It may just be that time of year, when too many days of long nights adds a depressive colour to everything, but I find myself asking at the beginning of this Newsletter 'Has there ever been a more confusing or uncertain time in the audio industry?'. If like myself you still cherish a hope of enjoying improved music reproduction in better circumstances as your life progresses you might find yourself stuck at the moment. Particularly if you do not use P.W.B. products and techniques. Let me explain.
The audio industry as we know it is dying. The manufacturers have taken their eye off the ball, and it has rolled towards our technological cousins in information technology, who have picked it up and then have run very fast. A few years ago, many would have scoffed at Mr Gates or Mr Jobs for not offering anything other than stuttering sound, blue screens, and impossible navigation. Similarly, the hope of digital amplification, of efficient and compact amplifiers was squashed by excruciating sound. And so many manufacturers carried on, hoping that we would all keep going with the vinyl players. But the situation has become worse than that. With the passing of CD royalties, we have missed an attempt to get a true high resolution format due to the squabbles between Sony and others. Whilst I would not say either SACD or DVD-Audio are wonderful, and the latter is a devil to navigate, they were both strangled at birth, and never really had the chance to develop into a good useful format. Copy protection similarly, I suspect promotes piracy through mistrust. DVD offered the consumer a really advance on the VHS tapes, and home cinema could develop. But no more. No matter how you look at it the HD-DVD and BluRay battle will damage this progress. Yet again we see the consumer treated with contempt. But it does not end there. It has become so difficult to buy anything, other than analogue products, that has any hope of longevity. Even then, perhaps the only safe product is the loudspeaker. If you buy something today, how long can you assume it will be 'connectable' to future products? This extends as much to television as much as audio, and I fear for the consumer that asks for advice from the High Street electrical stores. I just wish these manufacturers remembered what happened in France in the late 18th Century – people will only put up with this treatment for so long. And I haven't even touched on quality!
So is it all gloom? Well, no. It is possibly rather exciting, as it involves a different way of thinking. And where there is change there are openings and possibilities. It seems that the Internet is going to provide us with future sources of media. By the time Sony and Toshiba have stopped fighting, and consumers are safe to purchase one format, the bandwidth of internet access will probably allow fairly rapid downloads of high resolution material. Already one online supplier of music is planning to offer high resolution downloads of music. If this moves to iTunes, using, say, Apple Lossless, I wouldn't want to be a disc manufacturer. Flash drives and products such as the iPod Nano are also showing the way. Satellite Radio and TV will also continue to offer something. In the UK, whether one likes Mr Murdoch or not, one cannot deny that Sky have shown an enormous inventiveness, and have offered consumers imaginative products such as Sky+. If Sky HD does get off the ground soon, I will feel little need to get the HD discs, and so few of us will support these new formats that promise little initially.
So then one wonders what to do. Well, the media computer approach may have a lot to offer, as apart from anything else it does offer the prospect of possibly swapping cards and drives to gives us a bit more hope of longevity. Curiously, Meridian in the UK tried to offer this type of upgradeability, but their latest products includes a range of analogue speakers! I haven't tried one, but many swear a reclocking device (such as Big Ben from Apogee – has anyone tried this?) makes a huge difference, and a standard PC can sound very good now, as jitter is minimised.
Now you may have thought you have opened the pages of the 'What Hi-Fi Computer News Choice+' magazine, and wonder what is going on. Well, all of this highlights how important the work of Peter is. The most important aspect of your equipment is the environment it is located in, and however you deal with this, and to a degree, even if you move, the benefits remain whatever happens to HD, HDMI etc. P.W.B. devices work just as well on your Broadband Modem as on your CD player. Treating the cables on your PC works similarly, although the USB and Firewire cables have unique Ring Tie patterns on them. Labels and Foils, Creams and Inks can be applied to anything electrical. I know from experience, that a treated PC 'burns' better CD-Rs, which hold some of the PWB treatment effect. We know this also works with downloadable material. But I am still referring to equipment, and you will know by now, that the windows in your listening room sprayed and creamed will have a very pleasing effect on the sound and vision perceived there. A P.W.B. Christmas card (especially the 2005 one) is an amazing room device, and will make even the tiniest of TV speakers sound better. If there is to be immunity from the relentless corporate warring, and senseless speed of progress, whatever happens Peter Belt is your man.
And so whilst the 'tweakers' may have their revenge on those who sneered from the parapets of the 'solid engineering' fortress, I think there is a little more to be hoped for. Firstly, the figures who may become prominent in the entertainment industry may be rather more open to ideas than those from older Hi-Fi companies. There is also the hope that the industry becomes more green, if we move to the discless entertainments of the future.
So, there is a request here, to share ideas about some of these new developments, whilst also celebrating the benefits of outstanding new products such as Memory Foil. Memory Foil on your PC, or on a Sonic T digital amplifier will surprise you. Our global experiments of Clipping, and perhaps of applying Memory Foil, show just how much we all gain if the P.W.B. effect spreads. It is almost at the level of charity. This word also applies to those that have charitably written or drawn for this Newsletter. Many others have contributed online, and accompanying this fine Newsletter you can read a summary of the activity in the legendary Digest. It isn't all good news though, and you will also read of the poison in the industry that is fuelling the very changes I suspect will evolve in the industry. How can anyone believe that mockery and sneering breeds respect (see Ken Kessler et al). But with the hope of change, we can hope for more, and so there is a different tone, and fresh attempts to make sense of what we perceive.
There is little else to be done now, but to thank Peter, May and Graham for their tireless work, generosity, and boundless good service, always going that bit further (see Christmas card!).
Have a good 2006.
Richard Graham
UK
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"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers"
T S Eliot "The Wasteland"
A new year, a recently introduced new product, and a new stimulus to find a way of capturing what is going on. Dreary words, such as 'the best Foil yet', do us no favours, and so I turn again to poetry, as have many scientists before. Whilst I suspect Peter has not used TS Eliot as an inspiration for his work, there are elements of this famous opening to "The Wasteland" that I wish to draw upon in considering this remarkable new product. I want initially to highlight the link between memory and desire, with past and future, and the aspects of time with emotionality. However, if we can glean anything from the decades of research at P.W.B. Electronics (not quite the right name anymore), we must realise that Peter is not just referring to our mental functioning. Indeed the term 'memory' is loosely applied, since it is not applied just to our minds, but nature in general. Whilst we might do certain things in memory of something or someone, Peter goes further and following Sheldrake applies it to all of nature. It may seem crazy to ask how anything in nature 'remembers' what to do to perform its task of surviving and replicating, since we apply a sort of consciousness to everything in the process, and as in animism, everything becomes alive. But this 'memory' is not conscious. It is as knowing as the genetic code that gives rise to a human life, yet has no mind to know it. It is a store and passage of information that informs a great deal, from spatial dimensions to colour, to rhythm. But same is true of the inorganic, when the 'knowledge' or 'memory' is held at atomic or molecular level. This organization of matter has implications for what follows.
But my mind is 'warm' but covered in 'forgetful snow' as I still link the knowledge to physical structure. Psychologists have for many years wrestled with the site of memory, and of where it is located in organisms. There have been fascinating examples of simple organisms learning how to negotiate mazes when proteins pass from one to another. Mankind has learnt less cannibalistic forms of education, and has perhaps learnt that knowledge and memory do not have to be tied to a physical structure. I believe Peter, following Sheldrake's speculations, has come up with evidence of a startling nature: that patterns in nature co-exist alongside, but are not exclusively tied to the physical structure as perceived. We are immediately in the tussle now of whether Peter's work and products tricks the mind into believing something other than what was there before. I will put this crucial issue to one side for now as it needs much further discussion and thinking. Yet whatever the answer to that question, he seems to have achieved something in a product that lends to objects it is attached to the pattern that belongs to a different state or object. The question is now 'what is the pattern?'.
I have tried to describe in the online forum something of my feelings on this matter, but must step back a moment to explain. There is no doubt that freezing objects gives rise to a phenomenon, and for myself, it is as if the object frozen disappears. Peter has suggested this is the removal of patterns that are experienced as hostile to the self - such as a predator. This may be correct, but I do not experience the relief of a tiger having walked by (and not stop for lunch) as much as the relief an irritant has been removed. For speakers that I have dared to freeze, I cannot seem to locate them in the room, and the sound just seems to pour from another portal. The sound is usually better for this lack of distraction, and very enjoyable at a musical level. Again this may not be the place to discuss what happens when electrical items are frozen, but do try it, as it is always surprising. However, not everything can be frozen easily, and it may not even be desirable to risk the effects of ice crystals on certain delicate pieces. Yet the pattern on a frozen object is perceived (if one can perceive an absence) as very pleasing.
It is my view that an object with just one strip of Memory Foil acquires many of the qualities of the same object frozen, and possibly some more. It is just marvelous. Your equipment disappears, and the sound just is 'there'; all the notes, all the beats, and all those spaces between that make a satisfying musical experience. Silky tones, gorgeous textures, pulsing rhythms, ambient details and echoes all emerge, and so it becomes hard to keep typing!
Okay, it is a bit of a nuisance applying the Blue Memory Cream, wiping it off, placing Foil (3mm wide - of course!) onto that area, then applying the Green Memory Cream on to the Foil, but a lot easier than freezing the item. Despite this (and this would have to be the case - isn't nature great!) freezing an item with Memory Foil is just astonishing. My favourite sites for application are Photos (front and back), electrical items, and battery compartments. Given the price of the Foil it is probably too much to apply it to discs, but if you can it is amazing.
Returning to Eliot, this is the product to bring lilacs to the dead land of the audio industry, but you need to be able to shed the comfort of the frozen mind. As Eliot were to write later about Mr. Prufrock 'Do I dare disturb the universe?'. This product is an invitation to disturb the universe, particularly your own, with the real pleasures of music.
So, do you dare?
Richard Graham
UK
It's over nine months since I made my contribution to the Newsletter. Rest assured, I have been busy doing my own P.W.B. related stuff with many positive results. I was excited and intrigued to read one particular technique to improve the environment. This being the quarter round wooden doweling. I have never heard of this before, whereas many of you have been using it for a good while. So simple a device and yet turned out to be so effective when I tried it. This brings me nicely to what I have been experimenting on.
It must have been at least 15 years ago when May sent me detailed information on the various Foils - especially Rainbow Foils - on how and where to use and the use of colours to enhance one's pleasure of music. So, last December, I was reminiscing about all that P.W.B. had introduced over these many years, and something made me take another look at what was mentioned. I will mention the exact quotation in the literature "The upper surface of any object which faces away from the earth's surface i.e. facing the ceiling of the room responds beneficially to the colour Black and has a geometric shape that is a rectangular shape and this shape can be cut from self adhesive Black material with all four corners removed as illustrated." Another part of the instruction is as follows "Any object which faces the surface of the earth responds beneficially to a certain colour which is Violet and a certain geometric shape which is square. The Black material is meant to have a non reflective (matt) finish and the Violet material is meant to have a glossy finish."
At my place of work, we did a lot of craft work utilising materials of various colours and textures. I managed to find rolls of matt back paper and a roll of bright purple glossy transparent type material. As I had time I cut the black paper into a rectangular piece with the corners cut off and I also cut up a small square of this purple material. There was a cheap Panasonic radio cassette player in the room. I glued the black strip to the top of the player at the edge and the violet square under the player, just under the position of the black strip. I was listening to Radio Two. Surprise, surprise, the player sounded like a mini grown-up Hi-Fi. There was clean bass, the treble was clean and articulate and the whole sounded relaxed and unforced. I'd say that I was really enjoying it and listening to it seriously.
I could not wait to get home and try this on my systems, which are already endowed with P.W.B. Devices. I have used Magnastrips on all my equipment, a lot similar to the black strip of rectangular paper. The first place I tried was with the black rectangular strip on top of the main speakers and the violet square under the speakers. I was shocked to hear the jump in improvement to the sound. The bass was so extended and tuneful and the treble was so clean and relaxed. I did the same with all the electronic equipment associated with the Hi-Fi and visual equipment. I could hear and see the improvement that I was making. Flabbergasted with the improvement I had made, I turned on to other things. Mind you, gluing and cutting fiddley bits is very time consuming, but it is a labour of love for music and vision. How I hated the glue on my fingers. I have the solution to that. I'll come to that soon.
Now, if there is a logic that there is a top and a bottom, then there must be a lot of other things other than music and video production that could benefit. I hear P.W.B. say "Look at the environment." Nearly every object around the house has it, a top and a bottom. I climbed onto a stool to reach the top of a door, I attached a black rectangular bit on it's flat top and a violet square under it's bottom flat area. Again there was an obvious improvement to picture and sound. I would say so far the changes were not just subtle, they were quite substantial. So, over these few months I have treated all the doors, wardrobe doors, cabinet doors, drawers, radiators, tables, chairs, virtually anything that has a top and a bottom.
So far so good, I'm pleased with what I had achieved, on top of what I had already had - the many P.W.B. Devices. I proceeded to experiment further on the purple squares. I cut a small square and glued it temporarily to the Green and later to the Blue Magnadisc. The effect was detrimental. I next tried the purple on a Red Magnadisc which had already had a Blue Z and Black 26 Foil strip. Amazing ! The Red Magnadisc responded to a higher level than before. All my plugs and remote controls which have Red Magnadiscs were treated with this purple square. It's like turbo-charging the Magnadiscs. Is there a limit to the improvements ? No ! There is more to come. I went back to my workplace, to the cheap Panasonic radio cassette player, which now has a black rectangular bit on the top and a purple square at the bottom. I cut a small strip of the purple material, just like a Rainbow Foil strip in size and diameter and glued it along the length of the mains cable. The improvement was so obvious that I glued one on the main plug and one on the power socket. The improvement I was gaining made me think - I could maybe be able to use it like one of the P.W.B. Foils, albeit untreated, nevertheless proving to be so effective. By now I'm living and breathing P.W.B. techniques more so now, now that I have access to unlimited materials, thanks to Peter's thinking behind it.
I brought home a country and western CD of nondescript for experimentation. I applied a rainbow style strip of the purple material on the label side of the disc after playing without it. The difference was like night and day. The bass was deeper and clearer, the instrumentation likewise, the chorus and vocal were more articulate. Without the purple strip, the sound collapsed. Using the same disc, I tried using the purple strip like a cross (made like a small crucifix). This time it sounded much better to me, there seemed to be more solidity to the make up of the structure of the sound but remained very relaxed. This relaxation and effortlessness I would attribute to the colour purple. I have virtually treated all my CDs and vinyl albums, and holistically the effect is very much like some of the devices from P.W.B., bringing improvement to sound and vision. I have solved the problem of gluing by using PVC Black matt finish insulating tape for the rectangular bits and I use Sellotape for the purple squares, purple strip and purple cross. Cut the Sellotape to the required size to fit over the purple bits. As far as I know, there are no adverse effects from the use of this Sellotape. One could enhance the improvements by the use of the P.W.B. Quantum Clip.
If you have a CRT TV or plasma screen, you can improve it's picture by attaching a strip of the purple material with Sellotape at the extreme edge of the screen. Be pleasantly surprised. Apply a strip of the purple material along the length of the TV, satellite and radio co-axial cable to hear and see obvious improvements. Further startling improvements can be had by wrapping a strip of purple material on the co-axial plug of aerials and it's adapters. If you own a portable and it has a telescopic aerial, wrap around the purple strip at the base of the diameter of the aerial. Interconnectly, I use a lot of Kimber cable PBJ stuff. Be amazed when you wrap a purple strip on the collar of the phono plug exiting from your CD player. The effect seemed to be more obvious when this is done at source. If one treats both sides of the interconnects, the effect is accumulative. Again, one could apply a purple strip along the length of the interconnect to good effect. The fuse in the main plug can be treated too. Wrap around the purple bit in the centre of the fuse with Sellotape. I say wrap around as I have already tried lengthwise with no effect. Remember to fit a purple strip to all your main plugs. All your batteries benefit too. Wrap around the battery with a purple strip. Trust me, I have tried and tested all these months, they work. Give it a go. By the way, the purple strips respond well if they are attached to CD jewel cases and vinyl from covers. Further to this, audio cassettes and video cassettes respond to a strip of purple attached. As a final reminder, the purple crucifix should be attached to CDs, DVDs and vinyl discs for maximum effect.
I'm glad to share my findings with you all and thanks to Peter for his concepts. I continue to use the many P.W.B. Devices, to enhance what I have got.
Only yesterday, I managed to buy some quarter round wooden doweling and used them as suggested. How pleasantly surprised I was at how simple it was, and yet how so effective it is. I'm going away to Malaysia in the next couple of weeks, so I'm going to take some of these devices, plus the three samples of Rainbow Foils which May supplied. I hope to plant the seeds of Belting when the opportunity arises.
I want to touch on a few things that Belters might be aware of. Firstly, the magnetic button treated with Smart Metal goes on to anything that it can attach itself to. It is so effective on all door hinges around the house. Metal grilles of portables and the magnet assembly of speakers to name a few. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a pair of Wharfedale Glendale XP3 circa 1970's in good condition for experimentation purposes. I took out all it's internal fillings, applied treated magnets, foiled lightly with Rainbow Foils, Sol-Electret oiled the crossovers, Creamed the internal cabinet. The outcome was - it sounds open and detailed. Brilliant with classical music. I am not a fan of this type of music but I would not mind listening to it now, as the quality is good. Meanwhile the speaker highlights the deficiencies of rock and pop music emanating from the radio. It is my opinion that the internal speaker filling was there in the first place to mask the quality of poor recordings available to the masses. If it is a good recording, it's pleasant but unfortunately it is masking the potential of a good recording. So, when I listen to this speaker, I get the extremes - from being brilliant to the ghastly. This is unpalatable if you have got only one set of speakers. These are my thoughts on speakers and music extraction from them.
Concerning the problem of unused sockets around the house. Many years ago Peter introduced an Electret Resistor (I think that is what it was called) which you connected to the terminal of a plug - i.e. earth and neutral. The live pin is removed altogether, so is the fuse also. Plugging this into unused wall socket means that there is no current flowing. This is a very safe option. One could enhance this plug by using a strip of Rainbow Foil, Magnastrip, Cream it, Clip it and then freeze it. Rightly so, you get improvements in sound and picture, very much like other devices in the P.W.B. Range.
John Peter.
September saw the official launch of the new Hi-Fi season with the Heathrow show. I attended following a four year absence.
This year there was a difference with the Hi-Fi News sponsored room. Ken Kessler, senior contributor to the magazine, was demonstrating his favourite £50,000 system !
He was including a tweak within his demos that appeared to be a plastic square to be placed over CD players. At this point, he mentioned only tweaks that could be reversed were recommended, not like Peter Belt.
At the end of the session were questions from the public. At this point came the question "What do you think of Peter Belt and his foils ?" At this point there was a roar of laughter from the audience (except me). The man asking the question obviously had knowledge of Peter because he knew of Peter's headphone work.
Steve Harris (editor of Hi-Fi News for many years) was also present. Steve replied that Peter's work received attention in the early 90s because of the CD player. He said that CD players were different to record players and not tweakable. Also CD player technology was on a plateau at this point so anything that would improve the sound would be welcome. This was the reason Steve gave why Peter received interest in his products. Through Peter's products, enthusiasts had an opportunity to tweak their CD players.
Ken Kessler made reference to Peter's charged washers and said it was difficult for individuals to achieve consistent results. When Peter was present, yes there was an improvement which would be lost when Peter left !
This was the end of the discussion which left me quite demoralised. Here I was experiencing the discrimination from the industry which May and Peter receive all the time. Perhaps money is at the root of all this because potential sales of this £50,000 system could be affected. But then Steve and Ken were putting their faith in this plastic square so why not a foil or quantum clip ?
Steve Paines.
UK.
**************************************
Steve Paines' description of Ken Kessler's and Steve Harris's response at the Hi-Fi show just illustrates so clearly how strongly Ken Kessler and Steve Harris must fear being ridiculed - such fear that they appear to have to deny what they know regarding Peter.
Steve Harris was the editor of Hi-Fi News for over 15 years, alongside Christopher Breunig, his Musical Editor. Steve was fully aware of Christopher Breunig's experimenting using Peter's devices and techniques - so Steve Harris cannot plead ignorance as Steve himself (as Editor) published various reports by Christopher and others.
Extract from an article by Christopher Breunig in October 1988 issue of Hi-Fi News.
Having been told by Peter that the effect of different colours were significant, Chistopher Breunig did some experiments of his own.
"The effect of colours on the label side of a CD is readily demonstrable, at virtually no cost, with any Polygram CD, where the coloured ink areas can be washed away with cotton wool swabs soaked in lighter fuel. Rinse in detergent solution. Ideally you should have a 'control' CD with which to make comparisons. The brilliant Eliot Gardiner Mozart choral records offer excellent proof of this: for instance, a 'washed' Mass in C-minor opened up the sound, losing stridency, sharply defining the St. John's acoustic halo behind the singers."
Published in Hi-Fi News February 1989
"The Hi-Fi Show's experience attracted small but enthusiastic crowds which were left spell-bound by the effectiveness of Peter Belt's polarizing techniques. Unbelievable as it may seem, everybody could detect it when in use."
Published in Hi-Fi News November 1991. (Extract from a letter from Paul Benson).
"Also, my CD player (and listening environment) have been Belted - that is been given the Peter Belt energy treatments. The improvements, particularly to CD, that the simple, cheap but bafflingly inexplicable Belt treatments bring are so great that I don't expect others to be getting anything like the quality of reproduction that I am getting - even with multi-thousand pound players"
Further on the subject of colours.
At Hi-Fi News, during 1991, Steve Harris and Christopher Breunig received a description of some experiments carried out by Laszlo Darvas, the editor of a Hungarian Hi-Fi Magazine. To confirm if what Peter was saying about colours was true, Laszlo had asked a Hungarian CD manufacturer to do him 10 identical (music wise) CDs but to print the label side on each of the 10 discs in a different colour. Laszlo then proceeded to listen to all 10 discs, one after the other, grading them as to which colour sounded the best (or better or worse). Laszlo then sent the results of his findings to Steve Harris and Christopher Breunig, offering Steve Harris an identical set of 10 CDs for Steve to carry out his own experiments !!
Still on the subject of colours.
Steve Harris published a short article by Martin Colloms in the April 1990 issue of Hi-Fi News. Martin was describing how he had used the Green Pen to mark the edge of CDs and gained an improvement in the sound. Martin repeated the explanation given by the producers of the Green Pen - that the effect was something to do with reflection or refraction of the laser beam !
At the end of Martin's article, Christopher Breunig added the footnote. "Interestingly, P.W.B. has recently made similar claims for CD improvement using a purple marker."
Christopher Breunig knew far more of Peter's work than is evident in this short footnote to Martin's article so either Christopher did not have the courage to add anything further or was prevented from doing so by Steve Harris. Because Christopher Breunig (remember he was the Musical Editor of Hi-Fi News) knew perfectly well that you could also mark the edge of a vinyl record or mark the edge of the plastic case of an audio tape with a purple marker and gain similar improvements in the sound, making the explanation of 'something to do with reflection or refraction of the laser beam' no longer valid !!!
Still on the subject of colours.
As most of you will know, we have a set of different coloured Ring Ties for the gradual treatment of cables. In January 1992, after trying a set of these coloured Ring Ties, Christopher Breunig wrote personally to us to tell us of his results.
To quote from his letter :-
"I have just spent some considerable time with the coloured bands and I think they have a dramatic (good) effect...... The effect seemed constantly to raise the perceived replay level.... On the orchestral recording, the layering and separation and tonal accuracies were enhanced - the more Ring Ties the better.
This letter may be copied to anyone. However, I cannot guarantee persuading Steve Harris to allow anything in the magazine." Christopher Breunig.
If Steve Harris knows all this (and much more besides) why would he make the statement at the 2005 Hi-Fi Show "that the reason why there was some early interest in Peter's techniques was merely because of the early standard of CD players?"
Now to Ken Kessler's reference to Peter's charged washers (written about by Jimmy Hughes in 1987) and his comment that Peter's devices worked when Peter was present in the room but ceased to work when he left the room.
If that is Ken's belief, then why did he write a three page article for the American magazine 'Stereophile' in January 1991 - an article devoted to describing P.W.B. Devices - (could it be just in order to earn a fee ???).
To quote from Ken's article.
"Peter is back with a bunch of goodies. As the tweaks on hand seem harmless, are reversible (or removable), and require no major surgery to any system hardware....... To quote from Peter's instructions 'You can get an improvement in the sound by marking the edge of a vinyl record which is on the record player platter (not playing, just laid there), whilst listening to a Compact Disc and vice versa'....... Okay, okay, I know it sounds like Peter's finally snapped, but don't judge it until you try it..... No, Peter isn't the only one to cook up crackpot schemes, but he seems to be the one who receives most of the criticism.... And he really is a nice geezer."
If it is Ken's belief, that Peter's devices only work when he is present in the room, then why did he write a full page article for the Vox magazine in January 1991 - an article describing P.W.B. Devices - (could it be just in order to earn a fee ???).
To quote from Ken's article.
"Okay, so these are hardly run-of-the-mill, orthodox Hi-Fi accessories, but before you bust a gut laughing, you should note that the verdict still hasn't been returned on Belt and his products."
I have never seen any reference by Ken Kessler that he has ever actually tried our devices even though he knew full well that our devices are specifically designed for anyone, anywhere in the world, to use without the need for Peter to be present in the room ?
May Belt.
The aptly named JBL "Creature" speaker appealed to my imagination and my pocket. £130 cheaper than the acclaimed Altech Lansing and £180 cheaper than a Bose set-up, the Creature is a subwoofer with two satellites. This was not - as you may imagine – to be a second system or a "desk top" to go with a computer or indeed as something to plug an iPod into.
This was – wait for it – as a replacement for my old Hi-Fi amp and speakers. Has an old Hi-Fi aholic like me, then, finally kicked the habit?
It all came about because we had to have new central heating. Sounds simple: all you have to do is "move everything away from the walls." But when you've been in a flat for… well… since before flares went out…. There tends to have built up a pile or stack of something adjacent to almost every bit of wall where they were coming to put those brand new thin bits of copper piping.
It took about two months of continuously taking no longer wanted things to charity shops and chucking out broken or unusable objects before we finally revealed: the walls! Even so, there were huge piles and files and mountains in the middle of each room,
It was during this upheaval that I read Richard's fascinating article about miniature Hi-Fi – treated with a range of P.W.B. products – sounding really good. I decided to go for it. Fewer oblong boxes, fewer wires – neater lines – more space for books – more space – more square meters of empty air.
The day the Creature arrived. I found I had quite a few P.W.B. attachments for recycling. I'm never quite sure about this. They seem to lose some of their potency by the time they've been peeled off and stuck on again. But are definitely still effective: very. Another treatment – as readers of earlier Newsletters will recall – was the absence of all the stuff we'd got rid of.
Then when the new Memory Foil came out I did a few more treatments. This was the turning point. With the Memory Foil I found myself actually preferring the Creature to my old Hi-Fi set up, which had served me so well over so many years. The Memory foil seemed to give the Creature an Altech Lansing kind of precision while at the same time having the superb mellowness and ambience which JBL have always been so good at. The effect was actually startling – in the sense where you know something has definitely happened: something in the, "Hey! What's that?" league.
Though cured, in some ways I am – of course – still a Hi-Fi aholic. For example with my own old system I had the benefit of an excellent soundstage that sounded spookily three dimensional and just went on getting better and better with each P.W.B. treatment.
Part of my new goal was to dispense with concepts like depth and soundstages and dynamic range and just enjoy the music as of old like someone listening to Heartbreak Hotel for the first time on a Dansette or whatever. I haven't bothered yet to give the satellites their full stretch. However, I will get round to it sometime.
In the mean time the music comes a-drifting sweetly or rhythmically towards me out of its magic corner and that's fine with me. This creature is white but you can get them in black or grey. There's plenty of room for discreet placing of foils so that the smooth plastic dome is still shiny and clear (A bit like Darth Vador's helmet if you get me). The P.W.B. Christmas Card looked very festive with its silver next to the white gleaming surface of the Creature.
Did I say I was cured? I forgot to mention I kept the Rega Planar 3, and records never sounded so exciting, when played through the Creature too. And then – of course – there's MP3 but I haven't started on that yet.
Kenneth Hyam
Can you be addicted to P.W.B.'ing? When can we state that someone is obsessed? E.g. when you cross bar-codes of every new item in the house, even groceries, are you becoming mad? When you see a screw somewhere, you just have to align it... Does anyone recognise this? I hope I'm not obsessed, but I am open to the possibility that I am addicted. I hereby confess that I have integrated P.W.B.'ing into my way of living. Fortunately it is all for the better cause - I think.
The consequence of this all is, that sometimes, I am not sure anymore why my Hi-Fi system is sounding better than before.
Why do I tell this? Well, ever since September my Hi-Fi
system does sound better than ever before. For the average P.W.B.- enthusiast
this is no news. For me, however, this is a performance level far beyond any
goal I've ever had. In other words, I'm completely satisfied with the current
sound. I am happy, fulfilled. It does not have to become better, although I
know it can.
Every time I play a piece of music, there is
magic, there is realism, there are real instruments playing, even if I hear it
from the adjacent room. Musicality, enjoyment, the boogie factor, the sing
along aspect, all is there! When listening to music through my Hi-Fi, I always
become emotional. And this is with my favourite music as well as with other
types of music. Even bad recordings can please this guy, for, there is always
music inside of it, and my system shows it. So, bad recordings do not seem to
exist anymore.
So what did the trick? After a long, long exploration of my memory, I came to the following conclusion. One evening, I had nothing to do, so I creamed the whole television screen, as opposed to the corners only. Furthermore, I creamed the total surface of my speaker's cones. This was quite a job, because I wanted the layer to become as thin as possible, and, it had to be thorough. For the purpose of this, I used the relatively simple Cream Electret. Immediately after this, the sound got its current magical quality...
And now?
The enjoyment of listening to music has taken over the "Hi-Fi way" of listening. It is difficult, and unwanted, to go back. This explains why there are several P.W.B. items waiting to be implemented into my system. I have pieces of White Spiratube just waiting to be wrapped around the various interconnects. During the summer months I managed to saw over twenty pieces of quarter round wood for the "doweling experiment". They are frozen and creamed, and will be glued into the inside corners of my loudspeakers. Above that, May sent a sample of the latest Memory Foil...
Of course, my system has improved since September. I applied some Spiratube around the water and gas pipes, and of course the Christmas card was responsible for improvements. But that giant leap in September cured the urge for "upgradititus". Thank you, Peter W. Belt (and your team)!
A Martherus
The Netrherlands
A mathematician and a scientist of formidable qualifications, Alfred North Whitehead was the outstanding philosopher of the twentieth century. This view is expressed by Colin Wilson in his follow up to the best selling Outsider: Religion and the Rebel. The closing chapter is devoted to two thinkers: Wittgenstein and Whitehead. Wilson's Outsider is drawn as a person who senses that the world of contemporary culture and custom is a cover up for reality, and a sham. Poets, writers, religious and mystical misfits (even scientists) are lined up one by one to join the ranks of those human beings who are outside the box of their age. Wilson sees them as vitally important not just to art and science but to the survival of civilisation.
Whitehead is such an interesting case because he started off as an insider trying to incorporate the whole of reality into a system of logic and mathematical certainty. He and his brilliant pupil Bertrand Russell went a long way to succeeding but both became eventually outsiders. Russell never gave up on logic but his devotion to reason led him to become a leading pacifist and conscientious objector. Whitehead ended up denying that logic could be the ultimate tool to understand the universe.
His final lecture, "Immortality", was delivered at the Harvard School of Divinity in 1941. (Immortality has nothing to do with the survival of the soul after death, in this case, but with the assertion of values in a meaningless cosmos.) This is where he confirms his most radical position and states that, "There is no such thing as an adequate description of a finite fact." He argues that everything is related to everything else, and then turns his back on the "certainties" of modern science and its philosophic twin, Logical Positivism. He takes the view that the sum of human knowledge is simply "inadequate" and that even the language that experts use falls far short of what it is intended to represent.
All this rings a bell for anyone who has explored the new discoveries of P.W.B. Over a number of years I have been an intrigued perceiver of how auditory and visual experiences can be opened up by these discoveries: enthralling, intense effects beyond the reach of current mechanical formulae. But, even now, I find myself struggling with the sense that what I am doing is a self delusion or, worse still, a kind of self indulgence in something which my "better" self tells me is nonsensical. This "better" self is really only the echo of the ubiquitous closed mind that says, "If science doesn't accept it, it can't be really true." And so I continue to go with the values I have come to hold, by the experiences I value, and reject the echo.
The reason why I think Whitehead's philosophic insight is important is because he seems to me to be a spiritual hero, a deeply insightful mind telling us that if we go by the materialistic status quo we are being deluded. If we go by the established versions of reality we are being in Whitehead's terms "inadequate." We are abandoning the lust for life and backing down from reality.
I will now attempt to clarify this point. There seems no better way to do this than to quote directly from Colin Wilson's book, who has himself selected this extract from Whitehead's lecture.
"Much philosophic thought is based upon the faked adequacy of some account of various modes of human experience…
Understand that I am not denying the importance of the analysis of experience: far from it. The progress of human thought is derived from the progressive enlightenment produced thereby. What I am objecting to is the absurd trust in the adequacy of our knowledge. The self confidence of learned people is the comic tragedy of civilisation.
There is not a sentence which adequately states its own meaning. There is always a background of presupposition which defies analysis by reason of its infinitude."
Colin Wilson then guides us to consider what could be a summary of Whitehead's whole life's thought: "The conclusion is that logic, conceived as an adequate analysis of the advance of thought, is a fake. It is a superb instrument, but it requires a background of common sense…
My point is that the final outlook of philosophic thought cannot be based upon the exact statements which form the basis of special sciences.
The exactness is a fake."
What then does Whitehead suggest can replace or go beyond the fake exactness? The answer is experience.
In one of his several seminal books, Modes of Thought, Whitehead puts forward his concept of "concrete intuitions of the universe" by which he means a way of looking which embraces the whole of human experience: "Nothing can be omitted, experience drunk and experience sober, experience sleeping and experience waking, experience drowsy and experience wide awake…. experience happy and experience grieving ….experience in the light and experience in the dark, experience normal and experience abnormal." In other words if we can't learn to trust our own experience we will never begin on the road to reality, let alone arrive at our destination.
I leave it up to the reader to draw conclusions – but for my own part this emphasis on our own worth as individuals captures perfectly the bringing together of scientific method (logic) with the primacy of experience as truthful fact (trusting your own senses and intuitive perception), which is the remarkable achievement of P.W.B. Electronics. P.W.B. have always urged experimenters to trust to their own experience, to take nothing at face value, to evaluate! This process of evaluation is one of the ways we can assert our own values against a meaningless universe.
I find it both inspiring and reassuring to discover that philosophy at such a major level as Whitehead's should not be dogmatic but, on the contrary, an opener of the mind and a maker of new meanings.
"Religion and the Rebel" is a fascinating book. Perhaps if Colin Wilson had given it a catchier title it would have sold more copies. Who knows?
But as he himself points out it is one of the qualities of the outsider not to be content with commercial success if it means compromising or disguising the truth.
It is time to sum up: philosophy is an open minded, open-ended pursuit. It is the enemy of dogma and the friend values. It has helped me to know, as well as to feel, that those who censure Peter Belt's pioneering work are no better than those who appreciate it for what it is. To paraphrase a famous saying – we are all wallowing in our own inadequacies but some of us are listening to good music.
Kenneth Hyam
I had intended this to be a reply to Richard's posting on the P.W.B. Chat Forum (see Richard's 10th January 2006 posting on the last page of the latest selection from the P.W.B. Internet Discussion Group) but before I had fully completed writing my reply I received Ken Hyam's article for this Newsletter. The theme of Ken's article was so relevant to what I was writing that I decided to save my reply for this Newsletter.
So, further to Richard's prompt 'to discuss' the concept "There is more to it all, waiting to be tapped into."
With regard to the subject of chemicals and sound.
An audio engineer, working on 'assisting the audio signal on it's travels' and on such things as 'topology of circuit boards', if told that chemicals can affect the sound would say "Don't be silly, chemicals cannot affect sound."
A materials scientist, on being told that chemicals, associated with materials, can affect the sound would say "Don't be silly, chemicals cannot affect sound."
An acoustic engineer, if told that chemicals can affect sound would say "Don't be silly, chemicals cannot affect sound."
Let us look again at the example I gave (on our P.W.B. discussion group) of a new Sonus Faber speaker where the designers claimed that the lacquer they used on the speaker cabinet was 'friendly to acoustics'. If the designers became acquainted with the higher standard of sound when using the 'friendly to acoustics' lacquer, and if they then changed to using another (common or garden) lacquer, the sound would be perceived as 'worse' by comparison with the standard they had become used to. This means - thinking logically - that the good sound of the $40,000 Sonus Faber Stradivari speaker system is dependent upon that particular 'friendly to acoustics' lacquer - in other words dependent upon a chemical !!! That if that particular lacquer is not used, then the Sonus Faber speaker does not sound as good, irrespective of how technically good the speaker design is !! This is one of the reasons why I did an entire talk devoted to the subject of the "Percentage of Importance" which engineers put on certain things.
Using my favourite hypothetical example and putting it in a context such as the Sonus Faber speaker design. Say we have a (hypothetical) Dr Joe Bloggs with his six graduate engineers, working for five years at a cost of a quarter of a million pounds/dollars on developing special speaker drive units and crossover networks. At the end of the five years, Dr Bloggs hands the completed project over to the cabinet design section who then design a speaker cabinet and complete the whole process with the 'friendly to acoustics' lacquer. But, if at any time later, the 'friendly to acoustics' lacquer is changed for a common or garden lacquer, then the sound of the entire Sonus Faber $40,000 Stradivari speaker system is changed !!! - in other words, the end product of all Dr Joe Bloggs and his six graduate engineers' work, which took five years at a cost of a quarter a million pounds/dollars is spoilt, is adversely affected by a chemical !!
From what I know of the audio industry, Dr. Joe Bloggs and his six engineers would have devoted (probably) 99.9% of their time and energy to their development work on loudspeaker drive units and crossover networks (which is exactly what they were employed to do) and (probably) only 0.01% on other aspects. But, the sound of the results of all their labours could be governed by a chemical !! This is what I mean when I say that audio engineers who experience such things should be 'knocked back on their heels' - in surprise, in dismay, because such things are not in their teachings, in their text books ! Such things are not supposed to affect what the technical engineers have worked on.
Obviously, this does not apply solely to such as Sonus Faber - it applies to anyone who designs and manufacturers audio equipment and is involved in the world of audio in any way. And, also applies to numerous things, other than chemicals, which can be shown to affect the sound, one of these being colours !! But that, as they say, is another long story.
All this illustrates the serious dilemma which faced Peter over 25 years ago when he began to discover just what could affect the sound. Should he continue developing his State of the Art, actively driven, orthodynamic tower speaker system, knowing the many different things within the listening environment which he was discovering could affect the sound ? Or, should he try to develop devices, techniques, treatments, which anyone, anywhere in the world could use to 'treat' both their environment and their existing equipment ?
As everyone now knows, Peter chose the latter path !!
Richard is right with his sentence - "There is more to it all, waiting to be tapped into."
What it needs is the audio industry to be more aware of that, then there could be a whole new renaissance in audio.
From my earlier reference to the Sonus Faber lacquer, the logical thought process would be "If this lacquer is good, then why isn't it available for us all to use?"
So, let me take you through what I think happens - based on my knowledge and experience of 50 years in the world of audio.
I think Sonus Faber will have tried a few different lacquers and found one which they liked the sound of ! But, they did not know why they preferred it to all the other lacquers, only that they did. So they have referred to this lacquer as being 'friendly to acoustics'. If they did not know why they liked it, then they would not have gone along any particular path with regard to further development. If they had believed the lacquer 'sounded' good because of it 'dealing with static problems', then the 'static' path would have been the development path they would have gone along. If they believed that the lacquer sounded good because it was 'dealing with problems of vibrations', then the 'vibrations' path would have been the path they would have gone along. If Sonus Faber, in the course of experimenting with different lacquers, tried a lacquer which made the sound worse would they know WHY it made the sound worse ? Or HOW it made the sound worse ?
However, if you have some understanding of why a particular lacquer could sound better than some others, an understanding which Peter has acquired, then you have a better understanding of which development path to go along and what to use.
Taking it out of audio for the moment and using one of my favourite parallel examples.
Over 100 years ago, the doctors and surgeons believed that the micro-organisms which caused septicaemia were in the patients own 'bad blood'. If they believed that in order to reduce the number of patients dying from septicaemia they had to speed up their operating technique and use the sharpest of surgical instruments, then that is the path they would have gone along - to develop techniques to do faster operations and to develop materials to have the sharpest surgical instruments.
But, if like Joseph Lister, you believed that the micro-organisms which caused septicaemia were 'in the air', then you would go along a different path, the path of trying to prevent the air from getting to the open wounds, or trying to kill the germs which were everywhere and on everything.
That doesn't mean to say that speedier operations or sharper surgical instruments were not important it just means that the emphasis on research would be in a different direction.
If you understand, as Peter and I do, that we (human beings) as the result of millions of years of evolution, are programmed to read/sense our environment, searching for energy patterns associated with danger i.e. intruders/predators. But, also, that we are programmed to search for friendly, relaxing, reassuring energy patterns to enable us to relax - so as to not be under tension or 'on the alert' the whole time.
That all this sensitivity must have started at the beginning of evolution, with the earliest of early creatures, long before the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste evolved. That some of the different energy patterns associated with danger or reassurance must have been chemical in nature and that we are still, subconsciously, programmed to search for those energy patterns - hence our sensitivity to different chemicals !!
When you have some (even slight) understanding of why different chemicals could affect the sound, then that is the particular path of research and development you go along - trying to make things more effective.
So, the answer to the question "Why can't we have something which we can all use to make the sound better ?" Is "There are things - i.e. P.W.B. Cream, Liquid, Foils, techniques etc. That you do not have to apply these things all over objects, you only need to apply a small amount on a small area to superimpose a friendly, relaxing, reassuring energy pattern onto objects which we (human beings) can react beneficially to."
But, when people attempt to describe their experiences using these products and techniques, they are met with
An audio engineer saying "Don't be silly, chemicals cannot affect sound, nor can colours, shapes, written messages etc."
A materials scientist saying "Don't be silly, chemicals cannot affect sound, nor can colours, shapes, written messages etc."
An acoustic engineer saying "Don't be silly, chemicals cannot affect sound, nor can colours, shapes, written messages etc."
And, they also say, "If you claim to be able to hear all these things change sound, then it must be because of auto-suggestion, the placebo effect, blind faith, imagination, mood changes or effective marketing."
Now to the subject of the Nordost tissue and Nordost chemical which started the discussion on the P.W.B. discussion group.
Because Nordost believe that their chemical, when applied to the outer insulation of a cable, deals with a problem caused by static, then presumably, if a different chemical was applied which did not 'deal with' static problems, Nordost would think that the different chemical would not have any effect on the sound ! If Nordost, in the course of applying different chemicals to the outer insulation of cables found that one made the sound worse, would they know WHY it made the sound worse ? Or HOW it made the sound worse ?
From our experience, if Chemical A or Chemical B (what we would call adverse chemicals) were applied to the insulation of a cable - even a Nordost cable - the sound would be much worse ! Meaning that applying Chemical A or Chemical B to the outer insulation of such as Nordost cables would ruin the sound of the very cables which the Nordost engineers had spent years developing.
May Belt.
Because so many people are now being newly introduced to P.W.B. techniques and concepts I have decided to describe the background history of some of the paths which Peter and I have been down these past 25 years. Many of our customers already know most of the story as they have been along the paths with us virtually from the beginning.
Many newcomers' reaction, when reading of peoples experiences after using our techniques and devices, is the inevitable "it must be autosuggestion" or "it must be the placebo effect" or "it must be blind faith that they will work" or "it must be imagination" or "it must be because of different moods" or "it must be effective marketing".
Therefore I think it is important to show first how observation and chance events have started and shaped so many discoveries in the past because it is important to realise that discoveries do not always happen neatly through well thought out actions or because of prior knowledge.
I am therefore going to give a few examples from history.
1) Penicillin. And Alexander Fleming.
The improbable chain of events that led Alexander Fleming to discover penicillin in 1928 is the stuff of which scientific myths are made. Fleming left a culture plate smeared with bacteria on his lab bench whilst he went away on a two-week holiday. When he returned, he noticed that a growth of mould had accidentally contaminated the plate. Unknown to him a spore had drifted in through an open window. Luck would have it that when Fleming left for his holiday, he had decided not to store his culture in a warm incubator and the mould had a chance to grow. Later, as the temperature rose, the bacteria grew like a lawn, covering the entire plate - except for the area surrounding the mouldy contaminant.!!! Seeing this halo was Fleming's "Eureka" moment, an instant of great personal insight and deductive reasoning. He correctly deduced that the mould must have released a substance that inhibited the growth of the bacteria. The substance was a strain of penicillia which could kill off bacteria while not causing any damage to wounds. It worked against many kinds of bacteria and was mostly safe for the human body. Unfortunately, with insufficient support from the medical community, the initial research had to stop.
2) Smallpox. And Edward Jenner.
Edward Jenner was a doctor in Gloucestershire, UK. He decided to test his theory, drawn from the folklore of the countryside, that milkmaids who suffered the mild disease of cowpox never contracted smallpox. In 1796, Jenner inserted pus taken from a cowpox pustule on the hand of a milkmaid called Sarah Nelmes and inserted it into an incision on an eight year old boy's arm. Jenner subsequently proved that having been inoculated with cowpox, the boy was now immune to smallpox. Jenner coined the word vaccine from the Latin vacca for cow, and called the process vaccination.
After submitting a paper to the Royal Society describing his experiment he was told that his ideas were too revolutionary
The immediate reaction to Jenner's work was ridicule. Critics, especially the clergy, claimed it was repulsive and a satirical cartoon of 1802 showed people who had been vaccinated sprouting cow's heads.
3) Cholera. And Dr. John Snow.
In the 1830s, severe outbreaks of Cholera gripped London, killing some 32,000 people in 3 months. William Farr believed that Cholera was caused by 'bad air' (or miasmata) and Farr had the majority of scientific community supporting him.
Even though it was William Farr who had plotted the incidence of Cholera, street by street, it was Dr John Snow who was observant enough to realise what was actually happening.
Dr John Snow observed that the most of the inhabitants down one side of a street had been stricken by Cholera whilst hardly anyone at the opposite side of the same street had the disease - even though they also breathed the same 'bad air' !! Snow realised that the side of the street with hardly any incidents of Cholera had a brewery and Snow further realised that if the brewery workers were thirsty, they would not drink water, they would drink the beer. Which meant that the brewery workers would never have occasion to drink the water from the communal water pump at the end of that particular street. When Dr John Snow persuaded the local officials to remove the handle from the communal water pump, the spread of Cholera was halted !!!
4) Maggots.
Below I give yet another example of people observing what was happening around them but with this example I do not have specific names to quote.
During the Great Wars (the Crimea and Napoleonic wars) doctors and surgeons attending the wounded soldiers observed that the wounded soldiers who had to be left on the battlefields (could not be brought quickly into the medical field hospitals) if maggots had got into these soldiers wounds, then their wounds were clean and free from infection and these soldiers appeared to therefore have a better chance of survival that many of the soldiers who had been brought quickly into the field hospitals !!
It was not until over 100 years later (the mid 1950s) that scientists discovered that as maggots eat decaying flesh, they secrete an antibacterial chemical. So, the original belief structure (that the wounds were free from infection because of the maggots eating the decaying flesh) was not wholely correct. Yes, the wounds were clean because the maggots had eaten the decaying flesh but the wounds were free from infection because of the antibacterial chemical secreted by the maggots !! In other words, the original belief structure was too limiting but had held sway in the world of medicine for over 100 years !!
5. Antiseptics. And Joseph Lister.
100 years ago, the medical profession were taught and therefore the general belief structure
of the doctors and surgeons of that time was that the micro-organisms that caused septicaemia were in the patients own blood and could (or not) erupt spontaneously - in other words there was nothing any of the doctors and surgeons could do about the problem of many of their patients dying through developing septicaemia !!
A solution did not come initially from within the medical profession.
During that time Louis Pasteur, a well known French chemist, made his own wine and found that some of his wine 'went off' when he left the bottles open to the air to allow the fermentation bubbles to escape. As an experiment, Pasteur made a device which fitted over the top of the bottles (a similar device is still used today in wine making) which allowed the fermentation bubbles to escape but did not allow the outside air into the wine. After using his device, Pasteur's wine was OK.
From that experience and observation Pasteur realised that there was 'something in the air' which had been getting at his wine.
Joseph Lister, a Scottish Doctor and Surgeon, heard (or read) about Pasteur's findings and asked the question "Could there be micro-organisms 'in the air' which were getting into my patients open wounds during operations and could it be these 'germs in the air' which caused the septicaemia.?"
From that concept Lister developed techniques to prevent air getting into the patients open wounds during the operations he was performing - initially using carbolic spray but going on to develop various antiseptic gauzes. But, when Lister attempted to alert the rest of the medical profession to his concept of "germs in the air" he was attacked and ridiculed by his fellow doctors and surgeons.
His fellow doctors and surgeons continued to go directly from performing autopsies to carrying out operations without washing their hands, without washing their instruments, without changing their blood stained, pus stained frock coats - as well as continuing with the disgraceful habit of carrying the cat gut for stitches dangling from the button hole in their dirty, blood stained, pus stained frock coats. In fact, the more blood stained and pus stained their frock coats were, the more they were worn with pride !!
All these are examples of people observing what was happening around them and deciding to investigate - in so many cases in the face of ridicule and dismissal.
What I have described are individuals who observed certain things happening and who were aware enough to realise the significance of what chance event had happened or what they had observed. The same information available in the observations or the chance events were not special to those particular individuals - the information was just as available to the many other hundreds of people working in the same fields of expertise - but they just did not register it !!
As the well known saying goes "Chance favours a prepared mind."
I will now describe some of Peter's early experiments and observations which have informed his subsequent work.
I am starting my story at the end of a 30 year period of Peter and I being involved in the audio industry. During this 30 year period Peter was involved in manufacturing moving coil loudspeakers, electrostatic loudspeakers, orthodynamic loudspeakers, moving coil headphones, electrostatic headphones and orthodynamic headphones - working completely within conventional electronic and acoustic theories.
Chapter One.
Starting in 1981. During the making of his new 'state of the art' orthodynamic tower speaker system, Peter had found that when wiring the 108 orthodynamic drive units, the different coloured cabling he used gave different sounds. Peter had ordered wire of a very high specification but had ordered the wire with different coloured insulation for ease of manufacture as the 108 drive units had to be wired in parallel or in series to end up at 8 ohms to match into the amplifier.
Peter had no explanation as to why the same specification wire but with different coloured insulation should sound different but he observed it to be so. At around this time (in the early 1980s) there was a controversy emerging within the audio world around the concept that cables could 'sound' different so Peter decided that he would carry out some experiments for himself.
He decided to listen to different metals as the conductor - but the bare metals only, with no insulation material - to try to find which metals 'sounded' the best and why.
He listened to bare copper in all it's configurations - single core, many stranded, multi fine stranded (bunched, twisted, plaited), then to bare silver, then to bare brass, then to bare steel baling wire and finally to bare Lead (pb) - with Lead coming out as the best sounding metal. Again, Peter had no explanation as to why Lead sounded the best metal, only that it did. But, as soon as Peter put insulation material anywhere near any of the bare metals, the sound went worse. Again, he had no explanation as to why applying insulation material to the metal conductor should cause the sound to be worse only that it did. Years later more people within the audio industry would also begin to observe how different insulation materials could affect the sound !
From making whole interconnects from the Lead wire Peter found that he did not need to make the whole interconnect of Lead, he found that if he made the Lead wire into a 3 and a half inch Lead tube, he could attach the Lead tube at the end of any standard copper interconnect and achieve the same improvement in the sound ! These were the very Lead Tubes which Martin Colloms wrote about in his short article "The Mysterious P.W.B. Lead Tubes" in Hi-Fi News in the early 1980s.
Continuing with his experiments, Peter decided to try a different technique. He decided to cook the different metals and found that after all the different metals had been cooked in the gas oven, and, after cooking, allowed to return to room temperature very, very slowly, all the different metals sounded better. Again, Peter's procedure of cooking the metals used as conductors was described by Martin Colloms in his article "Cable Controversy" Hi-Fi News.
But, even after cooking the different metals and them sounding better, as soon as Peter attempted to apply insulation material around the metals, the sound was perceived as worse.
Peter knew that he could not cook the plastic insulation in the gas oven so he decided to attempt something different - he decided to freeze the plastic insulation in our domestic deep freezer. Again, after freezing, one crucial technique was to allow the plastic material to return to room temperature very, very slowly. However, one surprise was that after the plastic insulation had been through the freezing process, when it was applied to the metal conductors it no longer had such an adverse effect on the sound. Because of this surprising result with freezing the plastic insulation material, Peter then put the different metals through the same freezing and slow defrost process, after they had been 'cooked'. Again, he achieved yet a further improvement in the sound !! Peter had no explanation as to why any of these procedures could have been having such an effect on the sound but he knew that what he had observed was important.
Now comes something of a surprise, although for anyone who is aware of the history of discoveries, it will not be so much of a surprise. Completely independently of what Peter was discovering, someone in Canada (Ed Meitner) was also discovering that freezing things (such as CDs, interconnects, components etc.) gave improvements in the sound - but Ed Meitner, in contrast to Peter, was using the extremely lower cryogenic temperatures. Nevertheless, here was someone else who was also discovering that freezing things gave improvements in the sound !!
Another example of techniques and discoveries which were there, for others to discover.
To recap. 25 years ago, Peter was discovering that different cabling gave different sounds (as others have subsequently discovered), different metals use as conductors gave different sounds (as others have subsequently discovered), different insulation materials had an adverse effect on the sound (as others have subsequently discovered) and freezing things gave improvements in the sound (as others were discovering).
At that time Peter had no explanation as to why different cables should change the sound. Conventional electronic theory would dictate that any effect on the signal travelling through the audio system (particularly with different cables only half a metre (20 inches) long) would be so infinitesimal that no one, no human being, could possibly be able to detect it !!
Chapter Two.
Our first discoveries were made long before we acquired a CD player. Our experiments were carried out using a record player and vinyl records as our music source. Others were reporting in the Hi-Fi Press that the different materials which the vinyl record rested on gave different sounds so Peter decided to investigate this also.
Peter listened to many materials as a turntable mat and eventually found that the two materials which sounded the best were felt and pure, untreated cork with pure untreated cork just winning as sounding the best. However, as can be appreciated, when trying different mats, the vinyl record has to be removed each time and each time the record was removed from the untreated cork mat, we got the annoying 'fizz' of static each time. So, Peter decided to spray the cork mat with some antistatic liquid which we had been given at a recent Hi-Fi Show by a reputable manufacturer of record treatment accessories. When the cork mat was dry, it was replaced on the turntable. Yes, the problem of static was cured but the sound was now much worse !! We had to revert back to using the pure, untreated cork and accept that we would have the problem of the 'fizz' of static. Peter had no explanation for the problem of the sound getting worse after using the antistatic liquid on the cork but he remembered what he had observed.
Chapter Three.
In the early 1980s, Ivor Tiefenbrum of Linn was informing people (journalists, reviewers and retailers) that passive loudspeakers, present in the listening room, had an adverse effect on the sound. He had started his campaign for single speaker demonstration rooms. Ivor had put forward the explanation that the cones of the passive speakers were moving in sympathy with the acoustic air pressure waves generated by the playing speakers and causing additional adverse air pressure waves. In fact, Ivor gave a demonstration at a Hi-Fi Show using the telephone in the hotel bed room - again his explanation was that the cone of the drive unit in the telephone handset was being affected by the air pressure waves generated in the room by the working loudspeakers.
Peter decided to investigate these reported problems.
As we were manufacturers of loudspeakers, we had plenty of moving coil speaker drive units to experiment with. Peter introduced a passive loudspeaker drive unit into the listening room, placed it passively on the floor and listened to some music. Yes, the sound was now adversely affected. Now, Peter cut the cone out of the drive unit, leaving only the metal frame attached to the magnet, and listened again. The sound was still worse - showing that the cone of the drive unit was not the problem. Peter then removed the metal frame, leaving only the speaker magnet laid on the floor and listened again. The sound was still worse, showing that it was the magnet which was the problem !! Nothing to do with the acoustics of the cone!!
Peter now introduced our house telephone into the room and listened. The sound was perceived as worse with the telephone in the room. Peter knew that telephones are not manufactured using a drive unit with a cone so he got our son's Boy Scout compass and moved it around the telephone. The compass needle moved 180 degrees when Peter moved the compass along the side of the telephone - showing that there was a magnetic field around the telephone.
Peter then decided to continue experimenting. There had been further reports in the audio magazines that the presence of an electronic alarm watch in the room was found to make the sound worse. We did not have an electronic alarm watch but we had an electronic watch so Peter introduced it into the listening room. Again the sound was perceived to be worse. Knowing that an electronic watch has both an electronic chip and a battery, Peter decided to try something else which uses a chip and a battery - a pocket calculator. Again, the presence of the pocket calculator in the room caused the sound to be worse. So, Peter now tried something which did not use a chip but used a battery - a pen torch. Again, with the presence in the room of the pen torch the sound was worse. Peter now took the battery out of the torch, got it working slightly by attaching a resistor across and placed it on top of a loudspeaker cabinet. The sound was still perceived as worse.
Peter had no explanation as to why all these things could possibly be having an adverse effect on the sound but he remembered what he had observed because it was so unusual and disturbing.
Chapter Four.
Peter carried on doing various experiments and then came a chance event (which is so loved in stories of discovery) - a chance event which was to change the whole way we would approach audio and sound.
I described the event in my full letter to Greg Weaver in 1999 and have also described it in my talks but I will tell the story again for the people who have not heard or read it.
During one set of listening experiments, we had a short coffee break. In the listening room was a small wooden table which had had something spilt on it, causing a nasty stain. Peter decided to treat this stain and applied a chemical to it. No success - the stain was just as bad. Peter shrugged his shoulders and said "Oh well, we will just have to live with the stain, at least I have tried to remove it." After the short coffee break we returned to the listening tests. The sound was dreadful, it was absolutely appalling! Peter tried everything he knew but could not get the previous 'good' sound back. He knew that the only thing he had done in the past half hour was to apply a chemical to the stain on the small table. He took the table out of the room and listened again. The 'good' sound was back ! with the table returned to the room, the sound was dreadful again. Peter remarked " There is no way we can carry on with our listening tests with that table in the room" so the table was banished to the garage. We had no explanation for what had happened but we remembered this incident because it was so surprising and startling. It was a few months later that I happened to be reading an article - an article on plants !! In the middle of this article it stated "and when the (???) plant is under stress, it produces the chemical ???? - this was the chemical we had applied to the small table!!! I read this article out to Peter and we looked at each other. Here was the chemical we had used being described as a 'stress chemical'. Peter then began to reason out "I wonder if it was us (Human beings) who were sensing this 'stress' chemical and going under tension - and this was the reason why the 'sound' was perceived as 'dreadful'.
He brought the small table back into the room and listened again - the sound was back being 'dreadful' again. Peter began to reason out "If there is such a thing as a 'stress' chemical - could there be such a thing as a 'friendly' chemical ? We did what all good experimenters do - we searched every cupboard, every shelf, every drawer, tried every chemical we could get our hands on. Nothing we tried brought the 'good' sound back until one day, we tried Chemical X ! This time, we judged not that we had the 'good' sound back but that the sound was better than we could remember it being. Peter then began to reason out further. If applying Chemical X to a small table can 'improve' the sound, what would happen if we applied it to other objects in the room - other items in the room as well as the audio equipment - items such as a piano, a central heating radiator, wall lights, windows etc. We did this and ended up with the best sound we had ever had !! Peter was devastated. You would think he would be thrilled to bits, but he was devastated. When you have spent the previous thirty years of your life trying every which way to get good sound and you suddenly find you have the best sound you have ever had - by applying a chemical to the central heating radiator - to the wall lights etc. - then this is indeed devastating !!
When we began to realise what was happening - that it was us (human beings) who were doing the changing - not the audio signal nor the acoustic air pressure waves - then we began to develop better techniques and to develop various methods of better applying the 'friendly' energy pattern to objects. One thing you have to realise however is that our Cream-Electret is not Chemical X made into a cream. Chemical X gave us the clue as to which path we had to go along. As we began to realise what was going on in the environment and how it was affecting us (human beings), we learnt how to induce energy patterns into various materials and this is the secret behind our devices and techniques - knowing which materials will take which energy patterns and some of our devices actually require multiple treatments.
It does make sense that there would be some 'friendly' energy patterns in Nature. Nature would not allow creatures or animals to 'go on the alert' every time one of their group/herd/family came into the vicinity - it would be too wasteful of energy - so there must be energy patterns which say 'don't even bother to go on the alert, we are a 'friend'., 'member of your herd', 'member of your family' etc.
When it became obvious than the only explanation for what had happened was that it must be the human being who was doing the reacting and therefore changing the perception of the sound, then one had to ask the questions.
What was causing the reaction.?
How was it having the effect it was on the sound ?.,
Why was it affecting the sound ?
But, once we began to realise that it was the human being who was reacting to the different plastic insulation materials (i.e. different chemicals), to actual chemicals, to magnetic fields, to the polarisation of batteries etc., the earlier things which had happened began to make more sense.
As Peter began to think about how human beings could be 'programmed' by evolution to respond to (to sense/read) the environment he realised that he had to think quite far back in evolution. The alternating AC energy had only been available for the past 100 years and man made plastics (different mixtures of chemicals) had only been in existence since the early 20th century.
So, we realised that we had to think much farther back in evolution. That we had to think back to the time before the evolution of the senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) because the ability (necessity) to sense/read the environment must have existed from the earliest of early primitive creatures because of the necessity for those creatures to sense danger, in order to survive, in order to replicate.
The concept I am going to describe is simplistic, but as I have said repeatedly, concepts allow us to explore - they are like stepping stones, and at any time we can retrace our steps and explore in another direction.
So, how could the early primitive creatures have been reading/sensing their environment - without the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch as we know them ? There must have been different chemicals available in the environment and the creatures themselves (as well as other creatures) must have been creating chemical reactions within themselves. I personally use the concept that, say, hypothetically, the early primitive creatures had the ability to read/sense say 5 co-ordinates, to make a mental picture of those 5 co-ordinates, to take another reading of the same co-ordinates a second later, and so on, every second of their lives - to compare each latest reading with the earlier readings, to take notice of any changes, to take action, in order to survive, in order to replicate - and this must have been a successful technique because we are here today, millions and millions of years later !!
One has to speculate how, over millions of years of evolution, subsequent creatures will have developed the ability to read/sense more and more 'co-ordinates' - the more co-ordinates a creature could read/sense, the better the chances for survival.
To go back to the theme of this article "Pioneers of Discovery."
In his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Thomas S. Kuhn emphasises quite often how it is when anomalies happen (some challenging and some even contradicting the accepted belief structure), and when some people are prepared to investigate these anomalies, that many of the significant discoveries have been made in the past.
To quote Kuhn on the subject of anomalies.
"In the development of any science, the first received paradigm is usually felt to account quite successfully for most of the observations and experiments easily accessible to that science's practitioners. Further development, therefore, ordinarily calls for the construction of elaborate equipment, the development of an esoteric vocabulary and skills and a refinement of concepts that increasingly lessens their resemblance to their usual common-sense prototypes. That professionalization leads, on the one hand, to an immense restriction of the scientist's vision and to a considerable resistance to paradigm change. The science has become increasingly rigid....... Even when apparatus exists, novelty ordinarily emerges only for the man who, knowing with precision what he should expect, is able to recognize that something has gone wrong.
Kuhn also likes to use examples to illustrate the points he wishes to make as in :-
"The discovery of X-rays is a classic case of discovery through accident, a type that occurs more frequently than the impersonal standards of scientific reporting allows us easily to realize...... X-rays, however, were greeted not only with surprise but with shock. Lord Kelvin at first pronounced them an elaborate hoax ...... they violated deeply entrenched expectations...... To a greater or lesser extent these are characteristics of all discoveries from which new sorts of phenomena emerge."
May Belt.
The first ten years of my life (neatly fitted into the 50's) were spent in rural Ireland. We lived on a small holding of six or seven acres with a few cattle, pigs, goats and a yard full of chickens. We had no electricity, water or gas connection. Our nearest neighbour was a mile or so further up the small mountain that was home to both families.
Our contacts with the outside world was either by foot, bicycle, Dad's wonderful James motorcycle and, best of all, the big Bakelite valve radio on the kitchen table! With no electrical power connection to the house, the radio used to run off batteries or accumulators, as they were then known. They were great big clear glass containers full of lead plates and acid with two big terminals on top: black and red. I cannot recall how many of those it took to get the radio to work, but I do remember that it did not take many days before they needed a recharge.
There used to be a strict order of listening preference in the house - which our Dad used to try vainly to enforce. News was the primary function followed by inter county football and hurling matches. Music and everything else was, to him, a shocking drain on the batteries.
Little did he know how much we drained his beloved batteries! With our Mother as the instigator, every time he was away from the house me and my younger brother would tune along the airwaves - the squelchy sounds giving way to exotic sounds and languages from far away places stimulating the imagination. This activity was always best when a fresh set of batteries had just been installed as the sounds, when tuned, burst out with breathtaking clarity.
Not many days later, we would watch Dad with his ear pressed hard to the speaker grille, desperately trying to catch the last dying gasp of sound and roundly cursing Ned Colfer (the local battery charger who had a small wind generator and lived a few miles over the way) for not charging the batteries enough whilst charging him too much for it!
There was a particular day whilst surfing the airways with a fresh set of batteries installed, a sudden raucous-but-wonderful sound tore from the speaker grille and nearly shook the valves from their sockets. The glorious racket turned out to be Jerry Lee Lewis and it would be years later in England before I was to hear anything like it again. I can only think now that we must have stumbled across an American Forces broadcast from somewhere in Europe. Certainly domestic broadcasting of the time wasn't daring enough for this kind of thing!
From the day I made my first "Cats Whisker" radio receiver to every subsequent piece of Hi-Fi purchased, the aim has been to somehow emulate the memory of that sound. Of course I have never achieved it and probably never will – such is the power of childhood experiences.
P.W.B Devices however, have done more to bridge that gap of 47 years than any piece of Hi-Fi so far purchased. Devices such as the new Memory Foil (of which I have only so far tried a sample) seem to drive the Music straight to the heart in a way very like that day way back in 1958.
Kevin Kehoe.
When Peter read Kevin's draft article, he also began reminiscing. He remembered, as a young apprentice radio engineer just after the war, repairing one or two of those battery radios which Kevin is remembering.
Something else we remembered. George Hollingberry, the original founder of what are now known as the chain of Comet Electrical stores in the UK, started in business in 1933 as the Comet Battery Stores Ltd. This was a two man business in Hull, charging batteries and accumulators for customers' wireless sets. Progressing later to supplying electrical and electronic equipment and, when Retail Price Maintenance was abolished, began to sell these electrical products at discount prices.
May Belt.
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