Gary's experiment

mep

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While we were in Gary’s room, he had a little tweak he wanted to demonstrate for us. He didn’t tell us what he was doing. We listened to a cut from Tea For the Tillerman, Gary went behind his speakers and did something, and we listened. Gary went back behind his speakers and did something again, and we listened again. What happened to the sound was that the attacks softened and the soundstage grew wider, but I didn’t like the change. It sounded like the phase went wacky and Cat’s voice was no longer a sharp image in the center but rather it was spread out across the soundstage. This was repeated twice and the same thing was heard each time.

What did Gary do? As it turns out, all he did was remove the plastic nut from the binding post of the speaker. The plastic nut wasn’t needed because he was using speaker wires with banana plugs. Aside from the fact that I didn’t like the nut being removed because of what it did to the soundstage and the attack of instruments, I have no idea why something so seemingly innocuous could have such a profound change on the sound. Maybe everything does really matter.
 

garylkoh

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Mark, this thread is going to start a feeding frenzy!

I removed the positive binding post nut. It had a plastic cover over a brass nut. I did it three times to make sure that Mark knew that it wasn't the effect of cleaning the contacts due to inserting and removing the banana. I believe from the look on Mark's face that the effect was the same each time. It took over 30 seconds to remove and replace both nuts, so the believers in fast switching will dispute our observations.
 

garylkoh

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Yes, Gary is really on to something there. Curious, Gary, was it a hunch or an accidental discovery?

Frank

It wasn't a hunch - it was well-reasoned out, but there is no physical or mathematical way to prove this. Independently, Bud Purvine (in the Seattle area) came up with a product using a similar reasoning.

I also haven't been able to figure out a way to measure this.
 

RogerD

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Mark, this thread is going to start a feeding frenzy!

My guess is the nut made a better connection than just the banana plug alone. There are a lot of examples of this in my own experience. I once placed a very small piece of Emi asbsorbtion tape on the inside wall of a preamp opposite of the circuit board. The result was the soundstage grew larger but lost focus and definition. Go figure,I think that kind of sonic effect that is noticeable is a good sign that the system is at a high level.

Would you rather not hear it? I don't think so.
 

fas42

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My guess is the nut made a better connection than just the banana plug alone. There are a lot of examples of this in my own experience.
But the nut is not actually doing anything with the banana plugs, unless in some way it's squeezing the connections posts. Though, the thought just dropped in right now: the nut tightened down helps to stop the post vibrating; it's damping any movement of that post (where have I seen reference to that now??) or reducing it at least, when the speaker's working hard. Close, Gary?

Of course, if that's what's happening the real solution is obvious: hard wire the cable to the speaker's inner leads ....

I once placed a very small piece of Emi asbsorbtion tape on the inside wall of a preamp opposite of the circuit board. The result was the soundstage grew larger but lost focus and definition. Go figure,I think that kind of sonic effect that is noticeable is a good sign that the system is at a high level.

Would you rather not hear it? I don't think so
Exactly. The better the setup is up to that point, the more everything you do has an effect. The worst effect, of course, is that this starts to drive you crazy ...

Frank
 

mep

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Apr 20, 2010
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Mark, this thread is going to start a feeding frenzy!

I removed the positive binding post nut. It had a plastic cover over a brass nut. I did it three times to make sure that Mark knew that it wasn't the effect of cleaning the contacts due to inserting and removing the banana. I believe from the look on Mark's face that the effect was the same each time. It took over 30 seconds to remove and replace both nuts, so the believers in fast switching will dispute our observations.


It was certainly not my intent to start any type of feeding frenzy. Even though I personally didn’t care for the effect that happened when the nut was removed, I heard exactly the same thing every time you removed it and then put it back on. I had no idea what you were doing behind the speaker until you told us afterwards, but I was confident you were doing something because the difference it made was quite stark and repeatable.

I know how to describe what I heard, but I wouldn’t know where to begin to describe why removing the nut would make the sound “phasey” and spread out the width of the soundstage as well as a solo voice spreading out across the soundstage instead of being focused in the center. Again, I didn’t care for the effect, but the effect was certainly amazing within the context of what was done to achieve it.
 

RogerD

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I wonder how many have checked their nuts (speaker)?:D
 

fas42

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I know how to describe what I heard, but I wouldn’t know where to begin to describe why removing the nut would make the sound “phasey” and spread out the width of the soundstage as well as a solo voice spreading out across the soundstage instead of being focused in the center. Again, I didn’t care for the effect, but the effect was certainly amazing within the context of what was done to achieve it.
If, and this is a big if, the nut was damping vibration of the connection post, which developed a subtle rattle from the drivers causing the speaker carcase to vibrate, then there could be at least two things being reduced: the friction contact of the plug into the post is only a relatively poor mechanical linkage, the metal to metal contact is doing a nice little dance, modulating the music signal; or, the cables feeding into the speaker are being shaken at a subtle level, which influences material properties and electrical behaviour.

All very tricky, esoteric stuff, but part of the real world of what you have to deal with in audio to get the best sound ...

Frank
 

garylkoh

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I think that Mark heard it as a diffused, phasey effect because the system was just set up less than 2 hours before he arrived. By the next morning, the phasey effect was over, and the removal of the nut resulted in a wider soundstage but still pin-point imaging. (Mark mentioned that he thought that the system sounded far more "open" when he came in on Friday.)

I would imagine that if I had done this experiment on Mark on Sunday, he might very well have preferred the nut removed. The point of the experiment was to show a repeatable, audible difference that I have not been able to measure.

If it was just about vibration, contact enhancement, etc. Then just tightening the nut, or loosening the nut would have had a similar effect. This effect has nothing to do with anything mechanical.

The explanation might start a feeding frenzy because I'll probably get accused of pseudo-science and snake-oil peddling. But there may be physicists on board who may be able to make some sense of something that for me that is only conjecture.

Here's where I started from. Many years ago, in my "cable skeptic" days, I looked at the mechanism of the flow of electricity from the power amp to the loudspeaker. I discovered a few things. The first was that while the electric current flows through the speaker cable at almost the speed of light (the actual speed depending on the dielectric), the movement of actual electrons was very slow. Electrons come in at one end of the cable, knock the next one on, and current travel like dominos. One electron going in one end of the speaker cable takes a long time (on the scale of days) to come out the other side. Music is AC, but the AC is not symmetric, and there is always net power through the speaker.

Also, electrons have a negative charge, and Ground is the source of electrons, and electrons are "sucked" through the loudspeaker from Ground by the power amp. In my first experiments, I added pieces of metal to the negative binding post, reasoning that the metal will provide a pool of electrons for "sucking through". I clamped a copper penny, and also pieces of copper wire to the negative post. The Audioprism Ground Control designed by Bud Purvine uses this principle, being a low-impedance source of electrons.

Unfortunately, such a pool of electrons will eventually get depleted, and begin to compete for electrons resulting in a sonically deleterious effect.

Next, I figured that to make it easier for electrons to be sucked through from Ground mother earth, to start removing metal from the positive leg of the circuit. The positive binding post nut, being a big chunk of metal, contains a large pool of electrons and these electrons might get sucked up first.

Removing the positive binding post nut allows electrons to flow through loudspeaker easier.

Wild? Crazy? Stupid? That might be, but everyone I've done this on has been able to easily hear the removal of the nut.

Thanks, Mark for being brave enough to start this thread.
 

fas42

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Sorry, Gary, the technique may achieve something but your explanation comes straight from the land of Tim's fairy dust. I have experienced similar sorts of audible effects over many years, but the way of resolving them in my case has been to address the behaviours of materials when in contact and close proximity to electrical paths, much more mundane physical phenomenon can do all sorts of damage very easily.

Frank
 

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