Audio, hi-fi and car audio - Gallons of Snake Oil

"Dave xxxx" wrote in message
...
Never will you find more snake oil in one place at one time

http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/product/product.html

from the Yahoo Group you can find a link to on the PWB site.

SCAREY

From: "P.W.B. Electronics" pwb@b...
Date: Mon Feb 9, 2004 4:09 pm
Subject: The Great Reef Knot.

Gary,

I am delighted that you have now had success with the Reef Knot technique.

It pains me greatly to remember that it was as long as 16 years ago when
certain
British Hi Fi magazines published Peter's Reef Knot technique (with drawings
even!). In today's culture of the magazines being so terrified of being
ridiculed, I doubt whether they would have the courage to publish it now.
And, I
cannot help feeling that if they did publish it, they would make sure not to
mention Peter Belt's name (because they would lay themselves open to the
usual
vitriolic attack from certain members of the audio profession) and the reef
knot
technique would come under a heading of "A Tweak" (which is a category used
to
put weird things which cannot be explained by conventional electronic or
acoustic theories and so do not have to be taken so seriously by 'serious'
audio
engineers !!). What the audio industry is not appreciating is that very many
of
the so called 'tweaks' are actually telling the audio industry that there is
something going on which affects the 'sound' but which cannot be explained
by
conventional electronic or acoustic theories.

Let me expand a bit more.

If you are hearing improvements in the sound by tying a reef knot in a
cable,
then this means that you are hearing additional information. If you hear
improvements in the sound after tying a reef knot in curtain cords or the
pull
cords of curtain blinds, or in passive, unconnected electrical cables, then
this
also means that you are hearing additional information. But, you have not
CREATED that additional information by tying the reef knot. You therefore
have
to ask the question "Where was all that additional information before I tied
the
reef knot ?"

The sound does not get out of balance Gary when doing any of our techniques
because you are not altering the actual audio signal nor are you altering
the
acoustic air pressure waves. So, even if you 'treat' the left hand speaker
or
the left hand speaker wire, or the left channel in the amplifier only, the
improvement in the sound would not be left dominant. What you are altering
is
your (human being's) reaction and that reaction is neither predominantly
left
nor right !!

I know what you mean Gary when you wish to link the reef knot into an
explanation with a Newtonian basis (into already known science) and you,
Andreas, with EMI filtering, in order to get Peter's techniques more widely
accepted, but it does not fit there and therefore, when you think about it
more
seriously, you cannot stay with those easy explanations for long. Yes, it
would
be so much easier for Peter to gain acceptance if his discoveries could be
fitted so neatly into conventional theories. As a skilled (and well
respected)
electronics engineer, Peter's journey these past twenty years would have
been so
much easier if he had been able to link any of his discoveries with
conventional
theories. Believe me, he has been down all those paths and come to a brick
wall
each time.

Back to the question "Where has the additional information come from ?"

If you tie a reef knot in a cable and improve the sound, and the reef knot
is
not altering the signal going through the cable, (and, obviously, it cannot
be
if the cable is unconnected and therefore not carrying a signal or if it is
a
pull cord made of STRING) this means that prior to tying the reef knot there
must have been something adverse happening around that cable. Tying the reef
knot has just reduced that adverse effect. Peter and I have always
emphasised
this from the very beginning. All the audio journalists who wrote regularly
about Peter's techniques acknowledged this each time. Our techniques are not
'improving' the sound i.e. producing additional information, they are
REDUCING
adverse effects - which give the same result i.e. an improvement in the
perception of the sound. What is so challenging to the audio industry is
that if
what we say is true, then all the additional information you are now hearing
(after our 'treatments' or after tying the reef knots etc) has been there,
in
the room, all the time (and all the years) you have been playing the
disc!! -
you just have not been able to perceive it previously. And, in addition,
this
means that your existing audio equipment has been capable of (and is capable
of
more) handling a wealth of information - far more than anyone has ever
realised.
This is the concept the audio industry cannot come to terms with.

Trying to stay within conventional theories to gain acceptance just allows
the
audio world to judder on without having their belief structure challenged.
Within that scenario, our Foils, Creams, Ring Ties, Freezing etc, will still
not
be accepted or experimented with because they would still not make
conventional
sense.

To bring in the Joseph Lister parallel again.

Imagine 100 years ago, the majority of the doctors and surgeons believing
that
the micro-organisms which caused so many of their patients to develop
septicaemia were in the patients own blood and that these micro-organisms
could
erupt (or not erupt) spontaneously - in other words it was purely chance.

It is like somehow persuading these doctors and surgeons to apply an
antiseptic
gauze to their patients open wound, and that these doctors and surgeons
found
that more of their patients survived, but the doctors and surgeons were
still
allowed to retain the belief that their patients survival was still because
of
'pure chance'. Whilst ever they were still being allowed to cling on to the
old
belief structure, they would never therefore acknowledge the necessity to
wash
their hands, wash their instruments or change their blood stained, pus
stained
frock coats for clean ones !! To understand antiseptics, you have to leave
behind the old belief structure and realise Lister's concept that the 'germs
are
in the air' and that you have to do everything possible to exclude the air
from
getting into the open wounds.

Peter demonstrated the Reef knot technique and all the other (what we call)
free
techniques to audio journalists to try to get them to realise just what
range of
things could affect the sound. Our own specially treated devices are much
more
effective because Peter realised, over 15 years ago, what must be happening
and
began to develop very special treatments for specific materials.

I have been following the 'cable controversy' for the past 30 years, ever
since
the publication of Jean Hiraga's concept that different cables could give
different 'sounds'. The controversy over cables is still raging today. What
I
find amazing is that all the audio journalists who review the different
cables
and 'hear' improvements in the sound of their audio system, do not end their
review with the sentence

"Wait one moment, wait one moment, there is something strange going on here.
I
must investigate further".

They just do not seem to appreciate that when they hear improvements in the
sound (i.e. hear additional information) by using the different (exotic?)
cables, what the results of listening to the different cables are actually
telling them is that the normal, standard, (non exotic) cabling and wiring
throughout the audio system is also perfectly capable of 'handling' this
additional information. It must be - otherwise the reviewer would not have
been
able to 'hear' that additional information coming out of the loudspeakers !!
These last two sentence run counter to what the audio industry believe and
to
what the manufacturers of the different cables believe. They believe that
the
reason why the (exotic) cables give an improvement in the sound is because
the
(exotic) cable is 'handling' the audio signal better.

I will try to expand on this theme in the forthcoming Newsletter.

So, Andreas, a brief response

There may be an electromagnetic wave travelling on the outside of a cable.
Tying
a reef knot in that cable may alter that electromagnetic wave (flip it
somehow
?) But it does not necessarily mean that there is only one explanation - the
conventional one - i.e. that any changes to the electromagnetic wave affect
the
signal going through the cable !!

There is yet another explanation - that the human being is sensitive to the
electromagnetic wave travelling along the outside of a cable, that the human
being's reaction is an adverse one, that by tying a reef knot you (somehow)
change that electromagnetic wave (flip it somehow ? - to an inverted pattern
?)
so that the human being has less of an adverse reaction, is more relaxed and
can
therefore perceive more of the information available. That could be why the
measurement engineers who try to measure the output of loudspeakers to see
if
they can detect (by measuring) if any (exotic) cable is actually 'handling'
the
signal better than the normal, standard cable cannot measure any
differences.
Similarly, if they 'measured' to see if there were any changes in the signal
between a cable with a reef knot tied in it or without one, their
measurements
would be identical. Because the signal is not changing !! It is you (the
human
being) who is doing the changing.

I am back to my old theme again. The earliest of early creatures must have
been
able to read/sense numerous energy patterns within their environment, in
order
to make sense of their environment, in order to know what action to take in
order to survive - long before the senses of hearing and sight developed and
that what was successful Nature has replicated again and again. If you are
prepared to move away from conventional electronic and acoustic theories,
tying
reef knots in passive, unconnected, cables, in the string pull cords of
window
blinds, in the pull cord of the bathroom light etc, begins to become more
understandable - as will so many of the so called 'tweaks' one reads about.
One
very good example is the colouring of the edge of a CD. Many people in the
audio
industry heard this improve the sound. Many others threw a 'wobbly' saying
that
it was impossible - digits are digits, they cannot be altered and they
certainly
cannot be altered by a coloured pen !! The explanation usually put forward
for
the improvement in the sound heard by many was that (somehow) the laser beam
was
being reflected or refracted by colouring the edge of the CD. But, this
explanation again will not hold up under scrutiny because you can make a
similar
mark on the extreme edge of a vinyl record and on the outer edge of the
plastic
housing of an audio tape with a Violet/Purple pen and get a similar
improvement
in the sound as with colouring the edge of a CD - and there is no laser beam
involved with either a vinyl record or with an audio tape.

May

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* P.W.B. Electronics pwb@b...
* http://www.belt.demon.co.uk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PWB
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