ABox response and potential fault

[Experimental]

As I have said several times, firstly the human body is not a test instrument so your feelings and response to any signal are not going to be linear.

And they're not going to be binary, either. As I have said several times, I can very clearly feel the difference in sensation if I leave the input signal alone and turn the "output level" dial - it does exactly what I would expect it to do, and the further I turn it, the more powerful the output signal becomes, in a very smooth (and basically linear) manner. If I have an input where I can begin to feel sensation with the dial at 30%, I will then feel that become more intense if the dial is at 40%, more again at 50%, etc etc all the way to 100%.

MY ABox's reaction to variation in the input signal does nothing like the same thing, it is a binary reaction, where an input amplitude below 0.5 results in an output of zero, and an input amplitude above 0.5 results in an output of 1.

As an electrical engineer can you really not think of a potential reason for this output? An accidental usage of an incorrect capacitor or resistor perhaps, at the build stage (not the design stage)?

people are all different and we have people on our test team that feel nothing at X, everything between X and Y and then from Y despite the output going higher they feel no change.

You seem to be completely ignoring the details of what I am saying and trying to shift the blame for what I am feeling onto my own perception. This is not a perception issue, if it was, I would feel exactly the same "nothing/everything" if I slowly turned the "output level" dial.

The solution? widen the range you adjust values, and ignore the exact values.

Widen the input beyond a range of 16% to 80% amplitude? When the reaction of my ABox doesn't care about anything other than if the signal is below or above 50%, and is functioning effectively as an on/off switch around that point?

I know I keep coming back to music, but hardly any musician will work with discreet frequencies, that play an instrument to create emotion not a bunch of frequencies and amplitudes.

I would love to experience what you and other people say is possible with music and the ABox. That is absolutely impossible with my ABox. If the amplitude of the music I am listening to drops below 50%, the output ceases. If the output is above 50%, there is no variation in intensity. The only variation in sensation that occurs comes from changes in frequency - I am getting nothing like the 'full experience', and to repeat myself, it is absolutely not a perception issue.

If I were to adjust the volume on my audio device while listening to a piece of music, where a signal that previously peaked the "100% (red)" LED light instead peaks the "50% (green)" LED, I would not feel a 'less intense' interpretation of the same piece of music, as I would if I simply adjusted the "output level" dial - I would feel 100% signals every time the music illuminates the 50% LED and nothing at all when it's only illuminating the 25% LED.


I am absolutely struggling to believe that this is by design. Have you actually repeated the test in my last post with an ABox yourself to see if your experience matches mine, rather than just outright dismissing the possibility that something could be wrong with the internals of my ABox?

[admin]

As I have said before, several times, contact support and they can arrange for your to return the unit to be looked at. As to the answer you pose regarding the binary output, the simple answer is no I cannot think of a reason why the output would feel like that, short of my previous statements in relation to perception. I am not blaming you, I am simply pointing out that it may be down to perception rather than a fault with the ABox.

All of our power units are fully tested several times during manufacture. Yes components fail, in weird and wonderful ways but I have never seen an ABox exhibit what you are describing. That does not mean it cannot occur, just I have never seen the fault you describe. Clearly its impossible to diagnose any hardware issue via a web forum, so I again suggest that you contact support (info@e-stim.co.uk) and they can then take it from there.

Si

[Experimental]

That does not mean it cannot occur, just I have never seen the fault you describe.

Thank you, all I was looking for was confirmation that what I was describing regarding the ABox's response to trem_tri_80pc_5sec.wav would be considered a fault.

I cannot think of a reason why the output would feel like that, short of my previous statements in relation to perception.

This is the reason that I previously asked about oscilloscope traces - to remove the element of human perception and see the raw, objective output. If what I describe as negligible output is matched by what the oscilloscope shows, and what I describe as a sudden jump in output level is evident in the trace, then it becomes objective fact rather than a fault within my own nervous system. What I (and I would assume all purchasers of the ABox who have read the product description) would expect would be a trace that has a shape that somewhat matches the audio input as far as amplitude is concerned, when viewed at a scale that shows seconds worth of output. I'm not particularly interested in what is happening at the picosecond scale, as long as the output is actually biphasic and the positive/negative output is balanced.

Clearly its impossible to diagnose any hardware issue via a web forum

It's understandable that it's impossible to diagnose an issue and the reasons for it, but it's very easy to say whether or not the described behaviour is what you would expect, and whether or not it would warrant replacement of the unit when your QA team verifies that what I am saying is true.

I will contact support and hopefully update this thread with some more positive information in the near future.

I would very much appreciate it if somebody else with an ABox (or a 2B) could try out trem_tri_80pc_5sec.wav and see if their subjective experience is anything like mine, or if the device responds more in-line with what you would expect from the waveform.

[Experimental]

An update for anybody who was following this thread, or is doing their research prior to purchasing a device:

I sent my ABox to E-Stim Systems for testing. After they had it for 10 days, I received an email from admin/designer/CEO Si telling me that there was nothing wrong with my ABox as it performed in the same way as the other ABoxes in stock, and it would be returned to me.

I was not pleased with that, as it made no reference to the specific problem that I clearly described, so I replied:

Thank you for the response. Can you please clarify for me whether or not the unit exhibits the behaviour that I have described? For reference that would be this:

"Entire dynamic range of output amplitude is confined to an input audio amplitude of around 50% to 60% (below 50% = negligible output, above 60% = full power output).

A perfectly reasonable question that has a very simple answer.


This was the start of the response:

Asking us to confirm or deny statements made by you seems a little pointless. The statement was made by you. Not us.

I won't clog up this forum with the rest of the unpleasant exchange, but the final conclusion is that I was offered a partial refund, which I have accepted.

For anybody who owns an ABox and is looking to get some use from it, it seems that the only way that you will be able to do so is by creating audio that uses frequency modulation at a fixed amplitude, as in the files that user "lasalle" has kindly shared on this forum recently.

For anybody who is reading this because they're considering buying an ABox, my advice would be don't. Or at least do some thorough research prior to doing so, as you will be able to find a multitude of other users elsewhere on the internet describing exactly the same thing as I have, who are equally as unhappy as I was.

[admin]

Always nice when you are quoted out of context, after you have gone above and beyond to attempt to investigate a customers issues and test everything possible in order to attempt to try to help and validate the issues a customer was having, and then get told that you don't know what you are doing. Once we get to the stage when our integrity is being questioned, then its time to withdraw from the discussion. Life is too short to argue.

It's simple we could find no fault with the ABox in question. We ran our standard tests, we tested the unit with the customers files, on different computers, different OS, different frequencies and different loads. We compared its response with units built recently and several years ago with no discernible difference. We ran a soak test over the weekend to see if >24 hours running demonstrated a difference. We could simply find nothing wrong with the customers ABox. It was working exactly the way it was supposed to. and I should know. I designed it.

People are not pieces of test equipment. People response differently to different waveforms and different levels, and any subjects response varies over time. If we all responded in the same way then E-Stim would be so boring, but we don't. The ABox have been around since 2006 with little or no change in it's design, (for the moment ). Its not a StereoStim unit, its not a 2B, both units deal with audio in a completely different way. The ABox simply takes audio as a input and creates an E-Stim signal that is designed to be pleasurable.

The ABox responses to Amplitude (level) and frequency (pitch) and creates a wave form that varies in relation to the input, depending obviously on the input range and the levels set. How? By how much? what frequencies, whats the dynamic range? what the speed? whats the processing? how fast does it process? provide me with your 'test data'. Really???? No comment. No other commercial company divulges the in's and out's of their products, I don't see why we should, especially when so many questions are vague and open ended and down to the perception and opinion of an individual.

Not every e-stim sensation is felt or enjoyed by everyone, in the same way that not everyone likes Classical music, Hip Hop or Heavy Metal. For some this seems to be a difficult concept to understand, and we are still trying to find ways of explaining it. Just because you don't like one sensation, does not meant something is at fault, or we are misleading you. No amount of test equipment will reflect on your sensations or perception of them. All of our products are created as a starting point in your journey, only you can decide where it takes you and how - we can only try to help.

At the end of the day ABox is a simple audio driven e-stim unit, highly effective in the right hands. I love my ABox, many of our customers clearly do. I'm sorry that in this case we clearly failed to help you in your journey and we have to part company. I wish you well in your future endeavours and home one day you find a unit more to your tastes.

I'm also locking this topic as I see no point in continuing this discussion further.

Si