Do we have another question?
Norbert Maurer was asked by the magazine for High Fidelity - Hörerlebnis - about the Vortex HiFi cables. Here is the interview.
HE: If you take a closer look at your cables, you will find completely new technical details that are not known in the hi-fi scene and are usually used in building biology or alternative medicine.
Norbert Maurer: When it comes to listening to music in the best possible way, the focus of our considerations is primarily on people. Only then does the technology follow. From a technical point of view, music just means reproducing the sound as perfectly as possible. Which is difficult, by the way, because with two channels, due to the head-related transfer functions, an accuracy of more than approx. 15 dB cannot be achieved. Each virtual source has different phase and level frequency responses depending on the location. If the perspective changes towards people, emotions and physical reactions such as rocking of the feet and goose bumps are desired. You don't hear music originally because of the sound. Music can make us cry. It can drive us to peak performance. It calms us down, makes us happy or anxious. There is only one thing that music never does: it never leaves us indifferent.
HE: The sound also causes physical reactions. Why is this approach not sufficient?
Norbert Maurer: The one, purely electroacoustic approach simply has no explanations for the musical phenomena we are confronted with in HiFi. For example, how should one explain electro-acoustically that changing the power cable can significantly change the spatial location in the meridian plane. With one power cable you can hear the singer standing and with the other at best kneeling between the speakers. We know from the psychoacoustic specialist Jens Blauert that spatial height localization takes place via specific frequency bands. How is that supposed to have changed a power cable? I could also use other cables such as LAN, USB, cinch or speaker cables. That doesn't work there either. However, this is most evident with the power cable, as no change can be found in the sound of the differently wired system. We have to expand our horizons beyond electroacoustics, otherwise we will never understand HiFi and cannot reproduce the core of the music at home, these are the sensations that music triggers in the body.
HE: And what is responsible for the cable sound? At what level do we need to broaden our horizons?
Norbert Maurer: This is exactly what medical research tells us. In medical research, especially in environmental medicine, we repeatedly find indications that the occurrence of electromagnetic waves has been found to result in nerve disorders. In the Vienna ATHEM study, the changes in potential of nerve impulses originating from the hearing system were significantly changed when exposed to RF radiation. On a previous day at a WHO workshop in Prague, Prof. Magda Havas showed that there was considerable noises in the ears due to low-frequency electromagnetic frequencies on power lines, known as dirty power. The Freiburg appeal, which was signed by 40.000 medical professionals, also explicitly points out the connection between high frequency and ear noises. In my basic experiments, I was able to determine that the influence of electromagnetic waves on the hearing system was dependent on the quality of the antennas. Bad antennas with high antenna noise caused more interference. With the appropriate antennas, I could virtually switch ear noises on and off. So the structure of the cables determines our hearing ability. That's why cables sound different. This applies to all types of cables.
HE: And how have you been able to reduce these disturbances to the hearing system?
Norbert Maurer: In the 30 years in which I have dealt with the hearing phenomena in cables, I quickly realized that a cable for the audio sector had to be treated like a cable for the high frequency sector. At first I didn't know about the fatal sonic effects of antenna noise from bad antennas. Nevertheless, it turned out that the wave resistance, standing waves and, above all, eddy currents were critical. This has become standard knowledge among connector specialists in the hi-fi sector. Complex shielding was then added: among other things, shielding against earth potential. So we were able to eliminate the effects of polluted masses. However, we made the biggest leap in the direction of authentic and intense musical perception through direct involvement with people and the resulting use of alternative medical techniques.
HE: Eddy currents and shielding are probably something most can imagine, but what do you mean by alternative medical techniques?
Norbert Maurer: If one wants to approach the subject of disturbances of the nervous system by electromagnetic waves scientifically, one will find that the influence itself is observed experimentally, as demonstrated, for example, by the ATHEM study. But how an electromagnetic wave actually does this is in the dark. One is therefore dependent on models that have not yet been scientifically proven, but which agree with the experience of daily practice. The vortex theoretical approach of Prof. Konstantin Meyl should be mentioned here in particular. You quickly come to information medicine such as homeopathy, stone medicine, etc. Meyl's approach shows a biologically effective waveform to which the vibrations of information medicine can be modulated and thus enable a targeted influence on the body. It can be stated here that, firstly, the cables generate these biologically effective waveforms and stress the body and thus impair hearing. Second, we use these waves to solve the resulting hearing problems through specific stone healing information (vibrations). In the large cables of the blue series, for example, we use dozen of specially assembled semi-precious stones in order to optimize the entire sensation system. Information is vibrations that act like a key to achieve specific effects. Since the nervous system as a whole suffers from the disturbances of the cables / transmitters, we measure the negative influence of the cable disturbances and the positive influence of our techniques via an EKG.
HE: Then what effect do these semiprecious stones have on the perception of music?
Norbert Maurer: First of all, that we feel good. We significantly reduce the stress that can be measured via the EKG. And then something fantastic happens. Man turns outward and opens. This means that while we only have a rather undifferentiated perception under stress, everything suddenly refines with less stress. Ideally, the full hearing ability can be used. In the inner ear we have a mechanism called the Cocheer Amplifier that does not work properly under stress. Here all the subtleties are amplified by up to 1000 times via a regulated system in which the brain is involved. It is here in the ear and not in the hi-fi system that details and dynamics are created. What we want to hear is amplified and what bothers us is suppressed. These details convey emotions. Music touches us and we have a deeper, musical feeling. Our holistic goal of feeling music is achieved in this way. All of this with the completely identical sound.