 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
80.177.28.171
In Reply to: RE: Of course.... posted by unclestu on January 27, 2013 at 12:19:24
>>> "Have you thought about it? I have two professional grade microscopes as well as a couple of stereoscopic lower powered microscopes for examination of the surfaces pre and post treatment.
In addition, I have experimented with various finishes on the woods employed, sanding down some to a mirror like finish, and leaving others with rougher premilled finish. I have experimented with finishing on one side and not on the other side.
There are differences and a lot has to do with surface reflections and the resonance of the wood itself, and thus dependent on the appliucation of the wood itelf." <<<
What I meant was "have you thought about how and why it is having an effect on the information contained within the complex music you are playing through the audio system". I don't dispute all peoples' observations that such things ARE having an effect on the sound information they are resolving.
You examining the surfaces after and before treatment with a microscope (professional grade or not) still does not, in any way, answer the question HOW is the 'treatment' affecting the complex musical information going through the audio equipment. All you have done is to examine the surfaces, you haven't answered the subsequent question arising from that examination.
You keep saying the treatment/s does/do have an effect on the sound, I am asking HOW ?
That is why I responded to your :-
>>> "If this leads to a rethinking of things, so be it." <<<
Regards,
May Belt,
Manufacturer.
Follow Ups:
> > > HOW < < <
of course ,it's better to know how ...but you think ,Antonio stradivari
Knew that how those techniques worked for him?
I changed my guitars saddle with ivory , rosewood & ebony ,and ebony
was so better for ME or maybe THIS guitar !?
So it is very good & now i have to find WHY ?
You scientists realy think like this ? Which way is better & easy for me?
I don't want to produce & sell something .
And "spot the Strad violin in blind tests"
What's that have to do with the price of spinach?
regards
tweaker
for a while one theory on the stradivarius sound was that the lacquer used was filled, or, more accurately, contained dust from semi precious stones. The theory went that the apothocaries of the time who ground up the lacquer ( from the natural secretions of a bug) were also the jeweler's of the time and their polishing work basically contaminated their workshops. The lacquer used was supposed to have bits of quartz and amethyst, etc.To this day, no instrument restorer dares to remove the original lacquer used.
In treating some of the woods i experimented with, I added quartz grindings to the super glue I applied. It added considerable brightness to the sound. I did not experiment with varying the amounts, BTw, but strads are noted for their brilliance in playing which differs from, say, an Amati.
Of course YMMV
Stu
Edits: 01/30/13
The woods ( you treated with quartz grindings) was for shelf or footer ?
I was thinking to green carborundum & quartz powder (that i get it from a gem polisher & cuter) .
"Pyon Sound" rack shelf have holes that filled with quartz sand ! ( i don't know that work or not ) !
I mixed quartz powder with beewax for crossover treatment with almost good result . !
Thanks
tweaker
carborundum is also used for sandblasting, IIRC. May be cheaper .
IIRC a Japanese company uses it to fill their power line conditioner, and the rumors were that Shunyata used something very similar. If so, the carborundum is not as magnetic as say ferrite, so it takes a lot more current to overload the material allowing it greater current capability before saturation.
Quartz sand is that stuff often used in hotel ashtrays: very clean and white. It's actually crushed granite which has a high quartz. The Bright star people used to recommend filling their sand boxes with that type of sand
I used the quartz laced super glue on spruce that I was using for shelving, thinking it would be like a Strad....
How and where did you apply the quartz and beeswax in your crossover?
stu
I don't know what i have done is correct or not .I first add it on caps & inductors after that on hole xover board !
I experiment with not expensive speaker (Onkyo liverpool ) . i thought it gose to dull sound but in that case it will be
vivid & softer in same time in top end ( or preciser & not harsh may be ).But before that i removed the plastic cover of caps & add a lyer of dammar varnish on cape , inductors & finally all the board .
I want to do this on the better speaker (but here situation is very dangerous , funny & complicated ... may be later ) :) .But behind my primitive experiment , i am thinking to use wood for pcb or teflon or a combination of both for a while .
is it a good or bad idea ?
And is there a special use for different tone wood in different place like caps , transformers , may be transistors , ... or all this
depends to gears & ears & ... ?
I saw , yamamoto used the cherry wood on transformers .
& this picture maybe from old JBL xover.
thanks
tweaker
Edits: 01/31/13
on the caps helps to dampen the cap. Yamamoto actually encapsulates their coupling caps in beeswax with a wooden tube over the assembly.If the caps are fil types the ehat of the molten wax actually helps since many if the pastics will shrink a bit from the heat making for a tighter winding. I do not think adding the quartz would hurt and actually should have helped the top end, smoothing it out.
quartz at the ends of the caps are beneficial as the caps are made by winding foil. The ends would expose the open windings and it is there that the inductive magnetic fields would be the strongest.
Quartz in beeswax on the inductors should also be good. I don't know about coating the entire crossover board, however.
Stu
PS. Thanks for the photo !
More "Interesting" -
"Mystery Solved: Chemicals Made Stradivarius Violins Unique, Says Professor"
Http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061129151126.htm
> > > "The conclusions, published in the journal Nature, have confirmed 30 years of work into the subject by Joseph Nagyvary, professor emeritus of biochemistry at Texas A&M University, who was the first to theorize that chemicals -- not necessarily the wood -- created the unique sound of the two violins." < < <
> > > "This research proves unquestionably that the wood of the great masters was subjected to an aggressive chemical treatment and the chemicals -- most likely some sort of oxidizing agents -- had a crucial role in creating the great sound of the Stradivarius and the Guarneri," Nagyvary says. "Like many discoveries, this one could have been accidental." < < <
> > > "Nagyvary obtained minute wood samples from restorers working on Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments ("no easy trick and it took a lot of begging to get them," he adds). The results of the preliminary analysis of these samples, published in "Nature" in 2006, suggested that the wood was brutally treated by some unidentified chemicals. For the present study, the researchers burned the wood slivers to ash, the only way to obtain accurate readings for the chemical elements.
They found numerous chemicals in the wood, among them borax, fluorides, chromium and iron salts.
"Borax has a long history as a preservative, going back to the ancient Egyptians, who used it in mummification and later as an insecticide," Nagyvary adds.
"The presence of these chemicals all points to collaboration between the violin makers and the local drugstore and druggist at the time. Their probable intent was to treat the wood for preservation purposes. Both Stradivari and Guarneri would have wanted to treat their violins to prevent worms from eating away the wood because worm infestations were very widespread at that time." < < <
Just how important were (are today) chemicals and their association with providing good sound ?
We are back again, unclestu, to your statement
> > > "If this leads to a rethinking of things, so be it." < < <
Regards,
May Belt,
Manufacturer.
As I said, many, many theories, including one by an American scientist who claimed it was the salt water soak of the raw logs floating down the river to the sea in Venice. Of course, you can use time to dry out the logs, but I would suspect that many used a treatment to enable them to cut the wet wood and to prevent them from splitting. These days they use a plastic which can displace the water but is more stable.
In addition, one must realize that the scrapings may not have been from the original wood. Most strads have been modified by changing the necks to accomodate modern tuning. I do not believe that many owners would permit a modification to the main body. If the samples ( I didn't read the article) were taken from what I suspect would be the neck area, later modifications could have easily contaminated the material. This would include not only the lacquer but also the glues used.
The point is moot though. Unless someone actually builds an instrument in the same performance level as the best Strads, all theories only remain that: simply a theory.
The scientist that experimented with the salt water soak had a theory that the soak actually ate away at the cellulose interior, creating a semi hollow wood grain, causing the strads to "sing" more brilliantly. He has licensed his procedure out to various makers and apparently was meeting with some good success, although very little is heard about it today.
Perhaps the material may be good, but then you still need a skilled craftsman of the highest caliber....
Also, in regards to the collaboration of the druggist at the time: remember that the apothecaries of the day ground out the lacquer and mixed it with the alcohol base. Other chemicals known to the apothecary could have esily been added and probably were. The apothecaries were also the jewelers of the time too, and ground and polished many gemstones. Some of these materials, particularly lapis lazuli, were also in demand for artists pigmentation (read paint). The deep blues which used it were naturally very pricey and most artists avoided their use as much as possible. Cross contamination could have easily occured.
I tried using real lacquer and even though the directions said simply mix with alcohol (I used isopropyl since ethanol is, uh, a bit hard to legally come by). The result was terrible: a lumpy sticky mess, that took forever to dry. Going back to the art supply house where I bought it, the owner laughed and said he never had any success with the stuff either. I didn't bother to experiment any further.
I have no doubt that chemicals were used for treatment. We do need to know what chemicals were employed however.
As for the salt water soak theory, I applied it when I was an active clarinet player for my reeds. At the time, I got maybe one good reed out of a box of 15.
I would soak the reeds in water for a week or more, and then dry it out on flat glass using rubberbands to hold the reeds tight ( microscope slides worked well and were just the right size). The treatment increased my yield on average to 4 per box and left me with lessor reeds for practice to ratio of about 50%. That's quite an improvement and quite a savings for the pocketbook.
I believe there is something there. Incidentally soaking in salt water also was very good, but the salt content iritated my lips.....
Stu
You wrote,
"And "spot the Strad violin in blind tests"
What's that have to do with the price of spinach?"
Well, for one thing, it might mean that all that mysterious violin wood and lacquer business is complete nonsense. Or it might mean you are hearing things, who knows? How do you like my sense of humor so far?
mysterious "the C-37 lacquer,the Cream-Electret,Nordost ECO 3 chemical"
I can't find any sense of humor. but your ending prophet like sentence
is funny . hear ,i see many like that everywhere but story is alittle
different !
tweaker
carefully. The sonic impact depends upon the application. I distinctly wrote this.
Used as shelving it reacts one way and I thought I made that abundantly clear when stating that spruce needs the load to be applied in a cantilevered type platform. When used as room treatments wood reacts differently as well as when simply used as a footer in compression.
To cover every application in detail is far beyond the scope of this thread, and, to be honest, I have not experimented with all the possible woods out there and all the permutations of application.
In other posts, I have clearly stated my objective in posting is to start people experimenting and thus add to the collective knowledge which no one person, no matter how long you work at it, can claim to master all possible permutations.
Simply staining a piece of wood changes the surface as the water base causes the grain to rise, for example. Whether this is beneficial depends on what aspect of music you want to be changed, obviously.
For other treatments the density of the surface is obviously changed. Again depending upon the sonic change desired, the effect may or may not be beneficial.
As for explanations, why must I provide all the answers? If there is an effect, should not that observation be enough? The fact that different applications yield different results again gives hints as to the working mechanism. But, please, why do I have to provide answers?
Morphic resonance ? Ha ! If that were true shouldn't the results be more consistent in all applications ? So what have you done, and what explanation do you provide?
stu
Post a Followup:
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
