Tuning Blocks and your Cables:

Another application that can improve the sound of your system results from the use of tuning blocks as supports for speaker and power cabling that normally resides on the floor. By placing tuning blocks under these cables, they are free to resonate without the dampening effects of the floor. The effects of a carpeted floor are especially severe in terms of its high-frequency dampening. However, even cables on non-carpeted surfaces are dampened by contact with the floor, and can benefit from elevation. (Negating this dampening effect is the primary reason for elevating a cable; capacitive interactions with the floor/earth are negligible and are almost never audible.)

An increased sense of spaciousness and air often will result from elevating your cables from the floor to the tops of tuning blocks (or other manufacturers products). There is no hard and fast rule for determining how many of your system's cables should be elevated, or what type of wood you should use. Elevation of only a portion of one power cable will be sufficient to achieve a positive result in many cases. In a few (very few) extreme cases, it will be beneficial to elevate the entire length of all the cables lying on the floor. As with any other technique, this one can be over applied...resulting in sonic imbalance. SYSTEM balance is the key. (As a rule, the fewer blocks used, the better the result.)

The type of wood selected is as important in this application as it is in any other. When elevating cables, mixing types of wood in order to achieve better balance is almost always necessary. Because the bass of the system will be equally affected along with the midrange and the treble, proper selection of the appropriate types of wood will be very important. This can only result from experience in working with many different types and/or sizes of wood blocks.

(Please note: When using two or more tuning blocks under a cable, the distance between the blocks is one-half (50%) of the resulting change in sound. See the String Effect below.)

The Xylophone Effect:

Xylophones have many different tuned wooden bars that make up its keyboard. The shortest wooden bar makes the highest note; the longest bar makes the lowest note...same with Tuning Blocks. Maintaining a constant cross section of the block, in this case 0.75" X 1.0", and by using blocks of different length, the bass and midrange resonances will vary. Longer blocks will resonate at a lower frequency than will shorter blocks. At present, the author is experimenting with blocks from 0.5" to 12" in length. (The total number of combinations of length and wood type is mind numbing. However, after suitable experimentation, this almost infinite number of combinations will be tamed by significantly limiting both the types of wood and the lengths used. Specific combinations for specific tasks will be outlined in Techniques #2...which will be available Fall '98.)

The String Effect:

When a stringed musical instrument is played, its strings are strummed, plucked, or bowed. When the musician plays a different note, he retunes the string's resonances by pressing the string against the neck of the instrument. This changes the length of the string which is allowed to vibrate. These different lengths correspond to different notes.

Audio cabling which is supported at any two points, and is free to resonate between those two points, will resonate at an audio frequency! There are at least one to two dozen random String Resonances in every audio system! By changing the position of your audio cabling so that the distance between any two support points becomes shorter, you will raise the frequency of its String Resonance; by lengthening the distance you will be lowering the frequency of its String Resonance. (This effect is as audible as the use of Tuning Blocks...and will also be incorporated in Technique#2.)

The Waveguide Effect

Wood is sonically directional in that its projected effect will be stronger in one direction than another. Why? Because wood is a solid made of many very small tubes that carry nutrients and provide structural rigidity. This physical make-up of wood allows sound to travel faster in one direction than another direction. Objects in a listening room which are exposed to sound will very often resonate at an audio frequency and re-radiate that sound back into the room. When wood Tuning Blocks (or other wood objects) are turned 90 degrees, the emphasis of that blocks sonic contribution will often change...quite audibly .

Tuning the Equipment Stand:

For an additional tuning dimension, tuning blocks or other objects can be placed on the shelf next to a component. The resonance response (sound) of the new object will become part of the resonance response of the equipment stand, and therefore will add its sound to that of the system.

Heavy weights placed on one of an equipment stand's shelves will re-tune the resonance of that shelf to a lower frequency. This technique will change the balance of the system's bass and is a useful variation to the usual method of placing these weights only on the tops of components. (It is but a short step to realize that the substitution of a heavy component for a light one, because of nothing more than the weight change, will cause a system's resonances to change. Therefore its sound must follow this shift in resonances. This is not to say that the weight change alone is responsible for the entirety of the sonic differences...just 50% of them.)

Pivot Point:

Once tuning has achieved a reasonable level of neutrality, a single tuning point can often be selected that can be used for the majority of future fine tuning. These small changes are sometimes necessary when you want the maximum neutrality (or a particular tonal flavor) when going from one CD to another. This single tuning point can be one corner of a major signal path component, a line conditioner, a transport, or even a single point under the stock power cord of a jitter reduction box. Because we are tuning the SYSTEM, any point in the system can become a pivot point.

FINAL WORD

You can make every record or CD sound like a shaded dog, or each have a living presence; the final word is yours. That's the real definition of Tone Painting: a self-empowering means for achieving maximum musical enjoyment.