Putting Your System and Recordings In Tune

I’ve made some starting discoveries and gotten some real revelations about tuning in the past 72 hours or so. As Michael has also been feverishly setting up his systems in his new place and dialing things in, I’ve been doing some really serious variable tuning on my Tuning Racks. So, I’ve wanted to start to share my thoughts and experiences on what I’m doing.

I started to write a comparative review on three components – the Parasound C/DX-88 CD player, the Magnavox MDV455 DVD/CD player, and the Samsung DVD-P231 DVD/CD player. Then, I started to write a review on the MGA Tuning Rack. Then I started to write a review on the hobby of “tuning”. But, I realized this is NOT a review and when you “open” up the sound on a component, you cannot “review” that component. Let me explain further.

The Parasound C/DX-88 was my reference CD player for 4 years until it went on the blink. I finally recently got it working again and started doing some great things with it like top tuning with the Magic Wood slats and the chassis cover removed. Then along came the Magnavox MDV455 that Michael found at Best Buy. After putting this into my system, I found that after doing the basic mechanical tuning to the chassis parts and inserting it into my system, I could make it outperform the Parasound. The reason? The Magnavox is so lightweight that you can “open” up the sound of the component more. The more you can open up the sound of a component, the more that component will move away from having a “sonic signature”. All of a sudden, you stop trying to describe what a component sounds like and I’ll tell you why.

In my possession, I also have a Samsung DVD-P231 DVD/CD player that I’ve owned for about 6 months to a year which I bought for watching DVDs while I was away from home over the past year. I recently brought this little player back home and put it into my home theater where I was very pleased with its video performance and sound qualities. It’s designed very similar to the Magnavox MDV455, but with a different internal layout and the same “few parts” design inside. So, yesterday, after talking to Michael, I decided to call Best Buy to find if they had any more MDV455s in stock and was told, “The MDV455 was last year’s model and now we only stock the MDV456.” Now, the MDV456 has a completely different chassis design – the outer chassis body is all plastic all around and sounds like a “thud” when you rap your knuckles on it. This is not an encouraging sign that the product will be highly tunable, but who knows? But, I wasn’t willing to spend the money to find out based on what I heard on the knuckle rapping test.

So, home I came and thought what do I have to lose in trying the Samsung DVD-P231 player in my audio system? It feels like it’s even very slightly lighter in weight than even the Magnavox, but my scale will not register weights less than 3 pounds or so. The Samsung weighed in at 3.5 lbs. given the margin of error of the scale I was using. But, from placing one in each hand, to me, the Samsung appeared very slightly lighter in weight even though its height and width are the same as the Magnavox but its depth being a ¼ “ to ½ “ greater. Since I had this player in my possession for some time, I had already done the basic mechanical tuning on it (crack all the screws, remove all the plastic tie wraps, etc.), so all I had to do was insert it into my audio system in place of the Magnavox.

What I found out from this exercise and exchange of components is that every component in your (and my) system is “out of tune” right out of the box even if you do basic mechanical tuning on the chassis. What I also found out is that every recording on the CDs you (and I) are listening to, including each track and parts of each track, are all out of tune also. The listening experience only becomes enjoyable when you are able to put all parts of the music “in tune”. And, you must put all your components in tune with themselves and with the other components in your system. That’s why I say that when you get into variable tuning and “open” up the sound of a component, sonic signatures and “descriptions” of what a component sound like become irrelevant. I made some startling discoveries during the past 72 hours.

I have found that I can make both the Magnavox and Samsung DVD players not only outperform my and Michael’s previous reference Parasound CD player, but that I could make any one of them sound just like the other one Exclamation, or better. The key to this, I found, was learning how to really tune Michael’s Tuning Racks, not the components. The components, like descriptions of their “sound”, become irrelevant and meaningless. You can make them (these lightweight tunable components) sound any way you want and like anything you want. You want a tube sound? You can have it. You want a more revealing, analytical sound? You can have that. You want to make a player do exactly what another player does, or even better than another player? You can have that also. And, you never have to touch the component itself. You “tune around” the component by tuning the Tuning Rack! That’s the key for unlocking your systems. The rack is the central component of your system and the vehicle through which we can manipulate the energy flowing through the components to get the sound we want.

For the first time, I found myself going after parts of the music when I went from the Magnavox to the Samsung. The Magnavox has good “slam” on the bottom end if you tune it for this and I wanted that same sound with the Samsung. Well, I discovered how to do it and in this discovery I really started to learn how to tune my racks. On recordings which I was intimately familiar with, I found that I was hearing “faint” instruments in the recording, perhaps in the background or in some other part of the soundstage. I was actually able to “go after” and “pull” that instrument right into the room like it was recorded. That’s why I say, “All the recordings you own are out of tune, and so are your components, no matter what they cost and no matter how good you think they are.” For example, in one particular recording, there was a triangle instrument in the rear of the soundstage that I had never heard before and I wanted to bring it out more distinctly with better harmonics. Well, I learned how to do this! And, I never touched the component. I tuned the rack.

How did I tune the rack? Well, I’ve started to learn how to use the Magic Wood to tune a rack. You break the smaller blocks (1 ½ “ x 1 ½ “ x 1/16 “) into four sized equal pieces. This can be done by hand.(break one piece in half, then break the two halves into quarters). Now, what I am going to tell you applies to my racks and my system of components because of size of the shelves, materials on the rack (types of tuning nuts, shelf wood used, etc.). Working with just 2 of the tuning nuts per shelf (the top nuts on the bottom shelf under each component), I could tune the highs, midrange and the bass region by where I placed these “broken” pieces of Magic Wood. If I placed them on the front, the highs got better. If I placed them in the rear, the bass slam was improved. If I wanted to bring or balance out the sound, I would place the two pieces of Magic Wood at an “in between” position beneath the nuts and just touching the rods in all cases. This is how I found that triangle instrument. When I got the right position of the slivers of Magic Wood placed, I had a “sparkling” triangle, that I had never heard before in certain parts of this particular recording, located and properly localized within the soundstage IN the room – not at some “distant” point where it could barely be heard or not at all.

Also, the more a component can be “opened up” in its sound, the thinner the pieces of Magic Wood you will want to use. Once I had the Samsung doing what I wanted it to do, I decided to take the chassis top covers off the Outlaw amps and use Magic Wood slats and Harmonic Springs on top to tune them. What this did was open up the sound of the Outlaws so much that I had to go back and retune the whole system in the racks. Keep in mind that I have essentially three racks I’m tuning in this case (one rack holds the DVD/CD player, preamp, and power strip and the other two each hold one Outlaw amp). But, based on what I learned just working on that one shelf with the DVD/CD players, I knew exactly where to go to put the sound back in balance. And, the more I “opened” up the sound on each my components, the more “out of tune” I could hear that each track and each recording really is. But, it was easy to bring each back into tune.

Don’t think Michael is doing all this tuning he’s talking about just because he likes to “fiddle” with things. Well, he does Very Happy, but that’s not why he’s doing all this what he calls “going after guitars, etc.” He’s placing each track, parts of tracks and each CD “in tune” so they can be heard properly.

Don’t think this is as difficult as it sounds. It’s really easy once you find what YOUR rack and component needs in order to tune the components in it. You hear something and you immediately go to where you need to in order to bring things into harmonic balance or place instruments in tune in the recording. And, what I’ve done is just a start with “raw materials.” The Magic Wood is still in or just one step beyond the prototype phase of the use and preparation of this wood. Michael has yet to “play” with finishes and determine final sizes for this product. So, this post is just a beginning of a much deeper picture and analysis on tuning. But, if you get nothing at all out of this post, understand the importance of your rack and its relationship to what you will eventually hear at your listening position. As I said, all components and their “sounds” become irrelevant and if you can’t make a given component sound anyway you want, then either your tuning skills need to be worked on or you just have a component which cannot be properly tuned. There’s no in between here. It’s like being pregnant – either you can tune or you can’t. I’m still learning. Where are you, on your own personal learning scale? Most people think the hobby is “listening”. Well, as you learn what can be done with a home audio system through variable tuning, you will learn that what the hobby really is about is “tuning”. Listening is just a by-product of tuning.
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Jim Bookhard