Enclosed for my perusal were two Stones and two pair of On-Lines, the latter now sporting snazzy product markings of reflective foil in an aesthetic evolution from the plain black On-Lines I had purchased a few years back. Having never even laid eyes upon a Shakti Stone live and in person before, my initial reaction was that they were both larger and lighter than I had assumed from photographs. Ben included a generous package of technical and promotional literature, but no customized suggestions about how I might proceed in installing his products in my system. Protocol, then, was mine to establish. I began by calibrating my ears to the sound of the system as it had stood for several weeks, VPI Brick in place-of-honor on the amp's output transformers. Then I spent time reacquainting myself with the character of the rig sans Brick. It was from this clean palate that I began slipping the Shakti devices into the proceedings. First item in was one Stone, placed on the amp where the db-5 had been. As I settled in for some wrong-side-of-the-brain listening, I was reading, for a second time, the instructions that had come packed with each Stone. |
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I mention that this was the second reading because something got my attention that had somehow snuck by me on the initial scan: When used on the output transformers of a tube amp as I was doing, the instructions recommend that the Stone be elevated off the transformer itself by the use in all four corners of ½" spacers of unspecified variety - or by On-Lines, expensive "spacers" to be sure. As it happened, my magic bag of "better not throw this out 'cause you never know" audio odds'n'ends was immediately to hand and provided four convincing spacer candidates of high impact plastic that were about perfect for this application. So with apologies to Maidenform, lift and separate I did. |
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"How did it all fall apart? Slowly at first, then all of a sudden." [Jay McInerney - Bright Lights, Big City] Taking one black box -- large variety and small -- out of the system one at a time over the course of a couple hours is a brain and ear-boiling exercise. Or I should say exorcism? At once completed, the best thing I could do was pack in the discs for the day and cleanse my sensory preceptors with a dose of the real world, listening again to the now Shakti-free setup only when I had aired out my head. Because, let me tell you comrade, by this point Alice here was 10 foot tall. A day or so later, and again one at a time, every unit found its way back in. It's like this: if your experience with audio is anything at all like mine, you know that there are times when, for no apparent reason let alone any reason you can quantify and wrest to your will, the rig Just Sounds Great. It's at those times my inner bore starts wishing some curious dinner guest was on hand to be wowed by the sheer hi-fi of it all. Well, at the risk of sounding more like a real person than a vigilantly coherent writer, the clearest thing I can say is that the fully Shakti-fied system sounded like that all the time. My findings, in my room, with my gear and all that other half-assed caveat throat-clearing, were that the Stones provided a system enhancement on the order of equipment upgrade magnitude, and the On-Lines contributed to this whole but only when used in tandem with the Stones and in a far subtler way; one that signals their absence more than trumpeting their arrival. Got that? No? Tough. This ain't supposed to be a review anyway, remember? Suffice to say the Stones are back in their original positions (amp and CDP) as are the On-Lines (power cord and speaker cable). Now this isn't, heaven forefend, a Home Theater magazine, but I also plan to try the On-Lines on the main cables of my plasma display, thinking it conceivably easier for me to see than to reliably hear what those Steak-Fry-sized wire warts are up to. Which is perfectly kosher, as not only audio but video and even automotive applications are flagged as usage opportunities on the On-Lines packaging. So if I roll a dud on the TV, I'll pop open the bonnet of the MGA, strap those suckas to the distributor cap and see what I can't do about scaring up a speeding ticket or two. All of which should illustrate the extent to which I'm committed to giving each product in this saucy survey a full and balanced hearing, seeing or even driving if need be. I'll report back in coming episodes. |
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Lastly, my experience certainly puts the truth to Shakti's advice to keep trying different locations with both the Stones and the On-Lines until you hit pay dirt. Because just like those high school make-out sessions, when you finally get to third, you'll know. |
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Alice had her own problems (the biggest one perhaps being pervy penman Lewis himself), but where will Chapter II of this excursion lead? If it is to my very own "Pool of Tears" I cannot now say, but curiouser and curiouser I can all but guarantee. Because what comes after Bricks and Stones if not Pebbles and Gems? But not without first stopping at what may be the physical world's last castle - those ebony cloisters at the acknowledged boundary of earthly wisdom known as Shun Mook. Until then, keep the horses watered, the blankets dry and your mind as open as your ears. |
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Ben Piazza adds a comment: The only correction is the following where I was slightly misunderstood to say: "Our designs actually get rid of that interference by dissipating it completely". One could misread this to mean that Shakti Innovations is claiming to completely remove all the EMI any given component might have. Nothing can do that. I had explained that other approaches had some coupling potential with EMI but there was no circuit element in them to maximize the conversion to non-interfering energy. Under the laws of hysteresis, there will always be some minimal dissipation when a passive device is inductively coupled with an active field. Just how much will actually dissipate is highly variable unless there is a dedicated part to the circuit that acts as a resistor. |
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What Jim based on the wording leading up to that quote is trying to do is, I believe, draw some distinctions between Shakti technology and other products in the same genre. To clarify, Shakti does not completely dissipate all EMI, but the dissipation of those fields it does couple with (absorb) is more effective because each sophisticated broad-spectrum filter (3 in the Stone) has a highly absorptive stage and a dedicated resistive (dissipative) element. That provides a greater degree of EMI conversion to non-interfering heat. In electrical engineering terminology, Shakti units have a high Q of absorption and a low Q of dissipation, the result being less artifacts in the music signal. Another distinction is that all of this is accomplished without Ferrite or other filtering that would have to be placed in the signal path, an approach that has audible trade-offs. Jim asked me to share any history of tweekdom I might recall. Here's one that relates. In the 1970s, a |
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Feathered but not tarred, Jim Bosha is properly attired to receive cosmic radiations yet shielded from leaking out good ideas
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talented engineer named Mitch Cotter sold a ton of EMI reduction devices that were all the rage and did truly reduce EMI. They were placed between all your components in the low-level signal path. Within a year of their introduction, the same reviewers and users who had championed their startling reduction of EMI were now casting them aside. Over time it became apparent that realistic treble response was compromised because low pass filters inherently attenuate high frequency information. The goal Mitch set was an admirable one and did demonstrate how eliminating EMI was of value. It just was not quite there in execution along the path of "infinite compromise" that wields its power so often in the engineering pursuit of perfection in music reproduction. I guess all of my long-winded clarification could be summarized to: "We don't claim total elimination of EMI, just a more highly sophisticated and thorough broad-spectrum design that will get more artifacts out of the music signal's way. Ben Piazza Shakti Innovations |
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VPI website | |||||||||||||||||||