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24.6.236.131
I went up to Music Lover's in San Francisco and spent a listening session comparing these items in and out of a system. The Optimizers did seem to make an improvement while placed in the system. The treble and the image improved and seemed more precise. I look at them and say no way, but I did hear something better. Do they really work or is this just expensive silly tweak?
GerryM5
Follow Ups:
Just arrived a pair of USED Shakti Hallogragh Soundfield Optimizers bought off of Audiogon at a good low price. Now I'll get play with them for a while and make up my own mind. I'll post a results review one way or another after a month or two. Thanks for all the input for, against, and funny ones.
GerryM5
Where ever you position them, beware that how you point the arrays has a great impact on the sound. While most people initially place them in the corner behind their speakers, I have found that behind me on a diagonal between where I am sitting and the rear corner and about 6 from me with the arrays pointed just slightly forward of the centered position works best for me.
Hi, I made myself a pair thanks to posts here, and even though it was a lot of work, if I had to charge someone, I wouldn't balk at the price Shakti charges. Yes they DO work. People that haven't heard what they do are quick to criticize, but my suggestion is to see if you can borrow Music Lovers to audition them. For my ears, they somehow change the focus of the soundstage depending on where they are facing much like speakers do. The difference for me is that I do not see ever selling them. I am near Santa Rosa if you need an audition of some homemade imitations. I was at Music Lovers a few months ago and was surprised how I could hear the Wilson speakers placement even with the Hallographs, but the soundstaging and low end depth was phenomenal.
Where near SR are you actually? I might be interested when I tool up that way later in the week, if you don't mind.
I'm in Cotati near 101 you can email me at ric_escalante@hotmail.com and I'll let you know my schedule.
Hi,
I posted the DIY plans a long time ago.
It cost 6$ to build, best 6$ I ever spent!
ffs
a
Just fresh out of surgery, had two shakti stones implanted behind my ears. Life is fantastic, real sound has transcended realism, everything I hear is superreal. Great, even my wife sounds nice. Dumped my $50,000 stereo on the payBay and bought a Sony compact kit instead, as there wasn't any difference anymore. Recommended.
The Hallographs really work and work extremely well in my room. They have become an indispensable part of my system. ymmv.
I've never heard a Shaki product that worked or did anything. I must say that I wish I could have invented and marketed the Shaki stuff...getting rich for doing nothing is great!
Hi.
It works there does not mean it will also work in yr room.
If you have 30-days full moneyback guarantee on return after trial & if you can afford to drop a grand for a pair of shirt hangers, go for it.
Thank goodness, I don't need them yet.
c-J
Is your room, period! Acoustical tweaks take many forms, but in the end they are room dependent and most often quite sensitive to placement too. So whether something like the Shaktis work or not in your space can't be known until they're tried and played with a bit.
I don't have these and never heard them, so cannot speak to them directly. However, I use DIY room lens clones, DIY bass traps, and other acoustical tweaks. I will attest that both absorption and diffusion work well when properly placed and matched to your situation.
The only probable value of the Hallographs on any large scale would be in their diffusion/diffraction potential. They may work well in some places and seem to fail in others, just as would any other devices functioning on those principles.
I have seven DIY room lens in a storage room that I will give to anyone who drops by to get them. They were better in my room than RPG diffusors and Tube Traps.
Like the Acoustic Resonators, I could never really get the Hallographs to work in my rig. I tried placing them in about five different locations, and the best I could manage was that MAYBE I heard a slight improvement in imaging—but I couldn’t repeat that improvement consistently. Alas, I sold them six months after purchasing them.
I bought a pair and later a second pair. It turns out that I cannot use the second pair with my present system because I cannot find a spot where they are of benefit.
There have been DIY efforts posted here many years ago. They were of some benefit but were not the equal of the real thing. Someone suggest below that a potted plant will do the same thing. Not so in my experience. I was shocked to see how a rubber tree plant made the sound look like a comb filter had been applied. The Halographs do not do this.
I have tried many room treatments, the Halographs easily outperformed the others.
Few of the critics have ever heard these. Most critics of tweaks have never heard what they criticize. Have confidence in your own ears.
Have confidence in your own ears.
I was shocked to see how a rubber tree plant made the sound look like a comb filter had been applied.Yes, I agree. Rubber plants with their big, plate-like leaves make very poor sound diffusers. They probably exacerbate the situation by being highly reflective. In my experience you have to try a few tweaks before you can settle on one you like. Smaller, leafier plants work best for me behind my speakers. I've used dragon trees , parlour palms and kentia palms with shocking success. I'm sure you could find more scientifically sterile solutions to the problem, but never one so darned purdy ... They make rotten bass traps, but so do Halographs.
Halographs are such shoddily-made pieces of junk that I was embarrassed to have them in the house. $1000 for sub-Ikea materials and workmanship?!
YM will probably V
:)
What about "acoustic resonators"??? By a certain Frank Chang. Anybody tried this?
I used to own several of Tchang’s resonators. A lot of people swear by them, but I could never get them to work in my system, no matter where I placed them. They’re pretty expensive, too. As usual, YMMV.
d
Quint,
I agree with you. Tried them and didn't hear any benefit and they are very expensive to treat a whole room. Even the dealer who did the at-home demonstration with my system couldn't understand why we didn't hear any benefit. I had better luck with some strategically placed fake plants that the wife definitely accepted more. But what works in one's home may not work in another.
Slbenz
Hmmm. Thanks.
If you're talking about the Golden Sound Acoustic Disks, funnily enough I do know something about them!I used to have them in the corners of the room in the house where I used to live. I made the mistake of applying two tweaks at once (I can't remember the other one) and thought I heard a subtle but indefinable improvement in sound quality. I couldn't swear the little disks were responsible for the (very, very slight) betterment, and I could never be bothered to get the ladder out and do a before-and-after test, so they just stayed there as a conversation piece. My new house has open gables and I can't find a suitable place for them. I lose no sleep over this...
They're made of what seems like the leftovers from a nickel-sized aluminium sheet metal stamping process. I suppose you could try actual nickels and BlueTack as a possible substitute, but the tweak was hardly a buttock-clencher, so if you've got the itch, I'd suggest you spend your money elsewhere.
:)
Quite humorous. It's no wonder you guys can't seem to get up above the noise floor. LOL
Thank you. It's seems a few insecure people on this site are threatened by humor, mistaking it for a personal attack.
In retrospect, perhaps BluTack is too luxurious a bonding agent. Better to stick with the 1/4-inch double-sided foam pads from Office Max that Golden recommends as replacements when their originals wear out.
:)
If it's luxury you're afraid of, I suggest you stick to pennies instead of nickels. :-)
Sound fiscal advice, sir! (no pun intended)
An utter zip-zero in my room. Embarrasing purchase that went into the trash basket...
Golden Sound products are the creation of Allen Chang, not Frank.
See: http://www.fastaudio.com/INT/acsys100.html
Hey, go easy! I'm not used to getting tweaked.
GerryM5
I look at them and say no way, but I did hear something better. Do they really work or is this just expensive silly tweak?Your listening is filtered through your inner cynic. He's afraid of freedom and only feels secure when others agree with him; i.e. when he's with the mob. Your ears told you there was something better: why did you choose the hot frustration of denial over the simple pleasure of enjoying "something better"? Answer that and you'll save a fortune on psychiatry bills and hi-fi upgrades.
Do they really work or is this just expensive silly tweak?
They really work AND they're an expensive silly tweak. They are tacky pieces of shoddy woodworking that diffuse the reflected signal coming off the wall behind your speakers. You can achieve better results (mechanically and aesthetically) with a couple of leafy pot plants (from God or Home Depot) placed on stands at the same height as your mids and tweeters. It looks better too.
There! You've saved your first thousand bucks!
You think you heard something so you want others to confirm or deny whether you did hear something. If you've got doubts about yourself, and it seems you did your listening with an open mind, then whose opinion are you going to trust? A pile of strangers on this board?
What about measurements? Well, measurements may show a difference but what measurements and then you're going to be faced with the question of whether or not differences of whatever magnitude they show are audible. If you decide that differences of that magnitude are audible, then you need to get your ears tested to ensure that you personally are capable of hearing them.
At the end of all that, if you still believe you heard something and that it was an improvement then you have to accept that they work, or you could simply trust your ears anyway and skip all that messing about.
The big point is that even if they work, they may still be an "expensive silly tweak" for you because the definition of an "expensive silly tweak" includes those things that do work but which you personally find far to expensive for the benefit provided.
Assuming what you heard was accurate, do you think the improvement in sound you heard was worth the cost? If the answer to that is 'no', then write them off as an expensive silly tweak. If the answer is 'yes', then take a long hard think about what you need to feel satisfied that you didn't make a mistake about what you heard. If you're satisfied that you weren't mistaken, that the improvement is worth the cost, and that there's nothing else you could buy for the same amount of money that would yield an equal or greater improvement in sound, then I think you've got a reasonable case for buying them.
David Aiken
a
Have you purchased any?
s
Clark,What I said in my second last paragraph was:
"The big point is that even if they work, they may still be an "expensive silly tweak" for you because the definition of an "expensive silly tweak" includes those things that do work but which you personally find far to expensive for the benefit provided. "
I stand by that. An individual can find a tweak that works to be an "expensive silly tweak" simply because the cost is too high. In that case a large part of the silliness would have to come from the individual's assessment of the value for money the device provided.
I made no comment on the Hallographs because I haven't heard them. There are a number of acoustic treatment devices around these days that would seem to work—if they work—from principles I have no knowledge of. I understand the operation of traditional absorption and diffusion based devices but those are all much larger than devices like the Hallograph. I know there is a Shakti distributor in Australia but they are half the country away, don't seem to have a local dealer, and I was told in passing the other day by a member of our local audio club that the local distributor does not import the Hallographs. I'm not prepared to import a pair myself just to have the opportunity to audition them so my curiosity is going to continue.
I think the important thing here is the main thrust of my post which was about what you do when you hear, or think you hear something, and can't explain it or have doubts about it. Do you rely on other people's opinions, do you look for test evidence and, if so, what sort of evidence, do you trust your own experience, or do you make an assessment from a comination of two or all of those 3 things. That's a situation we all have to face at some time or another and that is the 'real world' that I referred to in my subject heading. The original poster needs to come to grips with that question and decide on what their personally preferred approach for dealing with these situations is. My main aim was to highlight that point while making the comment that even if, at the end of the day, you decide that something works you should still make a value for money decision before you hand over your cash.
David Aiken
... you've woken him up now!
How silly? Errr, sorry,, how unjustifiable!
d
David Aiken
...Stan Ricker, David Glackin and you are disembodied voices on this board and therefore strangers--to me, at least. The crux of Mr Aitkin's argument was that GerryM5 should not dismiss the evidence of his own experience for the nay-saying clamoring of others. If you'd like to present an argument for the defense, I'm sure everyone would be delighted to hear your point of view, but I would suggest that simple name-dropping merely strengthens Mr Aitkin's case... unless I've misjudged your unfathomably deep sense of irony that is. In which case I'll happily blush doofus-like before your magisterial wonder.
However, am I--with this post--simply enjoying the irony of the irony?
:)
...but the other two of us are writer/scientists. Maybe Google?
clark
Writer. Wronger.
Now everyone can deny the evidence of their own experience with a mouse click! We need never think or try anything for ourselves ever again!
The irony of an irony of an irony, or perhaps the ironic satire of a paradox. First class sir! I blush like a dyed-in-the-wool doofus. I am not worthy....
:)
do anything. wait, yes they do... i'm not sure. hey, isn't music lovers in berkley? wait, maybe not. what's going on here... i'm very confused.
Maybe we could find someone who has measured his confusion and then we could compare it to the confusion he feels at some other time and see if his confusion is worthwhile. For someone...
confusion say: man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night.
no, wait....
You heard what they did or didn't do, and you probably saw the price tag. Are they worth more to you if a bunch of strangers were to endorse them? Worth less if strangers were to claim them ineffective?
I believe you already have the answers.
-Pete
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