A quick look at the Sirius

The Sirius has been getting lots of little mentions lately, so I thought the time was right to give it its own post.

The full name of this little beasty is Sirius Mind State Optimizer and it’s the best US$99.00 you’re ever likely to spend. The Sirius is nothing short of an anomally in the mind machine market – it does everything machines at two or three times the price will do, and has features you won’t find on any other machine.

Okay, so why so cheap. I don’t know, and MindPlace don’t either – you can be assured that when the Sirius gets it’s facelift, it will be repriced more realistically. (The Proteus facelift is currently underway, no release date, and suggestions for the Procyon update are currently being invited on the MP forum).

The one thing the Sirius doesn’t offer that it’s big brothers and most other machines provide is programmability. Given that it is estimated that less than 10% of users ever actually program their own machines, in spite of grand ideas at the time of purchase, this really isn’t much of a limitation. A good proportion of users who do decide to develop their own sessions choose to use Neuroprogrammer or Mind Workstation anyway, and the Sirius works just fine with either (or any other Audiostrobe source).

The Sirius comes with 23 preset programs, including 6 in the Peak Performance category, 5 Tranquility Induction, 6 Learning, 5 Well-being and 1 Random. The sessions all look good, sound good and do what they’re meant to do as well as any. A great thing about the Sirius for busy people is that many of the sessions are relatively short, 20 minutes or less.

The Sirius ships with the standard MindPlace on-ear headphones, white Ganzframes (wired left/right), carry pouch, manual and audio patch cable. Like all the MindPlace machines, it comes well packaged and well presented for retail. Power is provided by 3x AA batteries, or optional 7.5V 200mA adapter (make you you specify adapter pin configuration if you are ordering from NZ or OZ - I ended up with a UK adapter with my Proteus). Any 5-7VDC, 200-300mA, centre-positive adapter is fine if you want to find your own locally. Most aftermarket adapters come with a bundle of alternate plugs, so finding a match shouldn’t be a problem.

Like the Proteus and Procyon, the Sirius uses the MindPlace 3-button/7-segment LED user interface – simple, reliable and easy t0 get to know.  For most purposes all you need to know is… top button, play/stop; middle button, mode select/pause; bottom button, up/down session selection.

The first mode is session play – select a session numbered 1-23, press play. Analog volume and brightness controls are on the top of the unit, alongside the lightframe connector. With the machine stopped, press the mode button and you’ll be in User Mode 1 – Audiostrobe. This machine ranks 3 behind the L&S Synergizer and Proteus for Audiostrobe accuracy – it’s excellent. User Mode 2 is Manual Mode – adjust beat rate and pitch in real time. User Mode 3 activates ColorPulse. Colorpulse allows you to modulate the lights to music of your choice, connected via the aux. input. User Mode 4 is MicroPulse. MicroPulse is the same as ColorPulse, except that it takes input from the built-in microphone instead of the audio aux. input. MicroPulse is fun – just sit the Sirius near a speaker for instant lightshow, try chanting your mantra into the mic. while listening to MWS or whatever.

 The standard white glasses give a good lightshow, but any of the MindPlace one and two colour Ganzframes, or any other CP glasses can be used – I generally prefer red/green or red/blue for Audiostrobe purposes.

I have nothing whatseover bad to say about the Sirius. It is not only stunningly good value, it’s a stunningly good machine.

Cheers,
Craig