We got our Audio Asylum YoYo Tweaks…

… a few months ago.

Two bright red AA yoyos

I am not, we are not, good enough yoyo’ers to do much with these guys. The body is too lightweight and the string is too wide and has too much friction.

But, duh, that was before we figured out they were not supposed to be palyed with but were serious tweaks!

Our first clue was discovered after closely examining the other sides of the yoyos:

Two bright red AA yoyos

Rod, the Audio Asylum bored member who signs these yoyos, writes:

“Thanks! Rod”. Yes, really. That’s what they say.

Now, those of you who are of the more intelligent variety of audiophile will have no doubt already noticed that there is an obvious message here about how these yoyos are supposed to be used.

Here, we will examine this closer for those who are a little slower among us:

One hand-signed bright red AA yoyo

Another hand-signed bright red AA yoyo

Now do you see?

No???????!!

OK, then. *sigh* Look at the ‘o’ in Rod. Do you see how one is filled in and the other left open?

Ah, now I see the light bulbs going off!

Exactly!

The round, unfilled donut-like ‘o’ is obviously supposed to be put on top of a transport (just like we all know from way back in the 80s that CDs are really flat yoyos, pressed into service as digital media because so many of them were made and few people could even walk-the-dog with them. Geez, schools really sucked back then, huh?). The yoyo with the filled ‘o’ is obviously the complement of the other yoyo and will go on top of the DAC.

So here are pictures of the tweaks in action.

First, on the Emm Labs CDSD Signature transport:

The transport yoyo precisely positioned on the transport

OK, here is a closer view, I want to point out a few things that only became obvious after 100,000s of hours of testing:

The transport yoyo precisely positioned on the transport

See how the yoyo is PRECISELY positioned such that the text faces EXACTLY toward the front of the transport? This is very important. Otherwise, harsh, ugly, distorted pig ‘oinks’ and grunts appear at random in all discs we played except Pink Floyd’s Animals CD (just like the Teac players do without the yoyo … just kidddddding :-)).

No, for those of you who do not get it yet, the string has no impact at all. Why should it. It is just a string.

When positioned like this, the flatness of the yoyo mimics the flatness of the spinning CD and helps it spin a lot easier, exactly as if the CD was massless.

Now, for a look at the Emm Labs DCC2 Signature DAC:

The DAC yoyo precisely positioned on the DAC

You will of course notice how the yoyo is positioned in the classical, ‘Upright DAC YoYo Position’ which has the yoyo face due Magnetic North.

Looking at the setup more from the front, you can see that the angle of the yoyo is slightly tilted:

The DAC yoyo precisely positioned on the DAC

We have found that it is very important for the angle of the top of the text to track the sun as it coasts over head during the day. This may be obviosu to many of you experts, but it took us months to figure this out.

And at night? Yes, it sounds soooo much better when the yoyo continues to track the sun as it winds its way upriver on the other side of the planet.

Luckily, I can just assign the yoyo adjustjing duties to Neli – cause heck if I know where the sun is exaclty in the middle of the night – and luckily our significant others will do anything if you just explain how important it is.

Anyway, sorry if I was a little bit rough on you noobies, but hopefully this will help you utilize the most important tweak since Edison invented electricity.

We spent so much time on this, and no one told us anything about how we were supposed to use these things. It was like a big secret or something. Geez. How are we supposed to get new blood into this hobby if everyone keeps the YoYo tweaks classified?

Now, we can all hope that the Asylum sends out green yoyos, which we hear mate very well with red, next so that we can start stacking them in totem poll like fashion.

!yojnE

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