[Strangelove424]

I thought it was a 1/8" adapter at first, then realized it was 1/4" and must be huge. Surely there's a phallic angle to certain parts of the interconnect/wire market. But anyhow... I can't see how this could do anything but harm. If it passes the signal unaltered (i'm betting that's the case) it's a total ripoff, and if it alters the signal it's only distorting it. 
 
Other products on their site include... an interconnect system with dispersed multi-path interchangeable silver/gold wiring to custom tune the sound signature (akin to the way a pneumatic pressurization system would work), and a speaker cable system with vibration isolating feet and cable risers. Gotta love it when mechanical engineering concepts are applied to electrical engineering implementation.

 

[bigshot]

Parametric Linear Active Conduction Energy Buffering Operation!

 

[Steve Eddy]

Well let's see. They call it a Headphone Optimized Transducer. A transducer converts one form of energy into another form of energy. At the headphone jack, we have electrical energy. So what other form of energy are they converting this electrical energy into? Mechanical energy? Acoustic energy? What? Do they not understand what the word means? Do they just use the term so they can make the acronym HOT?

se

 

[castleofargh]

it's obviously a catalytic converter. it's transforms all the bad particules in the sound into o2 and rainbow.
so the name should be HOT CAT.

 

[kraken2109]

How is this even legal?

 

[Muinarc]

"30-day no-risk money back gaurantee: Contact your nearest authorized Synergistic Research dealer and arrange for a 30-day, no-risk money back guarantee. Find out for yourself why headphones are HOT"


Someone buy this just so they can write a scathing review that returns the #1 or 2 google search result

 

[kraken2109]

"30-day no-risk money back gaurantee: Contact your nearest authorized Synergistic Research dealer and arrange for a 30-day, no-risk money back guarantee. Find out for yourself why headphones are HOT"


Someone buy this just so they can write a scathing review that returns the #1 or 2 google search result

Can I get it in the UK?
Otherwise I vote bigshot.

 

[bigshot]

Wait until you see the teardown pics before you buy it!

 

[bigshot]

A sound engineer buddy of mine thought it would be interesting to buy one of these and take it apart to see what was inside. I doubt many people other than him are crazy enough to throw away $300 on a lark like this, but he's just that kind of guy. He says he'll get $300 worth of entertainment value out of it.
 
So what's inside Synergistic Research HOT?
 


A male stereo 1/4 inch jack and a female stereo mini jack with three wires connecting them together.
 
The female jack was coated in glue and had a little bit of glassy sand stuck to it. Wrapped around the sticky mess was three pieces of foil which were attached to the wires.
 
There you go... basically a plain old plug extender with some sand and glue and foil shoved into it.

 

[HPDJ]

O.M.G are you serious?? I literally found out about this HOT thingy and searched around to find some impressions and this is what I find? Kind of hilarious wow.
 
You know though, I don't want to take away anything from the positive impressions that have been expressed in this thread already. If you heard an improvement using it, then that is totally cool.
 
I honestly don't know what I expected to be inside this unit, as there is not really any info on their website about what they use to build it (I guess we see why now!). Sometimes I see pictures of the insides of certain power conditioners and they look so bare-bones inside like, just some wires and such...but folks claim to hear a difference.
 
I acknowledge that there is a part of me that is a little weak and gullible for things like this from the industry...tweaks that claim to offer magical improvements to my music listening. But I'm becoming more and more suspicious of such things and feel that I will soon be done with experimenting/putting faith in them. The tweaks in particular more often than not, just don't deliver on the claims the manufacturers provide in my experience.
 
Again we have a positive account of the HOT in this thread and that is truly great...but I'm discouraged to say the least, at the internal construction of this thing for the price they are asking. It could very well improve the sound of my system, but I'm really turned off by those photos, geeez.
 
Well, back to focusing on the music

 

[esldude]

  A sound engineer buddy of mine thought it would be interesting to buy one of these and take it apart to see what was inside. I doubt many people other than him are crazy enough to throw away $300 on a lark like this, but he's just that kind of guy. He says he'll get $300 worth of entertainment value out of it.
 
So what's inside Synergistic Research HOT?
 


A male stereo 1/4 inch jack and a female stereo mini jack with three wires connecting them together.
 
The female jack was coated in glue and had a little bit of glassy sand stuck to it. Wrapped around the sticky mess was three pieces of foil which were attached to the wires.
 
There you go... basically a plain old plug extender with some sand and glue and foil shoved into it.

Come on Bigshot, you know those three little wires are Synergistic Research wire.  Not like it would be just three little ol'wires of any kind.  That is SR wire. 
 
Rest easy tonight Bigshot, you have made a few people laugh with glee. 

 

[Steve Eddy]

Bigshot started a thread on this over on Sound Science, but it seems to have been deleted for some reason.

In that thread I said they calli it a "transducer," and that a transducer transforms one kind of energy into another. And I wasn't sure why they would call it that. You have electrical energy at the headphone jack. What sort of energy would you want to turn that into in order for it to have any sort of effect, given that headphones operate on electrical energy? It didn't make any sense.

But I saw a post on SR's Facebook page that made it clear that the HOT is in fact intended to be a transducer. "...like all transducers HOT converts one type of energy to another. In this case, electrical to mechanical energy..."

Looking at the photos, it looks like the granular material could be quartz, which has piezoelectric properties. Meaning that if you apply an electric field to it, it will physically deform. That's mechanical energy. Or more to the point, conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy. So we have the shield of the female jack covered with (what looks like) bits of quartz. And then some strips of foil laid over them, which at least for the left and right hots, would produce an electric field between the foil and the shield on the female jack. The ground foil doesn't make any sense however. The female jack's shield is connected to ground, which would put it at the same potential as the ground foil, in which case there would be no electric field between them, and hence no transduction of electrical energy into mechanical energy. Perhaps it's there to keep the other two foils company.

Of course the electric field produced by the relatively low voltages of a headphone output and such tiny strips of foil isn't really going to do anything to speak of to the bits of quartz, but even if it did, what would be the point of vibrating some little bits of quartz on the shield of a female headphone jack? You're obviously not intended to hear them vibrating. They're sealed up inside a rigid plastic tube, and hey, you've got a pair of headphones on.

Go figure.

se

 

[bigshot]

I think it's just dirt from the garage they made it in. Maybe kitty litter.

 

[alvin sawdust]

Might not buy one.

 

[castleofargh]

it's obviously fairy dust! that's why they'd rather not explain how it works on the website. because they have enslaved a fairy and don't want to be found out by peter pan.