Panzerholz - its application in audio systems

[davenrk]

Good morning,
I would like to build a pair of stands in "wood", could you tell me please where to buy in continental Europe (I am based in Italy) the Panzerholz?

In the past I have used for other applications some panles made of "phenolic glued beech plywood", with dark coloured glue.
Could be the same more or less of Panzerholz?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Just installed a Panzerholz variant Permali plinth to replace stock slate plinth in my rim drive TT. The change has kinda snuck up on me, but it's undeniably positive, all the positive things you'd want from a lower noise floor and more neutrality.

 

[Amir]

My experience with Panzerholz is that it’s detrimental to a rich high resolution system and its ill effects are immediate and obvious. Of course in a low resolution system one isn’t going to miss what wasn’t there to begin with. The impact of panzerholz when used for platform material under electronics is near total loss of harmonics, micro and macro dynamics and as a result tone and timber also suffer. The negative effects were consistent with all the electronics I tested the shelves with and the same general losses were noted in my recent encounter with the Daiza platform and an Artezania rack. Here’s the back story to it all.

We used Panzerholz years ago in construction projects, one of its qualities aside from strength was relative ease of finishing and looked like an ideal product to use for shelves and amp stands and I had some made for personal use by the same Italian firm that manufactured our exhibition furniture. In use my initial reaction was neutral but I was uncomfortable with my system knowing that something was off. There was that total lack of harmonics and micro and macro resolution I mentioned above, what remained seemed poignant and hifi, hard bone and no meat. It took a while but after making a couple of Garrard plinthsI figured out that the culprit was Panzerholz. Some further tests confirmed my suspicions.

david

I think The most Important Key in judging every device is having rich high resolution audio System. many systems are high resolution but are not rich, we need both resolution and harmonic richness.

This trade off is the problem of most "AC Filters/Vibration Control Devices/Acoustic Absorber-diffuser Panels/Digital Signal Processing" and ...

I have no idea about Panzerholz but there are many many devices in audio that do not give us a perfect solution.

Perfect Solution to me means a solution without any trade offs.

 

[Rensselaer]

I am perplexed by much of this thread, specifically that in which the author attributes higher quality to those systems in which ringing or distortion from cabinet and plinth vibration is allowed, even encouraged.

If Panerholz (phenolic resign treated spruce plywood) is useful in soaking up unwanted vibrations from transformers, turntable motors and foot fall , and prevents such from being added to the stylus movements generated from the grooves of a LP vinyl record, how can that be in any way detrimental?

So far all I have seen is what one might, at most, consider "expert opinion". Someone who has some credence in this hobby/craft, acclaiming that they listened to identical systems with one variable, that being Panzerholz in one, plain Spruce ply in the other. The only way to convince those of a scientific bent here is to set up many different pairs of identical systems, that is, each pair different in amplification, or cables, or turntable or tonearm from the rest except for it's twin whose only difference is Panzerholz instead of plywood for a plinth, for a rack, for under equipment pucks, etc. Then a tract from a LP played, the same for each identical, except for the Panzerholz variable, pair, but different between each pair. Then a group of listeners must be randomly selected by blindly drawing names from a voter registration list, or telephone listing, which have been cut out into individual strips and put in a hat. A group of ten people then randomly assigned to one system pairing to listen to a track of music played, in no particular order, from the system with or without Panzerholz (Volume equalised before, and in the same room with same acoustic treatments), then they do a secret vote choosing which sounded most pleasant, real, present, whatever A or B. Tally up totals from every group and do your chi square statistical analysis and see if there is a preference. That is the only way to remove bias from this very opinionated thread.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I am perplexed by much of this thread, specifically that in which the author attributes higher quality to those systems in which ringing or distortion from cabinet and plinth vibration is allowed, even encouraged.

If Panerholz (phenolic resign treated spruce plywood) is useful in soaking up unwanted vibrations from transformers, turntable motors and foot fall , and prevents such from being added to the stylus movements generated from the grooves of a LP vinyl record, how can that be in any way detrimental?

So far all I have seen is what one might, at most, consider "expert opinion". Someone who has some credence in this hobby/craft, acclaiming that they listened to identical systems with one variable, that being Panzerholz in one, plain Spruce ply in the other. The only way to convince those of a scientific bent here is to set up many different pairs of identical systems, that is, each pair different in amplification, or cables, or turntable or tonearm from the rest except for it's twin whose only difference is Panzerholz instead of plywood for a plinth, for a rack, for under equipment pucks, etc. Then a tract from a LP played, the same for each identical, except for the Panzerholz variable, pair, but different between each pair. Then a group of listeners must be randomly selected by blindly drawing names from a voter registration list, or telephone listing, which have been cut out into individual strips and put in a hat. A group of ten people then randomly assigned to one system pairing to listen to a track of music played, in no particular order, from the system with or without Panzerholz (Volume equalised before, and in the same room with same acoustic treatments), then they do a secret vote choosing which sounded most pleasant, real, present, whatever A or B. Tally up totals from every group and do your chi square statistical analysis and see if there is a preference. That is the only way to remove bias from this very opinionated thread.

don't be perplexed. the thread is a thinly veiled vehicle to advance a particular narrative. part of the fabric of the forum. yada, yada.

 

[ddk]

Was this addressed to me? I'll try to address some of your comments.

I am perplexed by much of this thread, specifically that in which the author attributes higher quality to those systems in which ringing or distortion from cabinet and plinth vibration is allowed, even encouraged.

You're equating all resonance from a speaker cabinet as distortion and negative this isn't always the case even very dead cabinets have to deal with resonance. Sound waves are a type of resonance emanating from resonating objects generally in a resonant environment and captured by a resonating membrane before converting into an electrical signal. The type of sound aesthetic I covet is alive and natural which I find in some particular and special speakers where the designer/engineer knows how to effectively use cabinet and driver resonance to recreate the energy and liveliness present at the venue. I have never felt or heard this type of life and natural sound from ANY highly dampened speaker system at any price. In this scenario which speaker is the one distorting?
Of course there's another category of box less speakers that can also recreate the venue convincingly and naturally, but like above very few.

If Panerholz (phenolic resign treated spruce plywood) is useful in soaking up unwanted vibrations from transformers, turntable motors and foot fall , and prevents such from being added to the stylus movements generated from the grooves of a LP vinyl record, how can that be in any way detrimental?

Depends on where and how it's used, it's one thing to isolate an external motor and use panzerholz to soak up vibrations without it affecting other components and entirely different when used for building a plinth where it effects everything else and injects it's own nature into everything.

So far all I have seen is what one might, at most, consider "expert opinion". Someone who has some credence in this hobby/craft, acclaiming that they listened to identical systems with one variable, that being Panzerholz in one, plain Spruce ply in the other. The only way to convince those of a scientific bent here is to set up many different pairs of identical systems, that is, each pair different in amplification, or cables, or turntable or tonearm from the rest except for it's twin whose only difference is Panzerholz instead of plywood for a plinth, for a rack, for under equipment pucks, etc. Then a tract from a LP played, the same for each identical, except for the Panzerholz variable, pair, but different between each pair. Then a group of listeners must be randomly selected by blindly drawing names from a voter registration list, or telephone listing, which have been cut out into individual strips and put in a hat. A group of ten people then randomly assigned to one system pairing to listen to a track of music played, in no particular order, from the system with or without Panzerholz (Volume equalised before, and in the same room with same acoustic treatments), then they do a secret vote choosing which sounded most pleasant, real, present, whatever A or B. Tally up totals from every group and do your chi square statistical analysis and see if there is a preference. That is the only way to remove bias from this very opinionated thread.

LOL! For a "successful" experiment and meaningful results you need knowledgeable experienced competent panelists not some random pool of people with random abilities. Conversely what if this test system is one owned and setup by an incompetent clueless fool who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they're expensive and then starts piling up tweak and after ridiculous tweak reaffirming his ignorance declaring the latest purchase or tweak as the greatest ever until the next idiocy? Worse still he's among your panelists!

david

 

[Robert Young]

I agree with David. There is no universal when it comes to materials that make up a component, or a system. There is only the right material and consequently the right properties taken as part of a symbiotic system.

As anecdotal story: many years ago, i was involved in the restoration of Isaac Stern Hall at Carnegie. We were beyond careful in the returning of every bit of the hall to what it had been, including using the same type and weight of mohair stuffing in the seats (the originals had been compressed to just shy of a solid by many decades of big butts and the absorption of a few tons of vigarette smoke). The layers of paint that had filled up the detail in the plaster relief-work was painstakingly picked out, and the original paint formula was used to finish it. It was herculean. In the end, there were a lot of complaints that the hall sounded “wrong,” which we passed off as sounding “different,” as it had without question changed over the years (crushed mohair, paint, etc.). Lots of testing turned up nothing though. However, it turned out that there was indeed a problem: during the 24-hour per day work cycle, to help the restoration of the stage ceilng proceed without delay, a light-weight concrete topping slab was poured into the stage joist cavities after removal of the maple stage, to allow scaffolding to be erected without damaging anything. As time got tight towards the end of the project, the contractor decided (very late at night!) to put down the new maple stage without removing the concrete. It took several years to discover, which happened when it came time for the maple to be replaced. The problem was one of stage resonance, and how musicians were not receiving their usual feedback from the floor, quite obvious if one is playing a cello…we returned the stage to its original design, musicians were happy again, and thus played better, and the complaints stopped…

Not that it is the same by any means, but resonance is not always a bad thing, and a good story is aways enjoyable.

 

[ddk]

I agree with David. There is no universal when it comes to materials that make up a component, or a system. There is only the right material and consequently the right properties taken as part of a symbiotic system.

As anecdotal story: many years ago, i was involved in the restoration of Isaac Stern Hall at Carnegie. We were beyond careful in the returning of every bit of the hall to what it had been, including using the same type and weight of mohair stuffing in the seats (the originals had been compressed to just shy of a solid by many decades of big butts and the absorption of a few tons of vigarette smoke). The layers of paint that had filled up the detail in the plaster relief-work was painstakingly picked out, and the original paint formula was used to finish it. It was herculean. In the end, there were a lot of complaints that the hall sounded “wrong,” which we passed off as sounding “different,” as it had without question changed over the years (crushed mohair, paint, etc.). Lots of testing turned up nothing though. However, it turned out that there was indeed a problem: during the 24-hour per day work cycle, to help the restoration of the stage ceilng proceed without delay, a light-weight concrete topping slab was poured into the stage joist cavities after removal of the maple stage, to allow scaffolding to be erected without damaging anything. As time got tight towards the end of the project, the contractor decided (very late at night!) to put down the new maple stage without removing the concrete. It took several years to discover, which happened when it came time for the maple to be replaced. The problem was one of stage resonance, and how musicians were not receiving their usual feedback from the floor, quite obvious if one is playing a cello…we returned the stage to its original design, musicians were happy again, and thus played better, and the complaints stopped…

A very interesting account of what went on, this is a very unique experience and insight that you're sharing, thank you.

Not that it is the same by any means, but redonance is not always a bad thing, and a good story is aways enjoyable.

IME it is very much the same thing. Recently I designed and built a new baffle for a pair of speakers, the amount of sonic influence relatively minuscule changes of resonance has is incredible. It can make or break an entire project as you noted above.

david

 

[Robert Young]

A very interesting account of what went on, this is a very unique experience and insight that you're sharing, thank you.

IME it is very much the same thing. Recently I designed and built a new baffle for a pair of speakers, the amount of sonic influence relatively minuscule changes of resonance has is incredible. It can make or break an entire project as you noted above.

david

I’ve got a simple pair of JC Morridon’s Pipedreams, a 1/4-wave tapered pipe with a single full-range driver. He designed it with 1/2” baltic birch, minimal bracing. A fews later i built a second pair, but built them with a 3/4” baltic and mdf sandwich, heavily braced. Sounded awful…

 

[Rensselaer]

Was this addressed to me? I'll try to address some of your comments.

You're equating all resonance from a speaker cabinet as distortion and negative this isn't always the case even very dead cabinets have to deal with resonance. Sound waves are a type of resonance emanating from resonating objects generally in a resonant environment and captured by a resonating membrane before converting into an electrical signal. The type of sound aesthetic I covet is alive and natural which I find in some particular and special speakers where the designer/engineer knows how to effectively use cabinet and driver resonance to recreate the energy and liveliness present at the venue. I have never felt or heard this type of life and natural sound from ANY highly dampened speaker system at any price. In this scenario which speaker is the one distorting?
Of course there's another category of box less speakers that can also recreate the venue convincingly and naturally, but like above very few.

Depends on where and how it's used, it's one thing to isolate an external motor and use panzerholz to soak up vibrations without it affecting other components and entirely different when used for building a plinth where it effects everything else and injects it's own nature into everything.

LOL! For a "successful" experiment and meaningful results you need knowledgeable experienced competent panelists not some random pool of people with random abilities. Conversely what if this test system is one owned and setup by an incompetent clueless fool who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they're expensive and then starts piling up tweak and after ridiculous tweak reaffirming his ignorance declaring the latest purchase or tweak as the greatest ever until the next idiocy? Worse still he's among your panelists!

david

Despite talking about plinths and racks made of Panzerhol, I still totally disagree.

Replacing randomly chosen non-biased listeners with hand-picked “knowledgeable experienced competent” (read trained to identify a particular sound) is the very definition of bias.

Next you commit a fallacy of logic (“appeal to ridicule“) saying that if the set up was by “an incompetent clueless fool” + “who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they’re expensive” + “piling up tweak after ridiculous tweak until the next idiocy?” and then implying that such makes up the “panelists”?

You obviously have tried to ridicule me and have absolutely no understanding of what ”randomly chosen” means, or the significance of using “randomly selected“ “panelists”, (who might be ”educated”, or “completely naive” about the prevailing tastes in hi-fi). Nor why their findings would be so much more meaningful (read valid) than any selected (read “biased”) group would be.

I am not unaffected by your attempt to ridicule me so will respond with equivalence. I believe you never went to university so that is why you haven’t a clue as to the scientific method, statistical analysis, bias in research and fallacies of logic.

 

[Robert Young]

Despite talking about plinths and racks made of Panzerhol, I still totally disagree.

Replacing randomly chosen non-biased listeners with hand-picked “knowledgeable experienced competent” (read trained to identify a particular sound) is the very definition of bias.

Next you commit a fallacy of logic (“appeal to ridicule“) saying that if the set up was by “an incompetent clueless fool” + “who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they’re expensive” + “piling up tweak after ridiculous tweak until the next idiocy?” and then implying that such makes up the “panelists”?

You obviously have tried to ridicule me and have absolutely no understanding of what ”randomly chosen” means, or the significance of using “randomly selected“ “panelists”, (who might be ”educated”, or “completely naive” about the prevailing tastes in hi-fi). Nor why their findings would be so much more meaningful (read valid) than any selected (read “biased”) group would be.

I am not unaffected by your attempt to ridicule me so will respond with equivalence. I believe you never went to university so that is why you haven’t a bloody clue as to the scientific method, statistical analysis, bias in research and fallacies of logic. I understand that you live in Utah and that today is election day so assume you will not respond to this observation until after you have voted (for your favourite election-denying, Q-Annon- believing, anti-democracy-facist “Republican”). I wait with baited breath.

A good debate is valued, and enjoyable. Your reply is so full of anger, seasoned with a tasty morsel of hypocrisy (“appeal to ridule,” then off you go, ridiculing away), that it will fail to inspire anything even close to legitimate disagreement. It just makes you look like a petulant child, who just doesn’t understand why genius isn’t being acknowledged.

You may have gone to “university” as your post implies, and maybe even a good one, but if you studied anything at all about randomized testing, bias and why all RCTs produce bias, then you should consider suing your university for malpractice. I’d suggest developing some thicker skin so you can actually defend your position, instead of resorting to the very ridicule of which you accuse David.

And do try to keep gross political generalizations out of audio debate: i disagree with you, and I don’t fit into any of that political word salad you tossed.

 

[ddk]

Despite talking about plinths and racks made of Panzerhol, I still totally disagree.

You're entitled to your opinion.

Replacing randomly chosen non-biased listeners with hand-picked “knowledgeable experienced competent” (read trained to identify a particular sound) is the very definition of bias.

Next you commit a fallacy of logic (“appeal to ridicule“) saying that if the set up was by “an incompetent clueless fool” + “who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they’re expensive” + “piling up tweak after ridiculous tweak until the next idiocy?” and then implying that such makes up the “panelists”?

You obviously have tried to ridicule me and have absolutely no understanding of what ”randomly chosen” means, or the significance of using “randomly selected“ “panelists”, (who might be ”educated”, or “completely naive” about the prevailing tastes in hi-fi). Nor why their findings would be so much more meaningful (read valid) than any selected (read “biased”) group would be.

I am not unaffected by your attempt to ridicule me so will respond with equivalence. I believe you never went to university so that is why you haven’t a bloody clue as to the scientific method, statistical analysis, bias in research and fallacies of logic. I understand that you live in Utah and that today is election day so assume you will not respond to this observation until after you have voted (no-doubt for an election-denying, Q-Annon-conspiracy-believing, anti-democracy-facist). I wait with baited breath.

I gave you a measured response which I see was a waste of my time. I don't mince words I'm very direct and you'd know it when I'm ridiculing someone, in this case you read what you wanted into what I wrote. As far as everything else it's good to know who you are.

david

 

[ddk]

I’ve got a simple pair of JC Morridon’s Pipedreams, a 1/4-wave tapered pipe with a single full-range driver. He designed it with 1/2” baltic birch, minimal bracing. A fews later i built a second pair, but built them with a 3/4” baltic and mdf sandwich, heavily braced. Sounded awful…

It's a common problem I find looking for vintage speakers, so many of them have been incorrectly modified and then dumped on the net. The wood and the construction needs to match the nature of the drivers.
d

A good debate is valued, and enjoyable. Your reply is so full of anger, seasoned with a tasty morsel of hypocrisy (“appeal to ridule,” then off you go, ridiculing away), that it will fail to inspire anything even close to legitimate disagreement. It just makes you look like a petulant child, who just doesn’t understand why genius isn’t being acknowledged.

You may have gone to “university” as your post implies, and maybe even a good one, but if you studied anything at all about randomized testing, bias and why all RCTs produce bias, then you should consider suing your university for malpractice. I’d suggest developing some thicker skin so you can actually defend your position, instead of resorting to the very ridicule of which you accuse David.

And do try to keep gross political generalizations out of audio debate: i disagree with you, and I don’t fit into any of that political word salad you tossed.

Thank you!

david

 

[Amir]

- Living Voice UK
- Audio Note UK
- Ocellia

They do not use damp boxes




- TAD
- Tidal
- Kharma
- Wilson Audio

They use damp boxes

I think choosing the box type (damp or Live) deoends on what designer want from sound.

The first Category (Audio note/Living Voice/Ocellia) are more Emotional and the second Category (TAD/Tidal) are more Accurate.

 

[PeterA]

- Living Voice UK
- Audio Note UK
- Ocellia

All do not use damp boxes




- TAD
- Tidal
- Kharma
- Wilson Audio

All use damp boxes

I think choosing the box type (damp or Live) deoends on what designer want from sound.

The first Category (Audio note/Living Voice/Ocellia) are more Emotional and the second Category (TAD/Tidal) are more Accurate.

Amir, what do you mean by “more accurate“? How do you define it and how do you recognize it?

The best systems I have heard seem to me to sound the most realistic and they illicit the most emotion. I don’t see these as mutually exclusive but in fact related to and dependent on each other.

 

[Amir]

Amir, what do you mean by “more accurate“? How do you define it and how do you recognize it?

The best systems I have heard seem to me to sound the most realistic and they illicit the most emotion. I don’t see these as mutually exclusive but in fact related to and dependent on each other.

Peter

Please before answering your question let me explain some thing.

I think we have similar debate in other sections:
live Box vs Damp Box
Paper driver vs Beryllium driver
Nos dac vs upsample dac
High Feedback Low THD vs Low Feedback High THD
Minimal Design vs Complex Design
Classic vs Modern


I think you can not have both in One Audio System .

CEC TL0 3.0/Kondo NOS DAC/Kondo Pre/Kondo 300b/Living Voice Vox Olympian

vs

TAD D600/C600/M700/R1TX


first System: highly Emotional/Musical
Second System: highly Transparent/Accurate/Real

I think no system could give us both Emotion and Reality sound at highest level and for this reason I think I should have Two Audio Systems.

Some Music albums are better in Living Voice and some music albums are better in TAD System

 

[PeterA]

Peter

Please before answering your question let me explain some thing.

I think we have similar debate in other sections:
live Box vs Damp Box
Paper driver vs Beryllium driver
Nos dac vs upsample dac
High Feedback Low THD vs Low Feedback High THD
Minimal Design vs Complex Design
Classic vs Modern


I think you can not have both in One Audio System .

CEC TL0 3.0/Kondo NOS DAC/Kondo Pre/Kondo 300b/Living Voice Vox Olympian

vs

TAD D600/C600/M700/R1TX


first System: highly Emotional/Musical
Second System: highly Transparent/Accurate/Real

I think no system could give us both Emotion and Reality sound at highest level and for this reason I think I should have Two Audio Systems.

Some Music albums are better in Living Voice and some music albums are better in TAD System

Amir, Are you saying that your second system which you describe as being more Transparent/accurate/real does not create an emotional listening experience for you?

Again, I do not know what you mean by "more accurate". You imply that your second system sounds more accurate to you. How do you define that? Accurate to the sound of real instruments, accurate to the recording? If it is either, how can it not be emotional too? If it lacks the emotion of real music, how can it be accurate? Why do you think it does not cause a feeling of emotion when you listen?

If I were to test a platform made of Panzerholz, I would listen to my system without the platform or whatever I am using and then insert the Panzerholz and listen again. I would repeat this process until I could recognize the differences in sound. I would ask myself this question: Does one sound more natural? This means, does it get me closer to the experience I have when listening to live music. If not, I do not really understand what the idea of accuracy really means.

 

[Amir]

Amir, Are you saying that your second system which you describe as being more Transparent/accurate/real does not create an emotional listening experience for you?

Again, I do not know what you mean by "more accurate". You imply that your second system sounds more accurate to you. How do you define that? Accurate to the sound of real instruments, accurate to the recording? If it is either, how can it not be emotional too? If it lacks the emotion of real music, how can it be accurate? Why do you think it does not cause a feeling of emotion when you listen?

If I were to test a platform made of Panzerholz, I would listen to my system without the platform or whatever I am using and then insert the Panzerholz and listen again. I would repeat this process until I could recognize the differences in sound. I would ask myself this question: Does one sound more natural? This means, does it get me closer to the experience I have when listening to live music. If not, I do not really understand what the idea of accuracy really means.

No, I do not say my TAD System is not Emotional.
If you remove the emotion of music then there is nothing to enjoy.
emotion is not against transparency.

TAD is just less Emotional than Living Voice and Living Voice is just less real/Transparent than TAD.
Both TAD and Living Voice are Highly regarded but their presentation is different.
More accurate means more accurate to the recording and more real sounding.

For judging a component for example I do not add tubes (like tube preamplifier or hybrid power amplifier) to a real/transparent system like TAD or wadax/Vitus/Tidal.
I also do not listen to a high feedback high power solidstate in an emotional system like living voice.
I do not listen to kondo cables in TAD system and also do not test Nordost cables in Living Voice system.

 

[Rensselaer]

A good debate is valued, and enjoyable. Your reply is so full of anger, seasoned with a tasty morsel of hypocrisy (“appeal to ridule,” then off you go, ridiculing away), that it will fail to inspire anything even close to legitimate disagreement. It just makes you look like a petulant child, who just doesn’t understand why genius isn’t being acknowledged.

You may have gone to “university” as your post implies, and maybe even a good one, but if you studied anything at all about randomized testing, bias and why all RCTs produce bias, then you should consider suing your university for malpractice. I’d suggest developing some thicker skin so you can actually defend your position, instead of resorting to the very ridicule of which you accuse David.

And do try to keep gross political generalizations out of audio debate: i disagree with you, and I don’t fit into any of that political word salad you tossed.

I agree about political generalisations, I took it off after reading it, apparently too late. My apologies to all.

In regards to RCT producing bias, why would you say that? A RCT, if done correctly, is the most reliable study one can do.

My suggestion that expert opinion, being the lowest strength of evidence in the hierarchy, should be scraped and instead replaced by RCT.

ddk replies that he believes I was addressing him. No, I was thinking of an entry by PeterA actually, but no matter, the point is the same.

I mentioned collecting a group of paired systems, the pair identical except for the substitution of Panzerholz in one (plinth, tonearm, rack bottom, etc.), but each pair different to the next pair so as to prevent skewing the results (by one outlier). The point is finding statistical significance. I did not say anything about who would choose the equipment or what equipment would make up the various pairings, only that they be identical within but different to each other.

ddk said: LOL, for a "successful" study and "meaningful" results the listeners can not be randomly chosen from society to give their opinion as to which (A or B) sounds better to them, but must be made up of "knowledgable, experienced, competent panelists", (such would be totally biased).

The point is not to find experts who agree with you to listen and then say which equipment sounds the way they like, but to put out two unknown variables to randomly-selected naive listeners and ask them to tell you which they prefer the sound of. If there is no statistical difference, then that is the answer, end of argument. If plain wood better than Panzerholz, the same, etc.

Then ddk starts describing some imagined scenario wherein the equipment used for evaluating is just one system (not several matched pairs), that is poorly constructed.

ddk writes: "Conversely, what if this test system is one owned and setup by an incompetent clueless fool who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they're expensive and then starts piling up tweak after ridiculous tweak reaffirming his ignorance declaring the latest purchase or tweak as the greatest ever until the next idiocy? Worse still he's among your panelists!"

WTF ddk? You are so hell-bent on arguing your point that you create a ridiculous scenario that bears no resemblance to the conditions of the study I proposed for the simple purpose of ridicule (fallacy of logic, appeal to ridicule) (had there been any part of it which resembled the conditions of the study I proposed then you could have moved up the ladder to the fallacy of logic called "straw man" wherein the opponent in a debate simplifies the proposal of his opponent to such a degree that it can be easily blown over, hence "straw man").

But your scenario has nothing in it that resembles in anyway what I was suggesting for a study. It is just a fiction you threw out there. But why would you choose that particular description for your imaginary test equipment/panelist, unless you looked at my equipment listed under my posting and, finding it expensive, decided to covertly deride me personally as that "incompetent clueless fool who buys mediocre sounding gear as long as they're expensive" in your posting. Is that it?

Had you not read my entry carefully and were just being stupid, or were you being nasty?

 

[PeterA]

I am perplexed by much of this thread, specifically that in which the author attributes higher quality to those systems in which ringing or distortion from cabinet and plinth vibration is allowed, even encouraged.

If Panerholz (phenolic resign treated spruce plywood) is useful in soaking up unwanted vibrations from transformers, turntable motors and foot fall , and prevents such from being added to the stylus movements generated from the grooves of a LP vinyl record, how can that be in any way detrimental?

So far all I have seen is what one might, at most, consider "expert opinion". Someone who has some credence in this hobby/craft, acclaiming that they listened to identical systems with one variable, that being Panzerholz in one, plain Spruce ply in the other. The only way to convince those of a scientific bent here is to set up many different pairs of identical systems, that is, each pair different in amplification, or cables, or turntable or tonearm from the rest except for it's twin whose only difference is Panzerholz instead of plywood for a plinth, for a rack, for under equipment pucks, etc. Then a tract from a LP played, the same for each identical, except for the Panzerholz variable, pair, but different between each pair. Then a group of listeners must be randomly selected by blindly drawing names from a voter registration list, or telephone listing, which have been cut out into individual strips and put in a hat. A group of ten people then randomly assigned to one system pairing to listen to a track of music played, in no particular order, from the system with or without Panzerholz (Volume equalised before, and in the same room with same acoustic treatments), then they do a secret vote choosing which sounded most pleasant, real, present, whatever A or B. Tally up totals from every group and do your chi square statistical analysis and see if there is a preference. That is the only way to remove bias from this very opinionated thread.

Mark, you state that you are perplexed by much of the thread and write that the "author attributes higher quality to those systems in which ringing or distortion from cabinet and plinth vibration is allowed, even encouraged." The author of this perplexing thread is @tima , not me, and not ddk. Yet you later claim that your post above is not addressing ddk but rather me.

ddk replies that he believes I was addressing him. No, I was thinking of an entry by PeterA actually, but no matter, the point is the same.

So, since the point you are making is not to the author of the thread, nor is it to ddk, but to me, could you please indicate to which of my posts you are responding? I am trying to follow along so that I can respond, but I do not see what I wrote earlier to cause you to write your post #244 above. You refer in your post #244 to an author, supposedly me, who attributes higher quality to those systems that ring or distort.... You then refer to someone, supposedly me again, who claimed that "they (he) listened to identical systems with one variable, that being Panzerholz in one...."

I do not recall ever attributing "a higher quality to those systems that ring or distort", nor do I recall that I ever claimed to have listened to identical systems with one having Panzerholz and the other spruce. I do not think I have ever heard a component or shelf made of either Panzerholz or of spruce.

I really hope you can be more specific and point out my post on which all of your claims are based. Thank you.