Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Tweak, stupid or not.

Has anyone heard about the Dynamat tweak? It calls for removing the top plate on an audio component (CD, pre-amp etc.), and applying a sheet of Dynamat to the underside of the cover, then replacing it all. It is suppose to provide superior damping and tighten up the bass yadayadayada. Anyone tried this or heard about it?

http://www.tricell-ent.com/Shakti.htm

I can't imagine that working. Probably the best bass improvement (assuming you have a sub) is from this procedure: put the sub in your listening position, play LF calibration tones (available on many receivers, and various calibration CDs), crawl around the room with a $35 Radio Shack sound meter. When you find the highest bass response on the meter, put the sub in that position.

It's not fancy but it will usually give a major improvement, assuming you haven't already done it, have a sub, and your room layout allows the reposition.

I think the Shakti stone would work better wrapped in foil...

If you do decide to go this route (I would put the money into CDs or DVDs) do not cover any ventilation holes in your equipment.

From other sites I have read, it is supposed to help minimize if not eliminate the inherent vibrations coming from all electronic circuitry and especially vibrations from a spinning platter in a CD player...reducing or eliminating these vibrations result in a cleaner, less colored sound...

Sounds like a marketing "urban legend" started by Dynamat to sell more Dynamat...as if they are not making enough sales in the automotive market...

WhatFurrer

Yeah, when the first line of a product description is "Designed utilizing understood scientific principals," I'm a little concerned.

Isn't the placebo effect an "understood scientific principle?"

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Isn't the placebo effect an "understood scientific principle?"

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*trying to breathe*

Actually, I removed a huge source of vibration from my stereo setup just the other day. It reduced standing waves and distortion to none. Seems 99% of the vibration in the room was coming from these little boxes with speaker drivers in them...

Bren R.

Is Bren the nice fella who works for Axiom? If so, I have had the pleasure of speaking with Bren on the phone, getting good advice and enjoying his easygoing manner. Therefore, and respectfully, as to the implications of Bren's comment and the comments of others, I disagree.

It seems to me that we try to reduce resonant vibrations in the speaker cabinet by building a solid Axiom-like speaker cabinet. The goal is attempting to assure that the transducer is the only vibrating component. Now, clearly, everything turns into a Helmholtz resonator, but it also seems to me you want to localize your audio vibrations to the speaker drivers.

As to the other components, vibrations from outside sources can cause tubes to act in a microphonic manner. So, you hope that at least your tubes are not excited by your speakers or other sources of kinetic energy to resonate.

Unlike many on this board, I do not presume to know anything about quantum physics except what I've learned from watching Star Trek. Nevertheless, it seems to me that you want to isolate your solid state components from vibrations, i.e., from kinetic energy - dunno whether kicking a solid state component will produce an undesirable miniburst of electrons or otherwise cause noise.

I don't think the idea of using dynamat to dampen components was thunk up by the marketing folks at dynamat. I think it is much more likely that audio tweakers seized on this product and applied it to accomplish a specific and as far as Dynamat is concerned, a use unanticipated by Dynamat.

I figure I'll get a sheet or two and use them on the inside cover of my CDP (as pointed out above, careful not to block any vents).

With tube electronics, I can understand wanting to damp vibration. Tubes are sensitive devices with many precisely aligned delicate parts.

Also I can understand wanting to damp CD players because they involve mechanical motion and sometimes even small jarring can produce read errors.

But when it comes to solid-state electronics -- like an amp or receiver -- I do not understand how typical vibrations can affect the sound. I suppose one way to test this would be to subject a receiver to vibrations far and above what it would ever experience in real-world situations and measure its output for fluctuations.

Thanks 2X6,
Decided to give this a try even thought most of the responses weren't to positive, figured what the heck, at 1.95 a sheet it can't hurt. Even contacted the manufacturer
to get there take and the person in tech service responded that it was a great idea because to keep cost low alot of times the chassis is one area manufacturers look to first.
So the results, to me it seems that things have become a LITTLE clearer, especially in the lower end, so I feel that at 1.95 this was worth it.

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Is Bren the nice fella who works for Axiom?

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Nope, Bren's completely unaffiliated with Axiom, maybe you were talking to Joe?

The only thing Axiom and I have in common is we're both in Canada, and I'll be buying my 5.1 setup from them.

I'm in design for print and broadcast and just happen to know some audio theory from working so closely with broadcast audio techs and engineers and reading the manuals and theory books on breaks (nothing like sitting around a table talking shop with guys retired from the CBC, real audio pioneer types - either you learn a LOT, FAST or you end up sitting there with your hands in your lap)

Bren R.

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Is Bren the nice fella who works for Axiom?

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That person from Axiom is Brent Tombari. He is a great guy. Looked after my order during a mix up.

"But when it comes to solid-state electronics -- like an amp or receiver -- I do not understand how typical vibrations can affect the sound."

PMB, it all goes back to the doppler effect-- vibrations in solid state electronics (especially the amp) can create concentrated waves of electrons (followed by a period of electron sparseness), creating an uneven siren-like effect when these bursts hit the speakers. It's like shaking and squeezing a ketchup bottle at the same time!

What you describe sounds like what might occur when the vibrations are parallel to the flow of electrons. But what happens when the vibrations are perpendicular to the electron flow? Does the signal bandwidth undergo periodic compression and expansion resulting in a wah-pedal effect?

Oooh. Maybe dynamat and vibrapods aren't so dumb after all?

I think it would!

Either that, or (especially if you were using too heavy gauge of speaker wire) electrons might bounce crazily through the wire and get lost. I've heard that's more likely to happen to the electrons carrying the higher frequencies, as they have less momentum than the others.

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It's like shaking and squeezing a ketchup bottle at the same time!

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Except electrons aren't liquid...

And the doppler effect refers to sound waves compressing as they approach the listener (resulting in a higher frequency) and expanding as they move away from the listener (resulting in a lower frequency) - like when a car races by you as you face it... the pitch of the engine appears to become higher as it gets closer, then drop off as it passes you... I'm not sure how you related this to vibrations within a solid state amp, unless you feel the vibrations squeeze the traces and components, reducing electrical flow?!?

I'm sure we can all agree that shaking even a solid state amp isn't advisable, the only thing I'd worry about is shaking trim pots off calibration or over time loosening components, but a sheet of vulcanized truck bed liner stuck to the underside of the case isn't going to prevent any of that... maybe if you stuck a vulcan under there... highly illogical.

Bren R.

Hehe. I was kidding, actually.

*whew* Had me worried... and you had 2x6spds so happy.

Have noticed a lot more audio shamans hanging around here lately... was starting to wonder if the Monster Cable/AudioTweaks types were planting new members here to mislead.

I'm of one major thought on the issue of tweaks... if the pros don't do it, I probably don't need to.

Bren R.

Audio Shamans? Need more of them to balance out the know- nothing-know-it-alls don't you think?

You can discount reports of the good effects of some tweaks or different cabling in a given system as the 'placebo' effect, but on the other hand, maybe a theory that says these things can have no audible effect is an inadequate theory.

In any case, Bren, folks of differing opinion hang out on this website. Agreeing with any particular point of view on tweaks or cables is not a requirement for "hanging around here."

I picked up some acoustic foam from partsexpress.com.



Opened up a pair of M66s (similar driver compliment but to the M50Ti but smaller cabinet). Cut the foam and laid it in to damp the cabinets. Bass definitely tightened up and the speakers sound even better than before, even before break-in. (just kidding - about the break-in.)

My garage system is set out on a large wood table. 2 Dahlquist DQM 905s, Yamaha M80 amp, JVC XM405 CDP. Under the table is a 10" subwoofer. When I crank it a bit, gets pretty ragged - because at least the CDP is dancing maybe the amp as well. I isolated the CDP with a cut up Office Depot wrist pad - much better. Set some under the amp and speakers - sounds great.

See, without a grand theory of everything audio, or a bunch of retired sound fellas to rely on, some folks consider what they read, and rely on what they try and what they hear.

If audio faith were worthless, then what kind of folks would rely on the testimony of people like us as to how much we like Axiom speakers? Fools by your lights I guess.

I would believe in these magic tweaks a lot more if one person, one time would just own up and say "you know, I tried it, it did nothing"... but the closest I ever hear to that is "there was a (slight, minor, small, almost imperceivable) positive impact on the (sound stage, lows, mids, highs, timbre, appearance) after this tweak"... if only one person at one time using something that doesn't conform to the standards of science and physics (we're not talking isolation here - remember all Dynamat claims to do is disperse vibrations through air into heat energy!)... would just stand tall and say "okay, I was rooked, I heard no difference", I could possibly be swayed.

By the way, I've never mentioned "retired sound fellas"... I mentioned retired audio technicians from the world-renowned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Calling them "sound fellas" is like calling Mother Teresa a dead old lady.

In the end, if you feel your system sounds better after the $1.95 fix, consider it a victory whether or not it's founded in fact... the end result is the same, for a minimum outlay, you feel better about what you hear.

Bren R.

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Calling them "sound fellas" is like calling Mother Teresa a dead old lady.

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I've passed on the green felt tip mod for CDs, Shakti stones, $500 per vial of Stradivarius laquer and various other tweaks which made no sense to me - not to say that I couldn't be surprised had I tried them. So far my tweaking has been limited to replacing capacitors, resistors, internal speaker wire, weird Mapleshade speaker wire, heavy duty power cords, damping and isolating components. I've been lucky. I also picked up some ferrite cores for power cables, but heard no difference - but I didn't have RF interference problems to begin with. Now I can't figure out how to get them off, but no harm either.

I did take exception to Bren's comment about misleading folks on this site. I try to get through every day without misleading anyone.

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I did take exception to Bren's comment about misleading folks on this site. I try to get through every day without misleading anyone.

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This is true. At worst, 2x6 balks at blind devotion to science, and then encourages us to try it before we dismiss it.

I only balk at a blind devotion to a static science.

Although I applaud engineers' application of scientific principals, very few engineers have been great scientists. I think quantum sht even happens in Sony products and only ask for a bit of modesty from folks whose 'deep' understanding of the science involved in electronic music reproduction may be simultaneously immodest and incomplete - less subtle than the events they presume to understand.

Ah, 2x6 is looking for buttons again.

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and only ask for a bit of modesty from folks whose 'deep' understanding of the science involved in electronic music reproduction may be simultaneously immodest and incomplete - less subtle than the events they presume to understand.

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So my reliance on hard facts rather than the things that happen at the subatomic level that I cannot see, hear or touch... by the very virtue of the fact I don't believe that anything glued, stapled, magnetically stuck to, painted onto or put in proximity of a home receiver will make it sound better... this makes my view incomplete? I'm to believe that "anything is possible" therefore I should put my faith in anything?

I need proof, spds... scientific proof, be it double blind testing, measurements... anything but a group of people saying yes, the emperor is very well dressed today.

Bren R.

My thoughts exactly Bren.

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anything but a group of people saying yes, the emperor is very well dressed today.

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Now that's funny. Damn funny.

Didn't somebody smart once say something like "you can't prove that something is impossible"? Is that germane? Are you guys playing nicely?

I like this board and the people on it. And I simply don't care deeply enough about the subtleties these kinds of things might possibly provide to even spend a little time and/or money on them. Criminy, I've got a dishwasher, aquaria, a dog, children, flourescent lights, a microwave, forced air heat and God knows what other ambient noise coming from *outside* the house to deal with before I will notice any benefit from enhanced electron flow.

If "it" works for you, I am sincerely pleased. I'm having a hard enough time keeping everything dusted.

Have a good beer.

With Axiom being a internet sells company, what proof did anyone purchasing there speakers have that they performed as said? All I can say is that people who live life on proof only is truly missing out. Lets kill this thread, and I'm sorry to have started it!

Aw, come on. We're just starting to have fun.

The proof that the Axioms perform as said is that they're still in my living room. Yes, there was risk involved in purchasing before hearing, but I tested them and they exceeded my expectation. That's my proof.

PMB, are you sure it's not the placebo effect? I'm kidding, of course. I love my Axioms, because they reproduce music and movies so beautifully. However, if someone says that damping a component has an audibly beneficial effect, folks accuse the reporter of "misleading," or suffering from the "placebo effect."

Although Bren may think it's a matter of the "Emporer's new clothes," and cause Chesseroo to giggle, what I'm saying is that folks who discount reports of improved sound due to cabling or tweaks based on their profound understanding of the science of it all, may not have a sufficiently deep understanding of the science involved to justify their opinions ... opinions based not on experience - it is those who report and attribute some audible change to the tweak who are reporting from experience, but rather opinions based on the critics' self-proclaimed understanding of theory.

For those who rely on Dr. Toole's double blind tests regarding cabling from some years ago, I don't doubt his results with the systems and cabling tested. I'd hesitate before extrapolating from his results. But then again, I don't claim to know it all or mock folks who disagree with me.

bren, then you would follow the logic i used when naming our warehouse cats. we had two; one black and the other gray. it was easy. the black one was named blackie, and since the other was not black, it was named whitey. others thought i was crazy for that, but with our rational, legitimate(sp).
dan

that's funny Dan, I had a pure black cat and I named him "whitey" - just to make people ask the stupid question.

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However, if someone says that damping a component has an audibly beneficial effect, folks accuse the reporter of "misleading," or suffering from the "placebo effect."

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Again, we're not talking damping, you've adjusted the topic from something obscure to something tangible. I have no problems with someone resting a CD player on some silicone breast implants if they want to place it on top of a sub, it will probably help reduce jitter errors - precisely aligned (well, compared to a phonograph) moving parts will benefit from being vibration free.

Going back to your original message... we're talking some rubber mat stuck to the inside of a chassis to "isolate your solid state components from vibrations, i.e., from kinetic energy" (your quote) some matting stuck to the top of a chassis still allows all these vibrations (even if I GIVE you that they are harmful to your audio) to enter from below, around, through the front panel, etc.

You also mention a Helmholtz resonator, which can affect tube amps to a noticeable degree - I will give you that, but does it have a noticeable effect on s/s electronics? I'll say no... tubes work off the mechanical properties of grids and plates, if you shake a tube, it changes the sound (kick a tube bass-guitar cabinet head someday and you'll think you invented the electric slinky) pick up and shake a s/s amp head, nothing. Or at least if anything does happen, it's academic... I'm sure an electron or two might go spinning wildly out of control, but if every electron is sacred, I'd be running superconductors for interconnects.

And I sincerely hope you weren't refering to the subatomic vibrations inherant in any components under power, but I'll assume for my own sanity that you weren't.

Bren R.

Actually, it's not my topic, although I just haven't had the chance yet to pick up some dynamat for the inside cover of an Ah! Njoe Tjoeb CDP. I don't know whether it will help or not, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I'll let you know how it works out.

My new Odyssey Stratos amp has some sort of matting stuck/glued to the inside of the top cover. Not sure why, but it sounds like what you guys are talking about. How much vibrating could an amp do anyway?

Dunno...I don't even begin to suggest I understand such things. I just like sweet sounding music.

I didn't buy Shakti Stones, really !! However, I did go to our local marine salvage outfitter and found a couple of brass driveshafts - big and really big. Got to thinking and had them cut some slices for me. Shined them up, put some felt on either end so they wouldn't scratch anything and put them on different components.



Here are some small ones - I can confidently report that no matter which component I put them on, I could detect no audible difference. However, I think they look very cool

Here are the big boys before I put the felt on:

The finish on those Michicauras (sp?) looks pretty damn good. I'd get get them paperweights off so everyone could check out my wood!

They sure are beautiful, Big Will, but no can do.

Although there is no generally agreed on quantum theory of gravity, the great mass of these brass drive shaft dampers exchange gravitons with the speaker cross over facilitating electron tunneling in the capacitors and chronoton production resulting in superb time coherence from these gorgeous Michauras.

Trust me BigWill, nobody but your wife wants to see your wood.

LOL!!!!!!! Stop it Peter! I can't take much more!

And he said "ooh, eee, ooh, ahh, ahh... ting tang, walla walla bing bang"

Bren R.

Are we talking Flying Purple People Eaters?

Nah, David Seville (known for the Chipmunks)... with "the Witch Doctor". Purple People Eater was Sheb Wooley.

Just transfered both from vinyl this past month.

Bren R.

Here's that amp cover I was talking about...

Spiff (and others),

Those are definitely placed there to reduce vibrations, as you suspected. I don't think they're intended to improve the sound of your amp however. What they do is prevent the lid from ringing and buzzing if it picks up vibrations caused by the music you're listening to.

The stainless steel sink in my kitchen has similar deadening devices glued to each corner on the underside. Imagine the sound of a spoon being dropped into an un-deadened metal sink. Similarly, imagine how cheap the amp would feel if you rapped on its lid and it had responded with a tinny echo.

Is that the same thing they're suggesting you do to your cd player, etc?

When I first read about the Dynamat, there wasn't a clear explanation as to why. That's why I posted here, to see if anyone had an explanation. Maybe if you talk to Klaus again you could find out what he has to say?

Peter's hit it right on the head, with the size of that cover, those pads are to reduce the mechanical noise.

Though without them... holding each end of that plate and giving it a shake would produce a great radio serial thunder foley, I'm sure.

Bren R.

No chance of thunder f/x with that cover. It's far too thick. Klaus makes his amps damn solid.

60 lbs. Yowza.

By the way what IS the damping material?

Looks like woodgrain foamcore in the pic.

Bren R.

Not sure. I'll email Klaus and ask.

Speaking of tweaking, get a load of this:

http://www.amusicdirect.com/products/detail.asp?sku=ADESKSYS

Thank you. My life is complete.

Peter, where do you find these things? Think of it. Only
$550 to trim my CDs. OY!

thanks for the link Peter, but I think I'll wait for the universal version - one that works with DVDs, SACDs & DVD-Audio discs as well!

I get an e-mail from Music Direct every week or so. I'd get off their mailing list, but some of the products are truly humorous . And I also buy music from them on occasion, so it's good to know what's new.

as an added bonus ,the first 200 lucky people to order will receive a green marker to really enhance your listening experience...the felt tip will also be good for 2000 cds as is the blade

That is truly scary.

Ever join one of those CD clubs and compare the heft and thickness of one of their CDs versus a pressing from the label? My KISS Greatest Hits is nearly half again as thick as my fiancee's from CDHQ... and hers skips in a few places on my H-K 5 disc changer.

10 really thin CDs for a penny... yes PLEASE!

Never underestimate the corporate will to squeeze a nickel 'til it flatulates pennies. Or for consumer laziness to ruin a good concept (ie: DVDs are mostly single sided (4.7 GB) now... the image quality on a double sided DVD (9.4 GB) was a lot better... but you had to read the hub imprint to find out what DVD you had in)... so now we're stuck with pretty inking on one side and picture quality with crawling blacks and noticable MPEG compression.

Starting to wonder if I could find a place that rents movies on DigiBeta. *sigh*

Bren R.

BrenR,

A corporation's drive to give Joe Average Consumer what he wants will always leave those of us who notice what is left out disappointed. Our perception is a curse, I tell you!

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A corporation's drive to give Joe Average Consumer what he wants will always leave those of us who notice what is left out disappointed. Our perception is a curse, I tell you!

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Crunched some numbers here...

We know that CD Audio is uncompressed (1:1)... 747MB or so for 74 mins:
44100 x 2 channels x 2 (16 bit) x 60 secs/min x 74 mins) = 783,216,000 bytes
783,216,000 bytes / 1024 = 764859 KB
712,828 KB / 1024 = 747 MB

Whereas if a DVD of the same length was to be uncompressed, it would require (for the video bitstream only):
720 w x 486 h x 3 channels (YUV) x 29.97 fps x 60 x 74 = 139,688,203,968 bytes (130GB)... add a multichannel audio track in, and assume that there are VERY few 74 minute movies, and you see just HOW much video has been compressed to fit on a 4.7GB DVD, over 30:1...

I will admit that very few video formats are 4:4:4 colour space (DV is 4:1:1, BetaSX is 4:2:2) but for illustration purposes - this is the "high-quality" format we're buying $10,000 televisions to watch?

Bren R.

Not only that, but a significant amount of space on optical media is set aside for read error correction-- which is all to the good, but some of that space is counted by DVD manufacturers as data space.

(I'm not sure if the hard drive manufacturer practice of counting a gigabyte as 1000000000 bytes rather than 1073741824 bytes is followed by DVD folks, but it's possible, which would add up as well)

So... it might be a bit worse than that.

Arent there instruments for detecting changes in frequency/sonic qualities besides the human ear? I would
think these would be more unbiased than an ear. Also sense of touch , sight and hearing are all working at the same time. Heck, even emotions can affect the way you are hearing things.YOu cannot turn off your other senses while listening, so this immediately biases a test from a human ear.
Why cant they just measure changes with test instruments and see if they come in the audible range of the human ear.
This seems the only way to settle the "tweaking" discussion.

If listening to sounds or music is more than just an "ear" thing, well then I wouldnt know. Who knows, maybe our skin picks up up certain information when listening to music which adds to the whole experience. How about some flower scented Hendrix?

You really like stirring the pot, don't you? Go ahead, dig up a break-in thread next. ;-)

Well my highschool English teacher, Mrs. Hale I believe, did refer to me as "the stick that stirs the manure".

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Why cant they just measure changes with test instruments and see if they come in the audible range of the human ear.

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Much the same reason you couldn't write a computer program to evaluate art.

Though a meter with a FUBAR-like scale from "Suck" to "Good" would be worth the laugh.