"Holy shit! Didn't you guys see that? The Underpants Gnomes were just here stealing my goddamn underpants again!"
[Tweek - from South Park ©Comedy Central]

I have an alternate take on the genesis of the word tweak: Do enough of it and you'll end up twicking out ragged fistfuls of your own hair, twitching like a blunt trauma case and pouncing sporadically in hallucinatory hope of capturing one of the goblins spotted lurking near your underwear drawer. And gazing down into one's hand at a rude wooden plug claimed to have the power to transform the listening experience is where for this audio auteur such spasms are liable to begin, well before any component is warmed up or boxers burgled.


As was stated ad nauseum in Part I -- yay incessantly and with undisguised insecurity -- it is critical that the reader does not consider the product evaluations contained herein to be formal reviews. Rather these are casual, personal experiences with the featured goods on a plane perhaps even more subjective and less scientific than the frequently hurried appraisals we as audiophiles are so inured to. But they gotta be here. For as William Ying so eloquently put it, "If you were to attempt to write about [the] Shun Mook tweak, you should try it out first".


Try it out first. What nervy and even novel assumption in Web-based hi-fi scholarship at least when the spittle-spraying, agenda-addled vigilantism of some on-line 'review' sites is considered. But what the heck, this is a respectable magazine. And I'll try anything once. Even this.
Did I mention this little puck-er is dense? I mean, it'll never pin the VPI Brick in Greco Roman wrestling, but for all its unassuming size, your standard Mpingo disc is no mere wisp o' the willow. Protectively encased in a somewhat ironically rose-tinted plastic pillbox of the kind likely familiar to numismatists, the disc itself is subtly, even beautifully engraved with Shun Mook's omnipresent Chinese characters connoting "divine wood", a tiny service mark insignia and, on the side surface, a punched dot indicating the alleged directionality of the item which gives every appearance of not knowing true north from a turkey sandwich but who am I to say?

I couldn't resist asking Bill about that darn dot: By what formulae or divination is its location established? Might it be the wood's grain? A delicate difference in organic mass? The position of Mercury in the night sky at the precise time of harvesting? "The pointer of the disc is not with the grain. Your ear will tell you what you hear," was the terse, somehow suitably cryptic reply. "Most people will hear [the directional qualities] but some don't, especially the hi-end listener who is searching for a sound effect". Now there he goes again. For the life of me, I can't reconcile this company's derisive stance on the high-end of the hobby with its categorically, unapologetically exotic wares. Then again, could it be this lot are quite a bit more sophisticated in PR management than I had originally given them credit for? "Direction of the pointer is [decided by] flow of energy, something you probably do not understand now". Ghee. Why not call me infidel and get it done with? But the all-time classic capper had to be: "It is too early for you to ask these questions."


Is it just me, or is this starting to remind anyone else of the popular '70s TV series starring a pre-rehab David Caradine? Of course, being a New Yorker for most of my adult life, I pushed right on asking anyway. What I finally got wasn't an answer so much as a Temple novice's trial. Sifu William exhaled a soft, cleansing sigh I could detect from the opposite coast and announced: "A simple test: If you weigh the disc on top of your palm, then turn it over and weigh it again the same way, what is the result?" Here
goes a solid ten minutes of intensely focused disc-weighing. Then I'm back conferring with my Master: "Okay, the disc is marginally, as in minutely heavier when held [information expunged under warrant of the Mysterious Tweak Anomaly Security Act DDXIIV2] side-down. Am I right?" You could have driven your Shaolin fist-of-iron through the tension and torn out its still beating heart as I waited for the answer. After all, my application for admittance to the Shun Mook Seminary of Sacred Sonics was now riding on the outcome - and I hadn't even listened to the rizzum-frizzum gizmo yet.



Would he even tell me? Not right away as it turned out. Bill had reverted to his customary contemplative silence. Hey. Bet there's a test in that stony silence too, right? Like, "if such a question were to be answered, Grasshopper, would a feather no longer float upon the wind?" That's not bad, really. I want you to think about that one, write a short report and we'll talk about whether or not you can read Part 3 - assuming we ever make it out of Part 2. Shun Mook aren't the only ones who can dish out the homework.


The simple fact is the disc does seem to present a fractionally heavier load when held with one of its two flat sides palm-down (I don't want to spoil your own fun by revealing which). And if you think that's weird, I just came back from the patio where I noted that this morning's coffee cup had, on the glass-topped table there, left a ring that looks exactly -- not a little, not even a lot, but exactly -- like that famous calligraphy-brush profile of Alfred Hitchcock. I guess once you're open to these things, the paranormal hits keep right on comin'.
Irritatingly, there would at this very moment arise an unanticipated conundrum. In his shipment, Bill Ying had helpfully included product usage instructions. Unhelpfully, every placement suggestion sans one required the use of three (or more) discs - and Bill had released only one to my care. The sole single-disc application outlined being the wall-side plug of an AC cord, so that's where I'd have to begin while awaiting guidance in this most awkward matter from my man in the Municipality of Mook (nestled, for the record, in the not-so-hidden environs of suburban sea-level Oakland/California - as opposed to the commonly imagined heaven-high crests of the holy Himalayas). As it would turn out, Bill got back to me in what qualifies for that reticent representative as Mach 5; we're talking cheek-rippling, world-beating time.


"One disc should allow you to test all of the 3-disc positions laid out in the instructions", Bill reassured me. "You actually put one disc in the middle position of any 3-disc formation and [you should] be able to hear an effect" he said. "Of course the 3-disc is much better." You wanna supersize that order, mister? One suggestion posed a conflict with my previously stated decision to stick with my digital source (for ease and consistency) for all these trials. "Also," Bill added in defense of my lone'n'lonely Mpingo disc, "you can put one disc on your turntable's arm board, standing vertically next to the pivot of the tone arm. The cheaper the turntable, the better it will sound" said Bill, further asserting that "the more expensive 'tables are damped to their death with high-tech material and hence nothing will happen." Take that, ye prideful possessors of analog's arriveste aristocracy! Your posh, starship-stylish, vibration-immune players are, as it turns out, "damped to their deaths". "Additionally," Bill continued as if making such riot-inciting proclamations as that last one were just in a day's work, "you can apply the one disc to the metal door of your house's electrical panel, stick it there using tape and be able to hear a difference in your hi-fi." And here I was, barely moments before, thinking my options in exploring but one disc were sorely limited.


"On [your] CD machine, of course, one on top will give you one effect and putting one on the fuse holder -- touching it --will give another. Better yet if you dare to open the cover [of the CDP] and put the disc on top of the IC chips, any one, or behind the LED display". Okay, I'm drawing the line right there. Not that Bosh is, as we were heard to accuse in the Twykinga-style double-dare matches of childhood, ascared to pry wide open the occasional component. It's just that I seem to have suddenly gone from zero to sixty in my solo Mpingo listening options and it's liable to be Israeli Easter before I can give even the majority of them a proper hearing.


Once again Mr. Ying's parting wisdom on the subject made me wonder just who was really being tested here and if there was, from Shun Mook's perspective, ever any doubt: "The purpose of our sending one sample is not to tune your system" - which would clearly call many more discs into play. The single disc is to introduce and expose "the [most basic] effect only", he said. Left unsaid was "and for us to be able to tell if you can even appreciate that most basic effect, little pilgrim". And if so and only if so we can perhaps, as Bill had implied in that earlier communiqué, "take it from there". Hmmm. Does one buy these products? Or apply for them? And Bill, which side of the thing if either is actually heavier? Hello? Pifff. All that's left of our conversation is a frail wisp of incense hanging in the air. How does he do that?
The possibility plainly loomed that all this "monk" malarkey wasn't a cock of poppy, with this whole thing instead feeling more and more like the Mongol Ordeals of Manhood than your typical audio test drive with every passing day. So fetch my bow and war pony and take cover in the yurt, Bert - 'cause here come them tunes. My listening sessions began in the same way they always do; with about an hour's warm-up of all components to be engaged and a quick spin of the frequency sweep track on my Ayre/Cardas sound enhancement CD ("Irrational but Efficacious!") just to blow out any carbon that may have collected in the fuel lines since last time.


After a few listens to the same way-dynamic but not overly-over-produced song without the Mpingo thingo (John Mayer's "Clarity" from Heavier Things [ Aware/ Columbia CK86185], I placed the product at the AC cord location, logo facing the wall and directional dot facing the floor at its 6 o'clock position as specified.


"You could've knocked me clean over with a plastic travel-size Tibetan prayer wheel."
[Chögyam Boscha upon dropping his cherry on the floor]

On first, second and even tenth listenings, A/B-ing the whole way, the results were of a gently yet almost spookily clarified inner light now seemingly allowed to escape -- and I do think that's the word for it -- from the recording. The system I know so well, merely by my resting the Mpingo in contact with the wall plug, appeared to be displaying in vocal nuance and the strum-and-pluck of each individual string a newfound ability to illuminate rather than just capably demonstrate. The sound took on a degree of ease I would never know was missing until I actually heard it. How could this even be possible? The fact is that switching from the stock AC cord to the aftermarket, cryo-treated Hubbell and Watt Gate fire hose hadn't had nearly this degree of consequence. The last alteration to come close was having the dedicated lines installed.
Rather than allow myself to get too wrapped up in the apparent, and I do mean apparent, effect the Mpingo Disc was exerting so placed at the mouth of the power flow, I figured it might be prudent to start moving the disc around the system. Maybe finding no or at least less impactful results elsewhere in the chain would be a calming influence and I could hop a plane back to Normal?


When placed on the amp in the suggested center position of the normal 3-disc configuration, again logo down and again with the indicator at 6PM, the disc ended up just forward of the power and directly between the signal tubes. And the sound? Not so much.


By this time I had expanded my listening lineup to include some small ensemble Jazz, more demanding Pop than young Mr. Mayer's and the requisite female vocals it seems every Tweak merchant wants us to use in our evaluations. Perhaps due to the Mpingo disc's very near proximity to the signal tubes on my small integrated amp, its placement there seemed to impart a noticeable quantity of rasp to the higher frequencies, especially the upper mids. David Bowie's artistically brilliant Reality album [ISO/Columbia CK90660] --a rather overly vivid and tizzy production to begin with -- was rendered just short of unlistenable. But by an oversized wooden checker piece? King me.

Taking the disc off the amp's top plate in mid-song was enough to reassure me that, if I was indeed nuts, at least I wasn't deaf. After a weird 2 or 2.5 second delay -- about the time it took to snatch the disc off the amp and (almost) return to my chair -- a slightly more fleshed and less bleating presentation of the music would return. You could basically hear it click back in. I decided that this must certainly be the by-product of the disc's heralded resonant abilities: Only in this case that resonance was backfiring in the form of added microphonics. Every coin (and disc) has two sides, little one!
"This is the craziest party that could ever be. Don't turn on the lights 'cause I don't wanna see."

[Three Dog Night, Momma Told Me (Not to Come) - from "It Ain't Easy" (1970)]

What was it we said about stepping accidentally from one version of reality into another? 'Cause it just happened, and to spite what you may assume, that ain't no way to have fun, son. To be honest, I didn't expect it to happen and I'm still not sure I ever wanted to watch my own diet-of-the-mind sinking south into the ebony embrace of this enigmatic African swamp root delicacy.


As in many other areas of life, it's easier to be a cynic about this stuff. Cynics, we all know, have a way of coming off all worldly, watchful and so very University of the Street; like lace-collar riverboat gamblers or that cigary-smelling guy who runs the mail room. But the way I see it, one of the best things about being so spanking new to audio reportage is that it's impossible for me to lose my credibility. I don't have any yet. So as screwy as it may be turning out, I'll just calls 'em as I hears 'em and, as to whether Heaven or Hell-bound each perceived enhancement (or product) may eventually be, we'll just have to let St. Peter of the Afterlife Audio Society sort 'em out.



The next location for the Mpingo disc would be atop the CDP. Looking at the diagram for such placement, I see that this will require a backward shift of the Shakti Stone already in residence there. I'd do that first, listening for a while with the Stone in its new position before adding das disc to the mix. When I at last did so, there was no effect this listener could detect. The same non-effect was present with the Stone entirely removed. But this could be caused by rack realities; there being barely three inches of space available between the top of my CD player and the bottom of the shelf above it; just barely enough to house the Shakti. And since these things are claimed to work by manipulating and reflecting resonance (and so far that's looking and sounding like the truth), I wouldn't be at all shocked to find that's far too confining a venue for suitable results.


Moving the disc around back of the player had a more definitive outcome, with an improvised placement of the disc just above (and resting on) the analog outputs having the most positive result. In fact that location was almost as good, if not every bit as good as the AC plug. But the wall plug position seemed marginally superior, would serve the most components and even made some conventional 'sense' in that this arrangement put the disc directly behind the heart of the system and equidistant between the loudspeakers. Hey, when it comes to clawing at shreds of logic in this surreal category, it's every man for himself and any port in a storm.