trial period and, "write a scathing review", then return the HOT to the hard working dealer; thank you very much. Nowhere in that thread did he suggest people actually try the product and honestly report their findings. Thankfully someone at Head-Fi took that thread down.
 
As to the pictures of a dissembled HOT I say, "so what?" Taken out of context a Stradivarius is just a pile of wood, strings and varnish and certainly little different from an inexpensive Chinese Violin. The same holds true for mega expensive phono cartridges which are not too different from their inexpensive brethren. Ditto for cables which when taken apart are little more than wire and dielectric (French Silk?) with connectors on the ends. In fact many mega buck interconnects are less complex and have far less hand labor involved in their manufacture than does the HOT that was destroyed and photographed. The point is you can't take a piece of audio gear designed to improve our subjective enjoyment of sound, place it in a blender, and then examine the contents; not if you want to actually find out what the product sounds like, or not. For that matter you can't do this with great literary works either. Take the work of Shakespeare and mix the words and letters up what have you got? Scrabble that's what.
 
At SR we've learned a great deal over the past 22 years about materials and their subjective contribution to sound. Ponder fuses for example. Very few ingredients- a burn wire, end caps, a ceramic body and sand (if you’re lucky). And yet there is a thriving global high performance fuse market, because of the way fuses affect the sound of systems; people who buy high performance fuses do so because they like the way their systems sound with a particular fuse. Certainly the HOT is far more complex, with more labor and materials going into each HOT than any fuse I'm aware of. The fact is it takes over one hour to build a single HOT by hand in our Southern California factory. The HOT's wires are made of 99.999% pure silver placed by hand in Teflon tubes, 3 ribbons cut by hand and made from 99.999% pure silver, 9 hand soldered connections and "magic pixy dust" which is actually a synthetic compound developed in house at great expense and when combined with the other ingredients, makes HOT work exceptionally well in the areas we describe on our website and Facebook page. Frankly I don't know what BigShot expected to find when he cut open HOT. IC's? Transformers? PCB's? Circuit Traces? Anything like that and you'd introduce opacity between the amp and your headphones. What they found is something TOTALLY NEW because before we invented and perfected HOT, nothing remotely like HOT existed in the world. They see what HOT is, they see that a lot of hand work went into it, that it is obviously not just a pass through adaptor and still they mock. Why? Because they are not interested in whether or not HOT contributes what we claim. What they want to do is poison the well to prevent people from ever listening to HOT in the first place and to do so in the most snide and abusive way possible.
 
Fortunately there are already over 200 HOTs in the marketplace owned by happy people. And all who try HOT can operate a keyboard to share their findings as easily as those who are now pursuing a negative agenda. Early reports from people who have actually tried and listened to HOT shows most are more than satisfied. As the HOT's designer I am proud of both what it accomplishes, and of the elegant way it delivers. In the past people have tried all manner of ways to open up the sound of headphones. Things like crossfeed, phase altering computer programs and complex circuits all of which inevitably take something away in the pursuit of accomplishing what HOT does so well.
 
Yours in music,
Ted Denney 
Lead Designer, Synergistic Research Inc.

 

[bfreedma]

  I have been following BigShots attempt to poison the well for HOT for some time. First he created a thread with no other intent but to slander and mock the HOT and SR in general. In this initial thread he was soliciting Head-Fiers to take advantage of our 30-day trial period and, "write a scathing review", then return the HOT to the hard working dealer; thank you very much. Nowhere in that thread did he suggest people actually try the product and honestly report their findings. Thankfully someone at Head-Fi took that thread down.
 
As to the pictures of a dissembled HOT I say, "so what?" Taken out of context a Stradivarius is just a pile of wood, strings and varnish and certainly little different from an inexpensive Chinese Violin. The same holds true for mega expensive phono cartridges which are not too different from their inexpensive brethren. Ditto for cables which when taken apart are little more than wire and dielectric (French Silk?) with connectors on the ends. In fact many mega buck interconnects are less complex and have far less hand labor involved in their manufacture than does the HOT that was destroyed and photographed. The point is you can't take a piece of audio gear designed to improve our subjective enjoyment of sound, place it in a blender, and then examine the contents; not if you want to actually find out what the product sounds like, or not. For that matter you can't do this with great literary works either. Take the work of Shakespeare and mix the words and letters up what have you got? Scrabble that's what.
 
At SR we've learned a great deal over the past 22 years about materials and their subjective contribution to sound. Ponder fuses for example. Very few ingredients- a burn wire, end caps, a ceramic body and sand (if you’re lucky). And yet there is a thriving global high performance fuse market, because of the way fuses affect the sound of systems; people who buy high performance fuses do so because they like the way their systems sound with a particular fuse. Certainly the HOT is far more complex, with more labor and materials going into each HOT than any fuse I'm aware of. The fact is it takes over one hour to build a single HOT by hand in our Southern California factory. The HOT's wires are made of 99.999% pure silver placed by hand in Teflon tubes, 3 ribbons cut by hand and made from 99.999% pure silver, 9 hand soldered connections and "magic pixy dust" which is actually a synthetic compound developed in house at great expense and when combined with the other ingredients, makes HOT work exceptionally well in the areas we describe on our website and Facebook page. Frankly I don't know what BigShot expected to find when he cut open HOT. IC's? Transformers? PCB's? Circuit Traces? Anything like that and you'd introduce opacity between the amp and your headphones. What they found is something TOTALLY NEW because before we invented and perfected HOT, nothing remotely like HOT existed in the world. They see what HOT is, they see that a lot of hand work went into it, that it is obviously not just a pass through adaptor and still they mock. Why? Because they are not interested in whether or not HOT contributes what we claim. What they want to do is poison the well to prevent people from ever listening to HOT in the first place and to do so in the most snide and abusive way possible.
 
Fortunately there are already over 200 HOTs in the marketplace owned by happy people. And all who try HOT can operate a keyboard to share their findings as easily as those who are now pursuing a negative agenda. Early reports from people who have actually tried and listened to HOT shows most are more than satisfied. As the HOT's designer I am proud of both what it accomplishes, and of the elegant way it delivers. In the past people have tried all manner of ways to open up the sound of headphones. Things like crossfeed, phase altering computer programs and complex circuits all of which which inevitably take something away in the pursuit of accomplishing what HOT does so well.
 
Yours in music,
Ted Denney 
Lead Designer, Synergistic Research Inc.

 
While it's great you dropped by, mostly to slam members and other MOTs, you conveniently forgot to include any reasonable explanation of how the HOT works or measurements showing the difference between the HOT and any other 1/4" TRS adapter.
 
Since we're in the sound science forum, simply mentioning wire materials and "magic pixie dust" doesn't cut it.  Frankly, that post served to convince me that you are selling products but can't actually validate their performance.  Lots of flowery adjectives and discussions of "audiophile" fuses isn't helping.
 
Bottom line - can you produce any objective evidence to support your rather grandiose performance claims?

 

[Bogart24]

   
Do you think that maybe the equipment's technical performance... frequency response, dynamic range, noise floor, distortion levels, etc... all the things that make up *audio fidelity* might be what makes you react emotionally to the music? Because if that is the case, it's a mistake to credit the electronics with the ability to evoke emotions in you. All the electronics is doing is getting out of the way so the musicians can connect with you emotionally.
 
That is the concept of audible transparency, and it is the loftiest goal for a hifi nut. It isn't about picking equipment that makes the sound nicer. It's about equipment that doesn't stand between you and the music.
 
Honestly, I'm having fun here. I'm not being disrespectful. I'm trying to share stuff with you in a fun, non-technical way that is easy to understand. There aren't a lot of people in audio who can do that. Maybe I'm not so great at it either. But I try.

I'm not sure I see an interesting distinction between your saying a piece of equipment "doesn't stand between me and the music" and my saying that it evokes an emotional response in me.

 

[Billheiser]

I have been following BigShots attempt to poison the well for HOT for some time. First he created a thread with no other intent but to slander and mock the HOT and SR in general. In this initial thread he was soliciting Head-Fiers to take advantage of our 30-day trial period and, "write a scathing review", then return the HOT to the hard working dealer; thank you very much. Nowhere in that thread did he suggest people actually try the product and honestly report their findings. Thankfully someone at Head-Fi took that thread down.
 
As to the pictures of a dissembled HOT I say, "so what?" Taken out of context a Stradivarius is just a pile of wood, strings and varnish and certainly little different from an inexpensive Chinese Violin. The same holds true for mega expensive phono cartridges which are not too different from their inexpensive brethren. Ditto for cables which when taken apart are little more than wire and dielectric (French Silk?) with connectors on the ends. In fact many mega buck interconnects are less complex and have far less hand labor involved in their manufacture than does the HOT that was destroyed and photographed. The point is you can't take a piece of audio gear designed to improve our subjective enjoyment of sound, place it in a blender, and then examine the contents; not if you want to actually find out what the product sounds like, or not. For that matter you can't do this with great literary works either. Take the work of Shakespeare and mix the words and letters up what have you got? Scrabble that's what.
 
At SR we've learned a great deal over the past 22 years about materials and their subjective contribution to sound. Ponder fuses for example. Very few ingredients- a burn wire, end caps, a ceramic body and sand (if you’re lucky). And yet there is a thriving global high performance fuse market, because of the way fuses affect the sound of systems; people who buy high performance fuses do so because they like the way their systems sound with a particular fuse. Certainly the HOT is far more complex, with more labor and materials going into each HOT than any fuse I'm aware of. The fact is it takes over one hour to build a single HOT by hand in our Southern California factory. The HOT's wires are made of 99.999% pure silver placed by hand in Teflon tubes, 3 ribbons cut by hand and made from 99.999% pure silver, 9 hand soldered connections and "magic pixy dust" which is actually a synthetic compound developed in house at great expense and when combined with the other ingredients, makes HOT work exceptionally well in the areas we describe on our website and Facebook page. Frankly I don't know what BigShot expected to find when he cut open HOT. IC's? Transformers? PCB's? Circuit Traces? Anything like that and you'd introduce opacity between the amp and your headphones. What they found is something TOTALLY NEW because before we invented and perfected HOT, nothing remotely like HOT existed in the world. They see what HOT is, they see that a lot of hand work went into it, that it is obviously not just a pass through adaptor and still they mock. Why? Because they are not interested in whether or not HOT contributes what we claim. What they want to do is poison the well to prevent people from ever listening to HOT in the first place and to do so in the most snide and abusive way possible.
 
Fortunately there are already over 200 HOTs in the marketplace owned by happy people. And all who try HOT can operate a keyboard to share their findings as easily as those who are now pursuing a negative agenda. Early reports from people who have actually tried and listened to HOT shows most are more than satisfied. As the HOT's designer I am proud of both what it accomplishes, and of the elegant way it delivers. In the past people have tried all manner of ways to open up the sound of headphones. Things like crossfeed, phase altering computer programs and complex circuits all of which inevitably take something away in the pursuit of accomplishing what HOT does so well.
 
Yours in music,
Ted Denney 
Lead Designer, Synergistic Research Inc.

What does the HOT transduce? You say electrical energy to mechanical energy. Therefore it must decrease the signal traveling through the jack. So I presume HOT lowers the volume, correct?

 

[Byrnie]

   
Take a nice long look at the teardown photo I posted and let me know where your process of discovery leads you!

I'm surprised you have 13k posts and still don't know how to multi-quote...  You just posted 5 posts in a row...