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These are one of the most interesting products that I have ever heard. We had them demonstrated at the November Chicago Audio Society Meeting. Were were getting really good sound considering that we were using my second systems pair of speakers. They are the Audio Physic Tempo III's. Not a bad speaker for a small to medium sized room. The big room that the meeting was held in usually requires bigger speakers to load the room. A good number of B.S. meters were going off with a lot of members. It really went off for a couple of guys. Especially when we were told how much money they cost and how many are required to treat a room properly. One guy even left at break time because he could not believe that we had over $7,500.00 worth of these resonators, phase correctors, sugar cubes and these discs. The claim is that you need approx. 11 of these resonators to fully treat a room. The sugar cubes are designed to put on things that you hear vibrate or ringing in your room like windows or heater ducts etc. After the break they removed all of the "cups" from their wood bases. Wow! what a huge difference. The soundstage became one dimensional without them. The bass was not as tight and dynamic. The instruments became more of a blur in the soundstage instead of being defined in space. The tonality even change for the worst. They then started putting one or two back at a time. You could keep hearing better and better improvements with every one. They have 5 different versions of these resonators. The basic which is mostly copper, silver, gold, special gold and platinum. The copper is now about $240.00. The silver about $500.00, the gold and special gold around $1,000.00 and the platinum around $2400.00 ea. With the price of gold now around $ 1000.00 per ounce, I am sure that the gold ones will increase in price. Each different one is suppose to have its own different tonal qualities. I have not played around with each one to compare the tonal differences. I ended up buying 2 of the resonators, 6 sugar cubes and a phase corrector. Even to this day they still baffle me as to why something so small can make such a difference. I am still experimenting with different locations. These things make no sense. Even changing the cup position from level to either forward tilt or backward tilt makes a difference in the perceived sounstage. I still am scratching my head every time I place them in a different location and hear the changes why they do what they do. I will say that these resonators if set up properly can be more significant in ones system then a new amp, or preamp, etc. Properly is the big word. As much as they can help ones system when set up properly they can also mess things up. I have heard these things turn an ordinary system into a pretty decent sounding system. The cost is the problem. One by itself will not break the bank. But when you keep adding more and more................ I have heard in a couple of systems already where these resonators do a much better job at dialing ones system than a lot of the expensive room treatments that were removed. The guy that invented these used one silver resonator in his room for a year before he started adding more and more until he felt that 11 was the right amount for most rooms. From what I personally heard just one silver on the back wall right in between the middle of your speakers will surprise you. The proper height is where you have to determine for yourself. They talk about putting one inside of your refrigerator and you will be able to hear the change. I personally have not tried this but a couple other guys in the Chicago Audio Society have had this done by Brian Walsh from Essential Audio in Barrington, Il. They told me that they were able to hear the change in their system with one of these inside of their refrigerator. Even my B.S. meter goes off on that one. Gregg
That's true, Robin- I'll readily admit that I have to concede my ignorance quite frequently. A good example is 8th Nerve: for the life of me, the physics makes no sense and I can't understand how those little things can work. But having employed $1,100 worth of 'em in my last house I'll tell you the do work. Why? I dunno!
I accidentally tested a version of this kind of system at a wine and cheese party at my home a few years ago. My audio system was turned on the whole time and by the end of the evening there were empty wine glasses (i.e. resonators) spotted all over the house. (My personal contribution to the array must have been about ten glasses.) I could not help but notice the improvement in my system as the wine glass count went up, and by the end of the evening it sounded 500 percent better. That's proof enough for me!The only problem was that I had a horrendous headache the next morning.