Now for something completely different.

Yesterday around 6:00pm we were putting back together several systems in new configurations when we heard a large bang on the roof, 24 feet above the floor in the main listening room.

Neli said ‘Whassat? ‘ Well, that is more like the way I talk, but l am writing the story, so…

‘A bird’, I say… ‘OK, a BIG bird’.

Then I get one of those looks that women give men when they reveal exactly what they think of the male sex’s cognitive powers.

The day before we had a lot of very large birds [Eagles? Their squak sounds like the noise eagles make on TV. And we just happened to be listening to Hell Freezes Over during that time as welll…. Hmmmmmm…] circling the house during a demo for an hour or so, and when the birds landed on the roof, which they seemed to be doing a lot for some reason, there would be a thump – and this was during an audition, so everybody heard it when the music was not at that moment playing very loud.

But then there was another loud bang on the roof, then another. It sounded just like someone was throwing rocks at the house. And it was LOUD….!

Hey, we didn’t go to college for nuthin. It took only about 20 to 30 wacks on the roof to figure out that we were being hailed.

Chucks of hail on the deck post, deer taking shelter and the streaks of hail still pelting the earth.

The front stairs and garage covered in white

The backyard covered in white

You know, it was June 24th, it was in the 80s and the air conditioner had been running, so in my mind this qualifies as “Snow in the Summer” which from a kid’s point of view counts as one of the best days that there can ever be.

… a few months ago.

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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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