Got my QS Ref...

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Every time I see a band there is a pile of extremely ferrous gear up there, but it somehow manages to sound better than Hi Fi especially the drum kit

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We must be going to a different kind of gig then - in all of my years of both playing in and going to hear bands, I've never heard a PA system sound as musically satisfying or pleasant as that which comes from most decent hifi. Sure, PA has clout, volume and the ability to flap yer breeks, but it's harsh, edgy, brittle and rather unpleasant. Acoustically amplified music, such as one gets in a good theatre venue, or lightly amplified sound, can sound very good, but in my experience the 'gig' experience is sonically almost always awful. This covers everything from the singer-songwriter through a Bose PA in a pub up to Knebworth or whatever...

John

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1, Every time I see a band there is a pile of extremely ferrous gear up there, but it somehow manages to sound better than Hi Fi especially the drum kit.

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True, but the source is so good that its bound to sound good!

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2, The recording studios are not none ferrous enviroments, mixing desks , speakers , Mike stands etc etc , tend to be awfully ferrous.

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Tell me about it! I used to run a small studio. The point is that it could be done better.

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3, Last but not least, the Pog system , I have just heard from another person who is blown away by this set up. He joins me , Hermann , Jonathan Ribee, Ian Wright TF and a good few others in thinking this system is a class above what we have previously experienced. This system is literally on a scaffolding of Angle Iron boards and glass.

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I've never heard the Pog system, though have heard multi-phased systems, for instance Joel's source was on Phase 10, plus I have heard the Mana room at shows (and realise that the show sound is absolute crap compared to what you can get out of it). I am not attempting to slag Mana off, what it does is certainly impressive, however what it does not do is too important for me to be able to live with it. I am not attempting to convert people! I do however think it a shame that Mana as a company, and many of their core forum members seem totally unprepared to even consider that there might be anything to this non-ferrous thing. They are in real danger of becoming luddites - Naim, NVA, DNM and many more believe there is something to it, and sticking ones head in the sand will not make it go away!

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Tony, do come round and hear my tuneless mass of resonances sometime.

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I would love to. I mentioned your long standing offer of a listen a while back to a friend who drives (I don't), and he is up for it sometime as he is very interested in hearing your Densen DM10. Like me he is priced out of the Naim preamp upgrade path, though unlike me he needs a lot of current (he runs Gale 401s), and the 100wpc Densen might be a real contender for him.

Tony.

Personally I see no contradition between liking Mana and acknowledging the ferrous effect as real or, vica versa, liking Quadraspire and thinking the ferrous think a bunch of hokum (or at least irrelevant). And although I am no fan of Mana at least their position is reasonably logical. They don't beleive that ferrous metal guarntees a bad system becuase they prefer their hi-fi on top of large amounts of such metal -- which seems reasonably enough. In contrast the NF view seems to me to be logically equivalent to saying "All cows have four legs, that dog has four legs therefore its a cow".

Matthew

However, a rack which does not quite have the same isolation properties may outperform the Mana in some areas - already outlined above, due to other factors such as being non-ferrous, and non-resonant (or at least, much less resonant.)

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!
Steve.
It's good to get back to normal.

No one said that anyone had said that ferrous metal GUARANTEES a bad system. My point is that the NF argument -- with specific regard in this instance to Mana -- is so speculative and illogical as to be rather irrelevant.

Specifically the argument seems to be based on the assumption that of all the properties of the metal used by Mana its ferrousness is the most significant. This may be true. However, given the mechnical and structural nature of stands it seems at least as likely (and in reality probably more so) that the machanical and structural properties are more significant. In other words that a Mana stand made from, say, aluminium may well be worse.

Or, to put it another way, since my stand wobbles and I prefer it to Mana, if I were to apply your logic then I would say to Mana people that their stands could be improved my making them wobble. This may of course be true but as I have no logical reason to suppose it to be so then there is little point in me mentioning it let alone going on about it all the time.

Its probably true that a stand *absolutely identical* to Mana but non-ferrous would be noticeably better but as such a thing is impossible the point is obviously moot.

Matthew

Now we are getting somewhere. So what you are saying -- I think -- is that ferrous metals not only make things sound worse but make things sound worse in a characteristic manner that is readily identifiable. And that -- presuming one is not deaf -- one must listen in a certain way in order to percieve this.

So -- and I appreciate that your don't want to go on and on about this issue, but I am now genuinely curious -- what does the ferrous effect sound like and how should one listen in order to hear it?

>> You did (or implied it) <<

But it was hardly the substantive point of my argument as you implied.

Matthew

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!
Steve.
It's good to get back to normal.

My eyes (ears, and mind) remain forever open - as they are always in the demo room....
My own opinions are always based upon what I hear, and not what I am told, unless I specifically state to the contrary...

Now, if removing ferric objects, ie: big ones, with their own magnetic field (beyond the requisites within the components themselves; transformers, speaker magnets, Naim CD player spindles and such like) yields an improvement in musicality, then I for one will not be bothered by idle rationalism as to the absolute presence (or not) of extraneous ferrics - such as my own blood stream, radiators in the room, building structure... in the vicinity of the system (not) being a contributory/adverse factor.

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!
Steve.
It's good to get back to normal.

[This message was edited by Steven Toy on WEDNESDAY 31 October 2001 at 05:14.]

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Now, who has a pair of NBLs for SBL money?

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You should be so lucky....hang on, you are!

I rejoice in your good fortune. In fact I too have benefited from the same cicle of transactions and have a lovely pair of Cherry Credo's to show for it.

I wait (and save) in expectation of the launch of new Naim equipment. Ever hopeful that I will too benefit from the Naim second-hand cascade effect (trademark pending).

Jay

PS have you ever thought of being a lawyer?

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Personally I see no contradition between liking Mana and acknowledging the ferrous effect as real or, vica versa, liking Quadraspire and thinking the ferrous think a bunch of hokum (or at least irrelevant).

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I agree completely with this, and some of the blame for the blurring of the QS Ref with the non-ferrous thing on this thread is probably down to me not making this point clear.

When I auditioned the QS Ref vs. Mana Ref I made damn sure that both tables were set up close to each other - I was not going to buy the QS just because it was non-ferrous, it needed to be a damn good stand too. I preferred it to the phase 2 Mana, and as I had absolutely no interest it going any further than phase 2 that was good enough for me. The fact that the QS improved again once the Mana was removed from the room was an added bonus. It also has to be pointed out that Larry is most certainly not the non-ferrous fanatic that he is occasionally portrayed as here, he acknowledges that there is a noticeable effect, but fully accepts that people have to live in the same location as the system. Dave Cattlin however is a fanatic of the highest possible order! Talking of Dave, where the hell is he?

The other thing that needs to be repeatedly pointed out is that the term non-ferrous is absolute bollocks to describe the phenomenon we are hearing. Non-ferrous metal has an effect on the sound too, witness the LP12 platter etc, it is manufactured from a non-ferrous alloy. So the QS Ref, Hutter, and Fraim will both have an adverse effect due to the metal used in their construction, it is just that the negative effect is less. Rumour has it that the Fraim uses some ferrous metal in its construction anyway…

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In contrast the NF view seems to me to be logically equivalent to saying "All cows have four legs, that dog has four legs therefore its a cow".

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Mana = cow.

Hutter = cow.

QS = cow,

Fraim = err… hmmm… err… paraplegic cow?

Tony.

PS Abbreviating non-ferrous to NF will open up the whole Bernard Manning can of worms again, and if I have to find that ****hole funny I'm going back to Mana…

So your special listening method is in fact an ABA dem?

Anyway, my only point is if we take the effect of placing a Mana stand next to your hifi to be N then the effect of placing your equipment on Mana is very obviously N * the number of atoms in the universe. Consequently the fact that Mana is made from ferrous metal seems relatively unimportant and it makes no more sense to mix up these these issues than it does with other arbitary characteristics of non-Mana stands such as wobbliness.

Matthew

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!
Steve.
It's good to get back to normal.

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3) Play the piece of music and listen to the level of detail present, how dynamically 'clean' the sound is and the width of the soundstage.

4) Start by removing one item containing ferrous metals from the room and listen to the music again. What you are looking for is increased dynamics and levels of detail and a more expansive soundstage.

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The research literature is repleat with examples showing that when people are told what they will experience they often report that they had that experience, even in test conditions when the experience didn't exist. In short, there may be a strong suggestability factor here.

Question: Is the effect of sufficient magnitude and significance that someone who has not been told what to listen for would notice it in a blind dem? What about someone who had been told what to listen for but the dem is blind?

- GregB
PS: "Blind", in this case, means that the listener would not know when listening if the metal was present in the room or not

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

If you say so.

>> Moreover, if you overtighten the QS Ref. to reduce the wobble, sound quality degradation will occur as a result <<

For goodness sake Steven make up your mind!

Anyway at least my new upgrade theory is still sound (Mana users in case you haven't heard you should mount your stands on blocks of jelly. The increased wobble will improve your system quite dramatically)

Matthew
Non Stiff Weenie Boy

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Question: Is the effect of sufficient magnitude and significance that someone who has not been told what to listen for would notice it in a blind dem? What about someone who had been told what to listen for but the dem is blind?

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Yes, dependant upon how you listen. If you are listening in a "hi-fi" way, i.e. looking for the "wow, listen to how much cleaner the hi-hats sound" thing, then you will probably miss it. If however you are tune deming or just going with the flow then it should be pretty obvious, the music is freer, it is like a veil has been lifted. Everything just makes more sense. I have however only noticed it with systems that are sounding pretty damn good to start with. It is subtle, but to my mind important.

Tony.

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Originally posted by Greg Beatty:
The research literature is repleat with examples showing that when people are told what they will experience they often report that they had that experience, even in test conditions when the experience didn't exist. In short, there may be a strong suggestability factor here.

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Greg,

I was demoing Base racks in my system. These are NF.

We setup the system, switched on, and it was worse than the previous setup. Sound as described elsewhere in this thread. Sense of dread descends.

Took the LP12 away from the top of the CDPS/52PS/HiCap/PSA/LP12 stack, and the improvement was dramatic. Very obvious. All commented the effect was larger than they would have believed without hearing it first-hand. Of course, this was not double-blind, but it was very convincing.

Now the cold system was sounding better than the same setup well-toasted on my old racks. Very natural & musical.

cheers, Martin

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

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If you wish only to receive a reply exclusively from one individual, then please contact them via email.

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Dear Mr Toy.

this is a forum where others might like to read Tony's reponse. You are out of order in your assertion that Mr Jong should use e-mail.

And as for referring to James as "my antipodean friend" - what has James' geographical location or race to do with this? Just what did you mean by that?

I suggest you moderate your behaviour here before the forum moderators apply a deletion, or worse still, bar your participation here for posts which might be misconstrued as racist in tone or content. It only takes one e-mail from a concerned party, as we have all seen here recently.

And I agree - it is a lovely day for it.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Just wondering if the large improvement to the af/base might have been to mass reduction with the lp-12s removal(vs. the NF thing). I've experienced the same dramatic effects with removing various kit and/or shortening the AF rack by nothing more than one level. The AF rack is one of the most enviroment-sensitive racks I've ever used (a clue to a great performer perhaps?).

regards,

dave

"Antipodean" can apply to the inhabitants of either New Zealand or Australia, where the majority of the inhabitants are of the same racial origin as myself.

So what is wrong with making geographical references?
They may not be stricly relevant to the topic in hand, but they hardly warrant a deletion or a ban.
I refered to the geographical location out of acknowledgement of his style in stating his whereabouts, not to the location itself.

James,
I meant no offence.

My suggestion to use email was made because Tony's opinion was sought, and I was criticised for giving my own opinion on this public forum ahead of him. The suggestion to email a person dirctly in order to invite a response from one specific individual to the exclusion of others, was kind of obvious really!

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!
Steve.
It's good to get back to normal.

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!
Steve.
It's good to get back to normal.

Bearing in mind the many people who must have seen this, I think the wholesale deletion of this thread, all other threads, the banning of its contributing members and all other members just to be on the safe side, is strongly indicated.

When will the moderators do this? I think we should be told...

Best;

Mark

(an imperfect
forum environment is
better than none)

<puts on valley girl voice> Like, duh.

>> otherwise we are all going to be constantly living in fear of such unnecessary deletions/exclusions <<

Now *that's* ironic. Somebody should phone Alanis.

Matthew

Just to make sure that this thread stays on the Hi-fi Corner and doesn't get moved to a place where perhaps we all belong!
Cheers,
Steve (speaking for himself )

It's always a nice day for it Have a good one!

It's good to get back to normal.