With only one disc at my disc-posal it was impossible to experiment with the "spatial control" benefits said to come with placing them atop the speakers and/or in different formations fore and aft in the listening space. Nor was I able to investigate the effect of putting discs on the speaker binding posts or any of the several recommended uses that call for a poker table stack of these babies. Or at least two of 'em, anyway.


Next up would be the analog department. Momma, just before telling me not to come, said vibration is as vibration does, so the needle tracing the singing groove seemed like a particularly promising scene for the Shun Mook concept. I would try the compromised single disc version of the suggested turntable placement as well as Bill Ying's suggestion of standing the disc up vertically, close to the arm's pivot point.


The VPI Scout is a justly celebrated but still (by hi-end standards) yeoman product. Yet given Shun Mook's displeasure with "hi price hi tech" analog decks, would it be crappy enough to carry the day when sporting the disc? You might say I was ambivalent about receiving the verdict.
First to spin was Micatone's sumptuous Is You Is [Sonar Kollektiv SK004LP]. If you don't have this album, find it. The Mpingo disc started here perched on its side as close to the arm assembly as it could go without causing obstruction of movement, and the effect was negligible. I moved it around to occupy each of the locations pinpointed in the 3-disc layout, finally stopping at about 1 o'clock on the plinth, the disc laying face down between platter and arm base (and almost touching the JMW's mounting collar), oriented so as to point along the platter's clockwise orbit.


Here was not only a detectable contribution but one I couldn't help but take pleasure in. Realizing full well that what I'm about to say is fashionably used as a derogatory term, I'm going to say it anyway: the Mpingo Disc on this turntable and in this position yielded a sound that was a step more hi fi than the disc-less presentation. And I mean that in a good way. The timbre was tastefully enriched and fine details given a baby's hair more breathing room. And there, coming from the speakers, was that gentle illumination of the music's interior again; the lights, however soft and unflashy, had come on. In the main, after repeated attempts to prove otherwise to myself, the essence of the sound now had an effervescence that even the moody Berliners of Micatone could naught but benefit from. What we are faced with, collegial listener, is an incremental but firm advancement in the Holy Crap Factor guaranteed to assist in astounding the peasants who believe the LP is but a comical Vitalis' Age relic.


Next and last I tried a combination of the 1PM plinth placement and what was clearly the arrangement Mr. Ying assumed would be most rewarding; the disc returned to vertical (balanced on edge) orientation with pointer at 12 and logo facing outward, toward the front of the deck. This put the disc almost flat up against the RCA junction box on the VPI and within a cultured lady's pinky-tip of the arm mounting collar. I can't say the result was in any lavish way 'better' than the face-down orientation in the same location, but it was easily as good and had what I decided to decide was the added advantage of presenting the broadest surface area -- more of the disc's "radiating" surface if the Shun Mook proposition is to be believed -- to the listener. Bugger it. She's staying here.


Euphonic? Probably a smidgen But as you'll see in my bio, I don't necessarily hold much truck with being forever lashed to the mast of any given producer's conception of the music in his charge; nor is it my stated conceit to always strive for the satisfaction of my own notion of "live music in a real space" when seated before a collection of rude electronics. For that, I tend to turn to live music in a real space (as I did the other night, craning my neck to see The Lemonheads and power pop juggernaut Fountains of Wayne at New York's Roseland; or earlier this week, enjoying an unexpectedly talented bluegrass trio at a local Spring fair). There's live. Then there's the listening room. And if the only difference between the two in your own experience is a shorter bathroom line at home, I salute you but don't necessarily envy you. Except for the uncrowded bathroom part, that's always an advantage. Unamplified bathrooms are good, too.


Recall as well that we're working with a solitary Mpingo disc. And I decided that had I but one disc from here to eternity I would move it between the 'table and the AC outlet depending on which source was to be used. If the Gods of Hypothetical Laws and Conditions for some reason decreed that I had to pick one placement and stick to it forevermore, then on the Scout this ebony cutting would take root.
Next up came Rollins, Mulligan, Radiohead and (I kid you not) a glisteningly mint Peter, Paul & Mary recently rescued from a thrift shop (for two bits) and I didn't even come close to a change of heart. But while I can certainly "tell the difference" when hamfistedly taking the disc in and out of the action, I'm willing to concede that it might take a couple weeks of acclimation until I might instantly notice its "blind" removal. Shoot me. However, I'll add a caveat to that caveat by saying that the Mpingo disc -- especially in this geography on my personal analog map -- has officially become the next product I am reluctant to pack up and return. Indeed on the turntable, I'd be anxious to try out three or more as I reap a potentially cumulative effect with a fourth on that AC leg.


Buhwayaseconhere...


Bill had also suggested I try the disc balanced on the amps control knobs, logo inward and pointer set for Noon. I liked that, too. Maybe, just maybe even more than in the power cord slot. It came down to a matter of trading some inner glow for a touch more vigor in the presence of the assorted players, and it was becoming plainer by the measure that -- like that first, free taste from the schoolyard pusher we were all cautioned about -- one Mpingo disc will lead by its very nature to another. And another. Yo, Srajan? About that raise?


The final frontier for the disc and the one I've been least looking forward to, would be the door of the house's electrical service panel. This would demand enlistment of the somewhat surly, pre-teen services of my eldest son. I would have him, with the aid of a strap of painter's tape, apply and remove the disc -- first on my command and lastly at his discretion -- while we kept in touch by (you guessed it) cell phone. Kids of this age are just starting to be hyper-aware of the perceptions and judgments of their friends so I asked him what he might say by way of explanation should a neighborhood homey of his appear while we were so engaged. "I'd tell him the truth," he said without missing a beat. "I'd tell him my dad is insane and I'll be finished in a few minutes." Overhearing, the middle child may have put it best: "I'd say that my crazy daddy thinks doing this will fix his stereo, but it's okay. He's just like that." Oh, the unflinching cruelty of youth. Don't they know any basic-issue, bog-standard excuse for a father could take them fishing? Camping? To the (yawn) Baseball Hall of Fame? Sweet arrow of an offspring's admiration, where is thy pierce for the audiophile?


"Wax on. Wax off."
-[Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi - The Karate Kid © 1984 Columbia Pictures (US)]
Disc on. Disc off. So went the listening room to garage phone conversation. If I wanted my child to doubt his father's soundness of mind, you'd think I could create a more imaginative scenario than this. Then there was the added excitement of fearing for my soundness of skull should the child's mother come upon her first-born all up close and personal with a big juicy electrical panel. But this job is not without its risks, for me or the kids.


Both eyes wide open and in the blind, there would prove to be no clear effect either disc on or disc off in this location, something that inspired little surprise in my assistant, but then he's an iPod guy. And the dedicated AC lines feeding all the audio stuff may mitigate the potential benefits. Or my brain needs a shot of Pro Gold. Or a wooden coin many rooms and a full story away producing a clear effect on household current is simply too ambitious a revelation for your humble penitent to hope for in this, the infancy of his training. Speaking of which: How did I do on that "weigh it in your palm" trial? An email from the Ebonyiffic Elders at last pinged through:

Yes! You're all invited to my Graduation kegger at the Temple. Oh, they'd never believe it if my friends... could... chi.. me...now!


"Mommy, we're nearly out of jelly beans in the Oval."
[Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States (1981-1989)]

Machina Dynamica. I like the sound of that. I like what happens to my mouth when I say it. I've taken to repeating it out of the blue now and again: MachinA DynamicA. You try it. You know you want to.


Machina Dynamica is Geoff Kait's company, an outfit that specializes in "Vibration Isolation and Resonance Control Research" and a seemingly flourishing commercial concern that proclaims proudly to be "Makers of the Nimbus Sub-Hertz Isolation Platform & other Super-Toys". The super-toys we will, for this article, limit our play date to are known as The Brilliant Pebbles. Not the Reagan-era, missile-chasing, space-umbrella Star Wars program of the same (code) name, but room and equipment tuning tweaks that, according to the inventors, possess both mechanical and acoustic vibration dissipation characteristics while simultaneously exhibiting electromagnetic properties that aid in RFI/EMI absorption. Whew!


Where have we heard that before? Actually, unless we were to suture together the assertions of both Shun Mook and Shakti, thereby creating a Tweakenstein's monster worthy of Mary Shelly's own Goth imagination, the fact is we've encountered this comprehensive confederacy of assurances in No One Place before. So what's Geoff got that the other guys ain't? Dude's got rocks: Hard little spheroids brighter and more colorful than those observable on the zoo's head baboon. Except Geoff's are in glass jars, a condition the baboon would probably just as soon not entertain.
Mr. Kait also has some seriously deep if patently out-of-the-ordinary chops in both his formal education and applied experience. Of course, could not the same be said of Herr Doktor Barron Von Frankenstein himself? Cue thunder clap. Fade to Black disturbed by erratic flashes of lightening and the quavering shadows of torches on cobwebs. Glide camera in long, slow move through massive, medieval doors and into Machina Dynamica laboratory (pronounced, as in all cases such as this, laBOREaTORee).


As James Brown in his bad self might say, Somebody Stop Me! Okay, I hear ya, James. Until next time then when the pebble hits the metal and your trusty scribe surrounds himself with glassen jars like Pharaos of old before their descent into the eternal Underworld of the Necropolis.
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