ErosTek Blog

Stereo-Stimming with your ErosTek ET312B

There are two camps, two divergent ways of using stereo audio tracks to produce erotic electrostimulation: one is cheap and the other is much safer.

The Cheaper (and more dangerous) Way

This is the way I got started years ago. When I was still in high-school, I didn’t have an ET312. No one did. It was 1982. I had an awesome Lafayette 4-channel amplifier and an IBM PC that was capable of producing crude tones from its onboard signal generator. I connected the audio output of the PC to an unused audio input of my stereo amp and connected the speaker wires to pieces of aluminum foil and solid copper wire attached to my skin: cock and balls. I was just 15 years old. I didn’t know about ground loops or that the amplifier was designed to couple with a different load than I was presenting it with. It didn’t matter. I was a geek and I was horny. I wrote a simple BASIC program on the PC to make musical tones, amplified them and applied them to my cock and balls. It felt great! Until I got numb. That happened in less than 5 minutes of use. Bummer…

I didn’t realize that I was zapping my nerve endings big-time.

It turns out that audio waves are more or less continuous in nature. They can be represented as a sum of one or more sine waves which when added together, produce a signal of varying complexity and tonal character. Even though my PC was making square waves (which were really edgy and beefy, another reason why I was getting numb so quickly), the end results of using audio waves through a stereo amplifier are usually:

1. too much current is applied to your body,
2. the current is not well-isolated from the AC line voltage,
3. you’ll have a numb and tingly feeling wherever the electrodes were (sometimes up to 24 hours later).

But it’s cheap. Everybody has an amplifier. Some users have made strides to make stereo amplifier e-stim safer through the use of isolation transformers and resistors. Better but still not much safer. Nothing beats a device made to be used for the job it was intended. Stereo amplifiers are made to produce sound using speakers. The ErosTek ET312B was made to produce pulses that feel great when you connect them to your body.

Since the early days, I’ve experimented with isolating the outputs (using transformers) and series resistors (to limit the current) and low-duty cycle waveforms (to limit the average power delivered to my balls) but I still can’t get over the problems inherent in using a stereo amplifier for erotic e-stim purposes. It’s difficult to decide where to set the outputs for each type of wiring configuration and audio track used, and it doesn’t feel better than an ET312B running in Audio 3 mode with a well-prepared stereo-stim audio track being played into it. So I’m proposing…

A Better (and safer) Way

I’ll admit that I get to experiment a fair amount with e-stim these days. I’ve been playing with the ET312 for about 10 years and the newer ET232 especially when I’m traveling (because it’s smaller and lighter). And lately I’ve been discovering the joys of stereo audio e-stim especially using some of Mr. Terminator’s (aka naughtyelectron) files he calls the “Pulsinator Suite.” (Read my post touting the joys of these files with links to the download site.)

But why is e-stim safer with a made-for-play device like the ET312?

For one thing, it has been designed to be connected to a human body (not a speaker). That one distinction causes its design to be made more like a medical TENS or EMS unit and less like a consumer grade audio amplifier. It has isolated outputs using transformers, current limited operation by way of sensing resistors and a micro-controller that continuously monitors the outputs for proper current levels. And it gives the user better control of the output via dedicated output controls for each channel and output LEDs that glow in proportion to the output signal being generated by the processor.

The waveforms themselves are different too. They consist of very narrow pulses not at all like the ones used for making sound waves and sound edgy and thin if you listened to them. But they are just what the nerve endings like, as one tiny pulse is sensed as being there much longer than it actually is, the nerve endings get exposed to less current over time, can recover much faster once the current is off, leaving you tingling only when you’re wired and stimming. Of course, I can tell you from experience that stimming at very high levels for prolonged periods of time will leave you with a tingle for a few minutes or so after you stop stimming, but it’s nothing compared to a single session using a stereo amplifier. Seriously.

Now back to the (audio) program…

If you have an ET312, it’s easy to vastly expand its capabilities using a few common household items:

• an internet connection with browser
• an iPod (or other mp3 player) -or-
• a music application like iTunes (or similar)
• the stereo cable that came with your ET312B

The first step is to find some audio files to stim with. There is a forum out there called SmartStim that has some very dedicated users that have created and uploaded a variety of stereo files for your enjoyment, all free using your browser. You might be browsing for awhile though. You have to be wired up and playing the track to really know what it’s going to feel like, and that takes some time. So, leave yourself a block of time to peruse the library of files you’ll find there and make a few playlists on your music player (iPod) or application (iTunes) to keep the ones you like in the order you enjoy most.

But we’re jumping ahead just a bit.

First: find some tracks (see my post for a starting point or our AudioStim category for lots more). Then: download them using your browser. Next: import them to your music player like you would any other music file.

Get Wired!

Connect yourself in a comfortable configuration with your ET312B. It helps to use both channels (A and B) when doing stereo e-stim since both the left and right channels will be engaged and nice things happen when you can feel the effects of one channel playing alongside the other.

Wired up? Okay. Make sure your configuration is working by testing it using one of the ET312’s factory routines (like “Waves” for example).

• Connect one end of the stereo audio patch cable that came with your ET312B to the “Audio” jack on the front panel.
• Connect the other end of the cable to your iPod or computer’s headphone output.
• Set each output level on the ET312 to a minimum.
• Set the MA control to 12 o’clock.
• Press the [UP] button several times until  “Audio 3” is displayed.
• Press [PLAY] on your iPod or iTunes player to start the audio track.
• You should see the red LEDs flashing for each channel as the track plays.
• Adjust the MA control so that the LEDs flicker without being off or on all the time (you can adjust this during e-stim too)
• Slowly increase the output levels for A and B until you begin to feel the stim
• Adjust the MA control as needed to match the output level of your music player or computer.

A little involved? Yes. But worth it? Definitely. I’ll add some pictures and a video showing the steps illustrated above in a later post. Now, I have to test some of those new tracks I found and write about my results. Stay tuned.