check this guy out! :) Drew Daniels*

Technical Shakti claims:
http://www.shakti-innovations.com/emitests.htm
Technical evalation of Shakti claims:

"The elephant they're trying to hide in plain view is this: So a big slab of apparently solid material placed directly on the radiating antenna attenuates the signal. This is supposed to be a surprising and significant result why, exactly? It is not exactly an unknown phenomenon that solid matter blocks radio frequency EM radiation better than air. Where are the comparisons to other materials and especially other shapes? I'd like to see a comparison to, say, a simple Faraday cage made of ordinary sheet steel or aluminum. (More on that below.)

A quick & easy attenuation demonstration you can perform with no expensive equipment: Take a cellphone with an external antenna, preferably the extendable type. With the antenna extended, note how many bars the signal strength meter is at. Now, without changing the position or orientation of the phone (either of which can change signal
strength all by itself -- you only want to test one variable), close the fingers of one hand around the antenna so that it is surrounded on all sides. In most cases you'll lose at least one bar on the signal strength meter, if not more. (Be sure to give it some time to settle
for both readings; I just did this with my phone and the meter has a multi-second lag time.)

For a cruder demonstration, just walk inside a cave.

I mentioned Faraday cages above. These are nothing more than conductive enclosures around an EMI source which cover it on all sides. A Faraday cage must have no openings larger than the minimum wavelength the cage is expected to contain. Holes smaller than that do not significantly affect how much radiation escapes.


Faraday cages are by far the most common method for reducing EMI in consumer electronics, since you get one for free if you build your product's enclosure out of metal. For a great example of how much you can puncture a Faraday cage without reducing its effectiveness, take a look at Apple's PowerMac G5.


This brings me to the next elephant Shakti doesn't want you to notice. The major issue in designing an enclosure to contain EMI (or prevent its entry) is simply avoidance of holes or slits larger than the critical length. Problems typically arise wherever the enclosure is punctured for connectors, user controls, and so forth, because many of these items
are large enough to form exit/entry paths.

The theme you should be getting here is that EMI problems require fully enclosing a device and paying attention to all possible paths in and out. But the Shakti Stone is just a slab or bar which cannot possibly fully enclose anything! For all I know it may do an excellent job
blocking what heads in its direction, but it does absolutely nothing for any other path.


It's like saying that if you put a 3x3 inch square of cardboard next to a naked 100 watt bulb, you've successfully blacked out that light. Well, no, you haven't. You've blocked some paths for light to leave the bulb, but plenty of light will radiate out all the other angles that are still open. Even objects in the cardboard's shadow will typically receive some light that originated at the bulb, due to diffuse reflections off other surfaces and so forth.


And that analogy isn't actually an analogy! Light and RF EMI are both examples of electromagnetic radiation. The principles are the same in both cases; the main difference is that visible light is at much higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) than RF EMI.

And

--
In fact, the "stone" probably didn't attenuate the signal at all. The most likely thing to have happened is that it changed the impedance of the antenna. This would have increased the VSWR so that less energy got to the antenna to be radiated. To any engineer at all familiar with EM and especially with EMI the idea that placing a material in proximity to a piece of electronics will significantly and reliably change the EMI environment is laughable. You might as well chant "EMI go away" while dancing naked.

Marc Foster
(Designing and analyzing antennas since 1979)"

 

I believe one of Nousaine's points is that consumers are duped, with the aid of the High-End press, into paying a lot for not much. Campare what you get between my $1600 Denon 4800, (regardless of who where its made) a 50lb box full of R&D, circuits transformers etc, to a $1600 pair of cables. Then consider that there is about a $10,000 pot of money (for over 5 years) for someone who can distinguish between zip cord and expensive cable.

Is it unreasonable to be skeptical?

WVK

 

WVK, I have three comments on this:

1. The high end press is not to blame, in fact have you read them lately? Both TAS and Stereophile have made a concerted effort to focus on gear at all budget levels.

2. It's not fair to compare a mass-market item like a Denon receiver to a specialty high end product like a super-expensive cable pair. Denon can spread its costs over thousands of people, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of users whereby very few people actually buy such an expensive cable.

3. I was skeptical about super-high end cable myself until a heard some Nordost cable in a nice system. It really made a difference. Now this sytem was very expensive but the high resolution of the system made power cord changes and interconnect and speaker changes very noticeable.

No one is holding a gun to your head after all. If you think spending more than a hundred bucks on cable is unnecessary then fine, but don't claim that cables do not make a sonic difference unless you have proof to the contrary.

 

How much proof do you need? There is no evidence for the sonic differences claimed for exotic cables, and no scientific basis for them either. To use a familiar analogy: I can claim that my car runs better after it has been washed and waxed, but that doesn't make it true.

 

bonjo,

Do you hear any sonic differences between any cables? Forget the word "exotic" and your fixation on price. Ever made any cables?

 

How could you claim there is no difference between a Volkswagon and a Ferrari if you've never driven a Ferrari?

With all due respect you are very much wrong on this one. When I first met Steve I was running a PA system as my audio source and all I can tell you is that in my experience through upgrading through 2 different mid-line audiophile systems to my current system is that no 2 different IC's or speaker cables sound exactly the same. The range of differences is astonishing, but I had to pay to play.

 

How'd you know i drove a Volkswagen?

Anyway, I never claimed what you said I did. Of course there's a difference between a VW and a Ferrari, and the differences could easily be measured. On the other hand, if I claimed that the Ferrari ran even better after being washed and waxed, well that's another story...

 

quite the contrary. In fact, if you do a search on this forum you will find many threads that support exactly that claim - if you want to take it further, look for a thread where the directionality of wire is also critically evaluated.

you CAN hear a difference - there is plenty of evidence to support that.

 

I haven't heard many cables, just the ones that come in the box, my RS Gold Series, some Monster Cable and some Vampire Wire. They all sound the same to me.

I haven't made any cables either. I've also never made any speakers, phono cartidges, etc etc, but I -can- hear differences in those.

 

There seems to be much disput regarding that "evidence". Why not through your hat in the ring at "rec.audio.high-end" and take the $10K (or there abouts) Cable Challange?

WVK

 

You do realize these cables are not known for their sonics, don't you?

I will let Danny respond but for one reason in the case of a win the money payout is not determined by a third party, it is determined by the biased objectivist who designed the contest.

 

oh please, spare me with these nonsense and futile "challenges". They claim to be objective when in fact they are nothing but silly attempts designed to deny the obvious.

 

I really think it's time for this thread to say goodnight. Enjoy your cables!

 

Bonjo,

I'm sorry if we appear harsh but there has been much discussion of some of these subjects before and if you look closely there is less substance to a lot of these challenges than at first appears.

 

Excellent idea!

WVK

 

I would really like to see that statement about the performance of cars viv-a-vis cleanliness/shininess given a proper double-blind test.

 

Good point Robin. Maybe I can judge the test and offer up $10K to the winner I pick.

 

Let's try something a bit harder. How about amplifiers? Can you hear and talk about the difference in sound between two amplifiers?

 

Speaking as a life-long animist, you just don't go around hurting the feelings of innocent vehicles like that.

 

I radically improved the sound of my two vintage Harmon Kardon Receivers by eliminating the the speaker posts and switching and replacing with 12 guage silver-clad copper wire. More open, better dynamics, better bass---you name it. That's just from eliminating some cheap connectors form old electronic gear.

You know, if you were to play the Eroica performed first by Toscanini and then by Furtwangler, some people wouldn't have a clue at what you were getting at, or trying to get at---"What's the point of this test? Why should I care? Anybody who listens to that stuff is only pretending that there's some sort of meaningful difference between the two performances. They're snobs. They both have awful sound anyway. Why don't you play Dark Side of The Moon instead?" Some people can't hear differences between amplifiers. Some people can't hear differences between wire. That's just the way people are, the way people are "wired".

 

Folks, I would like to offer this as a possible explanation to such a divergence of opinion here, namely that people are wired differently. What I mean by that is that people hear differently. I take "hear" in this case in its most broadest view. Now clearly the sound waves impinging on someone's ears are the same if they are standing in the same spot at the same time in a given performance or recording. Also clearly someone like me in his late 50's with some high frequency loss hears differently than someone in his twenties with little to no loss. I mean, however, to go far beyond the obvious. Sony reported when they first played early SACD recordings, compared to redbook CD recordings, that the reaction of listeners was every thing from "what's the big deal" to "amazing". How can this be? I can tell the difference between SACD and CD immediately when I hear them, others cannot. My wife, who I refer to as "old golden ears" can hear things that I never do. She comes from a rich musical up bringing and can play piano by ear, my childhood consisted of playing the radio. I have no idea if exposer to musical instruments early in life makes the difference, but some people hear more than others. Is this a blessing or a curse? When we auditioned cables both my wife and I agreed on which was better, but she heard more from the better cables than I did. If you do not "hear" the difference between cables then you do "hear" the same way I do. I am not going to say that is better or worse.

 

ALP,

Great point. There are different levels of critical listening skills in people. I do think this is something that can be learned though, to an extent.

 

I agree with this Lee because that's exactly what happened with me. I knew nothing before I met Steve and it took a lot of listening comparisons before the light finally came on.

 

Exactly. Education matters. Once you are told - or figure out on your own - what to listen for, you can hear the difference.

Please note that what I am talking about here is not the same as coaching or bias. It is inculcating bias to say, "Doesn't A sound better than B?" or "A is the $100 cable, B is the $1,000 cable." But if you say, for example, "Which sounds brighter, A or B?" or "In which recording, A or B, do you hear more space around the instruments?", that is drawing the listener's attention to the parameter under test without introducing bias. This is what I would call educating the ear.

As to cables, there is plenty of evidence for sonic differences among them, mostly in the area of tonal balance. Whether these differences are significant -- in terms of one being more nearly correct than another -- is a different question.

 

This is where a musical education---in the form of getting familiar with the sound of unamplified music---comes in to play. Mellotrons, Synthesizers and stacked Marshalls can be faked. A solo viol or violin or, especially, the human voice, cannot be faked. Piano is almost impossible to get a near approximation.