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Do any of you know of a source to purchase raw Tourmaline ( non jewelry grade ) and is anyone aware of what types tend to generate the most negative ions? I think the stuff is mined in a variety of countries and comes in a few different grades and colors, but actually I know very little about the stuff so any helpful information from my fellow inmates would be greatly appreciated.
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Here's a link to what's currently available on Ebay:
http://collectibles.shop.ebay.com/items/Lapidary-Materials__tourmaline_W0QQLHQ5fBINZ1QQLHQ5fIncludeSIFZ1QQQQ_catrefZ1QQ_flnZ1QQ_sacatZ4839QQ_scZ1QQ_sopZ15QQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em282?_trksid=p3286.c0.m282
You will find that the translucent crystals, including watermellon tourmaline, work better than the black. It's not clear to me that it's the negative ions that the tourmaline emits or its piezo-electric effect that makes them beneficial. Another crystal that works very well is topaz which is also available as rough stones and cheaply. Here is a link to some topaz that has the right look (and price).
If you want more information on crystals, you can search for my posts on tourmaline, topaz and quartz. The picture above shows tourmaline and topaz inside of my preamp. The tourmaline works well in warm locations, particularly around the power supply and tubes.
I was somehow thinking that tourmaline was mined exclusively in China but looking on E-bay I see that there is a lot of tourmaline stones that are said to come out of Africa.
Some of it cetainly seems to be priced fairly reasonable, I purchased a group of several translucent tourmaline stones of various colors for less than $10.00 with free shipping, will be interesting to play around with.
Just curious, would the stones perhaps be more effective if I crushed them into smaller pieces?
There is a paper on the pyroelectric effect (ion emission induced by heat) of pieces of tourmaline having different impurities. One gerneral conclusion is that the more iron there was in the stone, the fewer ions it emitted. Since black tourmaline has the highest iron content, its pyroelectric strength is the lowest. This is consistent with my hearing a smaller effect with the black tourmaline than with the colored translucent crystals.
However it isn't clear that the major effect is pyroelectric. Tourmaline is also piezoelectric (converts electomagnetic fields to vibrations). Inmate Unclestu52 has done more research on crystals than anyone else on these boards, and he thinks that the crystals should be small and allowed to vibrate in order to be most effective. The idea here is that the physical inertia of larger crystals will prevent stray electromagnetic fields from being converted into vibrations.
This gets into the general theory behind what the crystals do. It seems that the crystals that are strongly piezoelectric have the greatest effect on audio. The effect is generally to enhance the soundstage and imaging and to allow clearer perception of small details. It seems that the crystals absorb stray emf that can interfere with the audio signal. How ion emission fits in with this is an interesting question. I sprayed my amplifier with a tourmaline hair dryer and got good results, but to get the same effect with less hassle, I now have a small negative ion emitter aimed at my power amplifier's chassis. It really works and its effect is similar to what I get with crystals. My theory of why it does, is that it induces a charge on the amplifier chassis which acts as a farraday cage and repells stray emf.
This business with crystals is quite interesting, and the effects are quite pronounced. One caveat though: your system needs to be pretty highly resolving for these effects to be noticeable. For my second system, I have a good mid-fi rig with Arcam electronics and Sonus Faber Concertino speakers. On this set-up, crystals don't seem to make any difference. I also can barely hear differences in power cords or cables on this system.
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