Schnerzinger's giga canceling technology.

I guess the technical liner notes from this actually amazing sounding album will get a discussion going;


"Small boxes with bright lights and small antennas were placed at various points throughout Rhapsody Hilversum's listening room. I must admit that I, as well as several other people in the room, were quite skeptical as to whether this equipment would have any effect whatsoever on the listening experience, but at the end of the session, Schnerzinger's pioneering giga canceling technology, had left a lasting impression on everyone.
In the days following the listening session I couldn’t help but wonder; if this equipment has such a positive effect on the playback of music in the listening room, what is there to gain if one would use these tools on the outset, in the recording in the studio? My curiosity was quickly answered because Harry and Michael (masters of tuning reproduction systems and by now extremely experienced with Schnerzinger equipment) brought an extensive collection of Schnerzinger equipment to the studio for the recording of Jeremy's new record. During the recording session Harry, Michael and I noticed a calmness to the sound that was different as to how the sound in the studio normally felt. The sound stage seemed wider, deeper and more defined, the background more black, resulting in decisions regarding placement and depth being taken easily and intuitively. I like to think of the sound stage as being 3-dimensional and the Schnerzinger equipment did help enforce that vision. And a last but important bonus was that our ears got noticeably less tired, we worked through the entire day without ear fatigue.
We repeated the experiment again at the mixing and mastering stage and here again an improvement in the listening environment was perceived; more composure and solidity, and it seemed that the sometimes tedious process of repeated listening to the recordings over and over again never became boring. Being reintroduced to tape as a mastering tool by Harry and Michael has been a very rewarding and inspiring experience. The warmth and immediacy of the tape sound is so fresh and real, but also with a hint of melancholia….this is the sound that I grew up with, the sound with which I learned my trade. But now with the advantage of superb analog mic preamps, a completely overhauled and adjusted Studer tape recorder, the sound is even better than I remember. It is different but at least as good as what we are doing with the Sound Liaison DXD recordings. I even mastered a few of our DXD recordings (Embrace Me and Ray!) to tape as I found that it gave those recordings just that little extra mojo needed." - Frans de Rond"

 

https://www.schnerzinger.com/english/produkte/giga-protector/

Says it eliminates HF interference.

 

Ok, so basically it's a receiver/emitter that purports to cancel out noise by putting out an inverted/delayed/whatever signal to smush over the original noise. Whether or not you want to call it snake oil or whatever, I have several issues with this:

1) Any way you dress this, it's still a band aid solution. If you truly have this wide scale interference, then you owe it to yourself to address the source(s) rather than patch on the receiving end (ie: you and your equipment). Unless it's your equipment that's putting out all that noise, but even in that case why are you buying compromised gear that worsens everything around it and slapping a band-aid on top again? Either way, some EMI blocking curtains on the walls or even dressed up around your equipment rack like sofa doilies would probably do more.

2) So let's say there's this external source of noise coming your way. If it's coming from any distance, then the wavefront is going to be roughly flat. And now you're suggesting that a point source close range antenna is going to cancel that out? Well sure maybe if it's exactly in the line of effect from noise source to your cancellation box to you, but it'll be crap anywhere else. Anyone who knows anything about wave propagation or room audio can tell you that you will have some absolutely wicked interference patterns. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then just do this thought experiment. Take a sheet of a paper and put a dot on one edge. This is your external source of noise. Draw a whole bunch of concentric circles equally spaced, and by the time those circles reach the other side of the paper you might as well be drawing parallel lines to save yourself the trouble. Now draw a box somewhere on that other side of the paper to represent your room. Now stick your giga antenna or whatever in there and start drawing circles again. Take a ruler and draw a line between through the noise source and the giga thingy. Now look at the circles and note that the circles crossing through that straight line are more or less all lines up, and that could represent noise cancellation blah blah. But outside that straight line, it's a wild ride.

 

They say it eliminates that interference -- from RF sources like Wi-Fi, mobile phones, etc. -- via out-of-phase retransmission. But of course that would be illegal in any country where the device might actually be used, so it can't actually be doing that.

Which they admit in their FAQ, which says that the device does not restrict the operation of Wi-Fi, mobile phones, or any other radio equipment.

The Schnerzinger products might very well make a system sound better, but not for any of the nonsensical reasons given on their website.

 

perhaps part of a bigger conversation, but this thread reminds me of one of the many silly pandemic related audio experiments I undertook months (years? cue Robin Williams "what year is it?" meme) ago.

Experiment 1: turned off and unplugged all potential sources of digital noise or AC related noise in the house except for the full stereo (so, wifi stayed on and roon core running, but I did bypass my power conditioner setup and just used a simple Furman power strip). Like, literally the only thing left on on the breaker box was the outlet connecting up the stereo. And I sat and listened for an evening. And then I spent the next 30 minutes resetting all of the clocks around the house. Oh, non-scientifically, using an iPhone app, the noise floor was at about 32-34dB. Compared only one track really, Nils Frahm "Sunson" thru Roon, then thru CDT (both into Yggdrasil), then on the SL1200.

Experiment 2: turned off and unplugged everything including the wifi, etc., and compared digital CDP+Yggdrasil (and then shut it off and unplugged) to TT with literally the only things plugged into wall sockets in my entire house being the Technics, an iFi Zen Phono, and the Elekit 8600, and the 12" SVS sub. Same track used. Noise floor measured the same, right around 34dB.

I couldn't hear any difference, and likely wasted a lot of my time over two evenings. Luckily, my GF was out of town so I only upset my dog with my experiments.