Cheap tweaks...What would YOU reccomend?

This tweek is not cheap, but it won't cost you anything either, provided you qualify by owning an unused pair of loudspeakers. It comes from some audio manufacturer, I forget who he is, and was published in Stereophile.

The tip is to placed an unused pair of loudspeakers in the corner of your listening room, behind the loudspeakers. I tried this with a pair of Linn Kan II mini monitors placed directly on the carpeting. It seemed to make a small improvement, though nothing major. After listening this way for a few months we had a minor plumbing related flood and I had to move my LP's to where I had my Linn speaker stands stored. In the process I moved the speakers stands into the rear of my listening room where the Linn's were located and place the Linn's on top of the stands.

This produced a nice improvement to image placement in the soundstage and also added weight to the presentation. Really very nice. If anyone is interested I could look up the article and elaborate on why this works. Let me know.

The Stereophile article I referred to above is found in the December 2000 issue on page 242. It is an article about port stuffing by Jonathan Scull. The originator of the tweak mentioned above is from Victor Tiscareno of AudioPrism.

Mr. Tiscareno states "...The acoustic effect of the woofers in the presure zones will cancel out some of the room-resonance bass-frequency nodes!"

I found this statement interesting because I once purchased a demo Michael Green Designs PZC (Pressure Zone Controller) and recall thinking this tweak sounded similar to the effect of the PZC. The demo PZC had been damaged in shipping and I had been meaning to replace it. Looks like a I can skip that plan.

Mr. Tiscareno also noted this tweak will work for some and not for others. If you have an extra pair of speakers lying around I recommend you give this a try.

I can vouch for the Marigo suggestion posted above. I found that the Marigo tuning bands on the bass and midrange driver baskets produces an even greater effect than the dots on the driver cones. I would recommend both. Actually I have these things all over the place. Walls, windows, driver cones, driver baskets, etc. They provide denser images, greater detail, and greater dynamics.