System #166 (Sequel II)

[Rabbit house]

Small topic..."The effect of Japanese coins"

Regulating the acoustic sound in my room, I was suddenly aware of the vibration of Gypsum walls and presumed it might make big noise sound because the area of walls is huge compared to the ML panel. When I tried to listen to music in the next room, I just hear the low frequency sound like “Dong. Dong. Bong. Bong” through a wall. I suspected this wall might radiate almost the same low frequency noise into my audio room.

Do you know it is very popular now among audio freaks in Japan to put small pieces on a wall? There are many kinds of theory about the reason why they are effective. I assumed that a wall had infinite number of peculiar vibration modes and these pieces made the vibration mode change. Assuming that, the important points for those pieces were the mass, location on the wall and the number of pieces.

We have the 5 Yen coin with a center hole in Japan that is heavy because the material is brass. So I decided to put a dozen of 5 Yen coins together on a wall by piercing through the center hole of the coins with a self-tapping screw. I set those coins on many places (more than 30) of Gypsum walls and Gypsum ceiling in my audio room. In order to decide where those weights should be set, you can knock the wall and find out the position where you hear the lowest frequency sound.

The effect was wonderful actually. The sound became very quiet and clear. Further I felt the sound wave coming from the front of me. I had heard much vibration sound of walls and a ceiling until then. You may think I exaggerate the effect of those coins, but you can’t deny that I could turn up the pre-amplifier volume by 7dB in my small room without any unpleasantness. If the material for walls is Gypsum board in your room, I highly recommend you to put weights on the walls.

I am still adding those coins on the wall and I call this “Savings on Wall Street! ”.

Shuji

 

[lugano]

Shuji, the sky is the limit, take a look at this :

http://www.audiophileitaly.com/viewtopic.php?t=20

 

[DTB300]

Regulating the acoustic sound in my room, I was suddenly aware of the vibration of Gypsum walls and presumed it might make big noise sound because the area of walls is huge compared to the ML panel. When I tried to listen to music in the next room, I just hear the low frequency sound like “Dong. Dong. Bong. Bong” through a wall. I suspected this wall might radiate almost the same low frequency noise into my audio room.

Dry Wall, or Gypsum Walls are a highly talked about item among the Acoustic forums when someone has the opportunity to build a new room or make changes to the walls. They have a great affect on the sound, as you noted. Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum where rooms have concrete walls, as in partial or full basements - like I have. This creates significant amounts of reflections. Both have to be treated accordingly to get the best sound out of your room.

Do you know it is very popular now among audio freaks in Japan to put small pieces on a wall? There are many kinds of theory about the reason why they are effective. I assumed that a wall had infinite number of peculiar vibration modes and these pieces made the vibration mode change. Assuming that, the important points for those pieces were the mass, location on the wall and the number of pieces.

We have the 5 Yen coin with a center hole in Japan that is heavy because the material is brass. So I decided to put a dozen of 5 Yen coins together on a wall by piercing through the center hole of the coins with a self-tapping screw. I set those coins on many places (more than 30) of Gypsum walls and Gypsum ceiling in my audio room. In order to decide where those weights should be set, you can knock the wall and find out the position where you hear the lowest frequency sound.

Sounds very family to the MPing discs that Roberto has talked about here. A lot of audio people view them as Voodoo or Snake Oil, but as you have found out, all the things in our room have a resonance or vibration mode. Glad to hear you have found something which works for your room.

The effect was wonderful actually. The sound became very quiet and clear. Further I felt the sound wave coming from the front of me. I had heard much vibration sound of walls and a ceiling until then. You may think I exaggerate the effect of those coins, but you can’t deny that I could turn up the pre-amplifier volume by 7dB in my small room without any unpleasantness. If the material for walls is Gypsum board in your room, I highly recommend you to put weights on the walls. I am still adding those coins on the wall and I call this “Savings on Wall Street! ”.

I can imagine the nice effect the coins have made for you. Now if I could only get my concrete walls to absorb more sound - hmmm..wonder if the US Mint would consider making some absorbent coins like your Yen :haha1:

Dan

 

[Rabbit house]

Japanese case!

Shuji, the sky is the limit, take a look at this :

http://www.audiophileitaly.com/viewtopic.php?t=20

:duh:

Thanks, Lugano! Pls check this Japanese case :
http://www.shu-ks.com/off%20meeting/0ithotei.html

:duh:

 

[Rabbit house]

......Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum where rooms have concrete walls, as in partial or full basements - like I have. This creates significant amounts of reflections. Both have to be treated accordingly to get the best sound out of your room.
.....all the things in our room have a resonance or vibration mode. Glad to hear you have found something which works for your room....Now if I could only get my concrete walls to absorb more sound - hmmm..wonder if the US Mint would consider making some absorbent coins like your Yen :haha1:

Dan

Thanks, Dan!

I totally agree with your opnion that hard concrete walls are also big enemy!
I've heard that US mint has determined to make very huge coins made with glass wool!!!

 

[lugano]

Thanks, Lugano! Pls check this Japanese case :
http://www.shu-ks.com/off%20meeting/0ithotei.html

The italians have better design LOL.

I wonder when he'll put some tiles on the TV-screen, too.. enjoying the TV will be harder, but the sound, ah , the sound....:haha1:

 

[Rabbit house]

The italians have better design LOL.

I wonder when he'll put some tiles on the TV-screen, too.. enjoying the TV will be harder, but the sound, ah , the sound....:haha1:

Sorry, we Japanese don't have such mosaic culture LOL!

I think he would put many many tiles whole on the TV-screen when he could decide to chosse sounds definitely LOL.

 

[DTB300]

I've heard that US mint has determined to make very huge coins made with glass wool!!!

Ha Ha...Very good!!!

But I would prefer they be made with Acoutic Cotton. While all reports say Fiberglass is not a health problem, I do not want to find out years later it is an issue, like Asbestos. Sealed behind walls, I have no problems with Fiberglass, but out in the open like our panels are, I prefer Acoustic Cotton, and it performs just as well.

Dan

 

[Rabbit house]

Ha Ha...Very good!!!

But I would prefer they be made with Acoutic Cotton. While all reports say Fiberglass is not a health problem, I do not want to find out years later it is an issue, like Asbestos. Sealed behind walls, I have no problems with Fiberglass, but out in the open like our panels are, I prefer Acoustic Cotton, and it performs just as well.

Dan

I totally agree with you!!! You know, when I made my absobers with glass wool, I used a mask and gloves in summer. So my absobers absorbed my sweat ver much!
Actually I made absorbers with cotton on the surface of glass wool to prevent the glass wool to come out of the absorbers.

 

[Dreamer]

Shuji, the sky is the limit, take a look at this :

http://www.audiophileitaly.com/viewtopic.php?t=20

I imagin that listening toom has about the LOWEST SAF (Spouse Approval Factor) of all time. I even think that's appalling. It looks like a postal packing facility exploded next to a speaker factory...

--Richard

 

[Rabbit house]

I imagin that listening toom has about the LOWEST SAF (Spouse Approval Factor) of all time. I even think that's appalling. It looks like a postal packing facility exploded next to a speaker factory...

--Richard

Sure.

I showed the Italian and Japanese websites to my wife actually. She said "I'm luckey with you! There are so many freaks in the world!".

Thank you, Lugano! Cheers! :cheers:

 

[Dreamer]

Shuji,

Compared to that posted example, I think your setup is just fine. You've taken an elegent approach to a difficult problem, and the result not only sounds good, it LOOKs pretty good too...

That other one though--all that curley styrofoam and blocks and stuff--just TOO much. Looks more like an advanced case of clinical OCD than Advanced Audiophilia. (and belive me-I'm speaking from experience here, there is a FINE line between the two!!!)

--Richard

 

[Audioseduction]

Shuji,

I lived in Tokyo, Japan for a total of 6 years. My father was in the Air Force stationed there twice. Also my mother was Japanese. kajitsu :rocker:

 

[Audioseduction]

Shuji,

Have you ever heard of "mizu amai"? I think that's how it's spelled. It's like clear like water but very thick, sticky, and sweet. You have to use a spoon to eat it. That was my favorite dessert in Japan. I would like to get some but have not seen it since I lived in Japan over 25 years ago.

 

[Rabbit house]

Shuji,
I lived in Tokyo, Japan for a total of 6 years. My father was in the Air Force stationed there twice. Also my mother was Japanese. kajitsu

Have you ever heard of "mizu amai"? I think that's how it's spelled. It's like clear like water but very thick, sticky, and sweet. You have to use a spoon to eat it. That was my favorite dessert in Japan. I would like to get some but have not seen it since I lived in Japan over 25 years ago.

Oh,my gosh, George! You lived in Japan! :rocker:
I'm very glad to hear that.

Anyway, of course I know "mizu ame". Mizu means water, and ame means a candy. When I was a child, my mother sometimes made it. It was my favorite, too. Ok, I'll tell you how to make it. Last time I made it about 35 years ago, but I remember how to make it. It's very simple.

1. Boil water in a pan.
2. Put white sugar as much as you can melt in it, stiring it.
3. Gradually the hot water will evaporate and the liquid will become sticky.
4. Then turn heat off.
5. Losing the heat, the liquid will become more sticky. So we have to regulate the heating time and the amount of sugar in order to get our favorite stickness.
6. That's all.

Further more, If you make it very stickey and dip an apple into it once when it is hot, the surfase of the apple will become very hard losing the heat. We ate it in Japanese festival, and I swear it's yummy. We call this "Ringo ame". (Ringo means apple.)

Enjoy it.

Shuji

 

[Rabbit house]

Rearrangement of room appearance

As I described before, my room looks like a sort of laboratory after room acoustic arrangement by myself. As I bought the British record player, Pro-ject debut III SB , and a audio rack made by British Standesign co. this time, it is a good opportunity to try to rearrange the room appearance.

(Precondition)
* My room is only for relaxation to enjoy movies and music.
* I don’t want to change any result obtained for my room.

(Plan)
As it is a very hard work to change the appearance of my room and all equipments, I plan to control the appearance just by lighting. I think it is a very easy and cost-effective to hide a mess away into darkness.

I decided to use green lights because of the reasons as follows:
* As the colors of the equipments in my room are brown, black, golden and light brown, green color would match to those colors.
* It is said that watching green stuff is very good for our eyes.
* It is said that the color combination of green, greenish color, brown and brownish color is very good for our relaxation.

(Result)
You can judge the result from the attached picture.

The picture has been moved to the front page.

Shuji

 

[jtwrace]

I like it. I thought maybe that it was green to help with CD laser scatter.

 

[Rabbit house]

Greensboro, North Carolina

I like it. I thought maybe that it was green to help with CD laser scatter.

Thanks for your comment, Jtwrace.

You live in North Carolina, don't you? I and my family went to Greensboro in North Carolina two years ago. My friend's family is there. Very nice area!

My friend drove me to audio shops there. Though I wanted to visit as many audio shops as we can in one day at first. I listened to music from ML for the first time in my life. It was "aerius i ". I had a very strong impression about ML speakers, because the sound was very clear and ML has a very good sound stage. As the impression was so strong, I was satisfied and stop going to other shops then. As I have already described, we can't buy new ML speakers now in Japan. So after coming back to Japan, I have got ML from auction in Japan.

Maybe, because the laser head feels comfortable with green lights.

I'm very grad to hear from North Carolina, Jtwrace. :rocker:

Shuji

 

[Beat_Dominator]

That picture is awesome! I bet Sequel IIs love being bathed in green

 

[Rabbit house]

That picture is awesome! I bet Sequel IIs love being bathed in green

Thanks, Beat_Dominator. At first, I thought the blue color might be better because the leds for my Marantz amp. are blue, but I changed my mind to green. I'm very satisfied with green now.

I can't find out such nice English expression in my brain to say "I bet Sequel IIs love being bathed in green".

Shuji