HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEND 7 MONTHS EVALUATING 4 THOUSAND DOLLAR'S WORTH OF THE LATEST IN NEURO-TECHNOLOGY? RECENTLY 30 MIND MACHINE ENTHUSIASTS EXPERIENCED THIS OPPORTUNITY WHEN THEY TOOK PART IN THE WORLD'S MOST AMBITIOUS MIND MACHINE COMPARISON TEST. MEDICAL PHYSICIANS, SCIENTIFIC JOURNALISTS, AND 30 GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS FROM A WORLD RENOWN TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE PERFORMANCE TESTED ALL OF THE AVAILABLE MIND MACHINES TO BRING YOU THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND RELIABLE BUYER'S GUIDE AVAILABLE.

Wanted: A Meaningful Mind Machine Comparison Test!

MIND MACHINE enthusiasts are growing yearly as men and women discover the benefits of non-chemical stress relief through light and sound technology. FACT - by Slowing Down Brainwaves and Decreasing Nervous System Activity, the MEDITATIVE STATE can bring about a 400% drop in lactic acid levels, deep muscular relaxation, and a tremendous decrease in oxygen consumption (Wallace & Benson, 1972). The benefits of deep relaxation techniques and meditation are the subject of thousands of medical and scientific research papers. THESE RESEARCH PAPERS HAVE PROVEN BEYOND ANY DOUBT THAT THE MEDITATIVE STATE IS A HEALING STATE MORE POWERFUL THAN SIMPLE REST. THE MEDITATIVE STATE SIMPLY PUT IS POWER RECOVERY! This is important not only for the sick, but also for those who are not sick yet. Similarly, athletes find that in addition to being able to recover more quickly from their workouts, they can also maintain a stronger and more consistent effort in competition.

Although neuro-technology enthusiasts are definitely interested in the various features of MIND MACHINES on the market today, major magazines limit their coverage to less-than-annual "shoot-outs" producing superficial comparisons of only three or four MIND MACHINES if they even go to the trouble of comparing them at all. Superficial? Most often the managing editor assigns a different writer to each MIND MACHINE. Each of these reviewers takes two or three performance runs before writing her/his portion of the article. Since most of these writers LACK the technical, scientific, and medical background required, and because it's impossible to compare the performance and comfort of various MIND MACHINES based on the experience of only one or two reviewers, these comparisons end up being little more than a collection of neuro-techno-phenomena impressions. To be candid, most magazines simply don't have the scientific resources enjoyed by the NEURO-TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH group.

Since consumers cannot make informed MIND MACHINE-buying decisions based on such casual and incomplete tests, NEURO-TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH decided to conduct a structured and meaningful comparison test of the most popular MIND MACHINES. Given that members of NEURO-TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH routinely analyze the leading MIND MACHINES, we decided we were ideally suited to hold an enlarged investigation and invite the leading mind machine manufacturers to submit their best products. Up until now NO INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY has ever been established to critically evaluate these devices for valuable features, product quality, effectiveness, and ease of use. To accomplish this we looked to today's computer review magazines where the art of comparison testing has become a science. The computer magazines select a category to test...hardware or software...and over several weeks score each item for a long list of pre-determined qualities. When the scorecards are processed, an overall ranking emerges.

Although this challenge began on a simple friendly note and the plans seemed fairly straightforward on the face of it, lurking below the surface of some of these MIND MACHINES are an expanse of functions and features that extend so far down they would give even Jules Verne the bends. Nevertheless, the importance of an unbiased test covering all of these functions necessitated that we remove as much subjectivity from these evaluations as possible and gather enough data to approach significant merit. Thus our initial evaluation team of five members was enlarged to thirty graduate and undergraduate students along with several medical physicians and scientific journalists. A computer software program was written that would record and graph in 3 Dimensions the light and sound sessions programmed into each MIND MACHINE. With the independent evaluations of thirty unbiased students and the blueprint of the light and sound sessions our computer program provided, you as a consumer could be assured that the results of our evaluations hold some degree of significance.

It may seem like a quick read, but we warn you, ingesting it all in one sitting can melt your brain (or at least singe it around the edges). This is intense stuff!

Absolute Necessities: Objectivity and Integrity

While most comparison tests are extremely biased and are therefore subject to extra suspicion and criticism, we introduced additional controls not exercised by the major magazines in their superficial and limited MIND MACHINE reviews. How? First, we unified the interface - each MIND MACHINE would be used with the SAME PAIR of HEADPHONES (i.e., Sony MDR-004) and WITHOUT ANY EXTERNAL SOUND INPUT (e.g., MindwareTM) when evaluating the computer generated tones. Next, we located LIGHT and SOUND computer programs on each MIND MACHINE that were similar in their light patterns and target frequency (i.e., with slow ramping descents and stable plateaus). Finally, the brightness of each pair of glasses was equilibrated to the same intensity so that differences in illuminance would not influence decisions.

And not only would every research subject evaluate every MIND MACHINE on a similar program using glasses of similar intensity, each research subject would grade the MIND MACHINE only after having experienced all of the MIND MACHINES several times. We designed a scorecard which categorically evaluated each machine for numerous features but most importantly focused on light characteristics and comfort, tone characteristics and comfort, resident light and sound sessions, ease of programming, xtra features, and physical characteristics.

Finally, to make sure we would collect independent evaluations, the research subjects were not allowed to discuss observations after their tests. As soon as a MIND MACHINE was graded, its report card was collected and filed. No one had access to the files to review or alter previous scores.

Contents: The World's Most Popular Mind Machines

We invited all leading MIND MACHINE manufacturers to participate and send a MIND MACHINE to the Neuro-Technology Research National Laboratory. Even though the Sharper Image quit carrying the IQ 9110 made by Innerquest International, they quickly returned with the Sharper Image S.I.R. which appears identical to the MindLab made by Synetic Systems. However, when speaking with employees of the Boston Sharper Image, they claimed that these are not the same units. Our tests do not agree with their statements. Zygon International recently introduced their CD player driven Learning Machine which marks a first for neuro-technology driven by CD digital output. It looks like Zygon is continuing to be the major MIND MACHINE pioneer in neuro-technology advances. However, as you will find, there are some serious limitations to the Learning Machine.

Technique: How We Tested

The goal of the test was to concentrate on the portion of a MIND MACHINE that cannot be fixed with a simple upgrade like new headphones - specifically the LIGHT, the SOUND, the COMPUTER PROGRAMS (i.e., the software that directs the way LIGHT & SOUND is presented to the user), and the COMPUTER HARDWARE. We also tested for reliability, product quality, valuable features, effectiveness, ease of use, comfort, and fit. Because a headphone's output quality may influence the character of a tone being produced, a basic Sony MDR-004 pair of headphones was used in place of the pair that came with each MIND MACHINE. Bad headphones can easily be upgraded and are not a valid reason not to prefer one MIND MACHINE over another. Exceptions to this practice were made for Zygon's Learning Machine and Comptronic Devices' DAVID 2001 whose headphones house the computer hardware. Obviously, these cannot be upgraded. All headphones were graded separately for sound reproduction quality, comfort, and design.

With our focused objective of measuring LIGHT, SOUND, PROGRAM performance, HARDWARE, and XTRA FEATURES, we got down to business. Each research subject graded each MIND MACHINE for specific areas of performance (each worth zero to five points), resulting in a cumulative overall MIND MACHINE performance score.

Did all of the MIND MACHINES test about the same (like in the magazines)? Hardly. Our objective and precise scoring system uncovered a measurable hierarchy of MIND MACHINE performance. Read On (Click Here)!