Cheap tweaks...What would YOU reccomend?

Check out the Shun Mook website that gives a few idea - ie stacking magazines in a corner behind speakers is a great bass trap.

Also try your hand at making some cables - the tnt audio website has a great step by step plan and diagram.

Lohan

understand what each componant is doing and trying to achieve.

- Sources turn Mains power into music - therefore noise free power means noise free music.
- Arcing produces RF noise - dirty contacts & switches make noise (use 'switchless' power points if possible. And clean plugs (interconnects etc) and trim bare wire 6 monthly.
- Household appliances often have motors/compressors in them and will squirt heaps of RF noise into the circuit and cause the voltage to drop. A seperate AC circuit with a higher gauge wiring and circuit breaker will help tremendously.
- The anal retentive can even determine which phase the neihbourhood is using and tap into a different one!
- Amps can transiently draw large currents, power conditioning can filter noise & fill in voltage drops. (A well made computer UPS can do these things / cheap too)

- ALL electronic componants are microphonic. That means vibrations will alter the signals they carry, ESPECIALLY in the presence of a magnetic field. Therefore items that isolate and damp resonances work miracles. Heavy shelves have a lower resonant frequency, that equipment is less sensitive too and is easily filtered by cones etc... These vibrations can come through the floor OR the air. Resonances in equipment also need attention.

- Magnetic fields come with electric currents, and exert a 'dielectric effect' back to the electric current. Hence cable 'dressing'/ or keeping weak signal cables away from larger current carrying cables or metal or carpet helps alot (air is the very best dielectric / thats why sitting speaker cable on styrofoam cups seems to work).
- Distance between componants helps too.

- Speakers are trying to accelerate & decelerate their cones at crazy speeds. As the speaker pushes the cone, the cone pushes back, therefore making the speaker as rigid as possible whilst isolating from floor borne vibration works miracles to even modest speakers. Tweaking screws couples the driver 'rigidly' to the cabinet. Spikes allow vibrations to travel easily through the point, but not back up. Wood is pretty soft, so standing a speakers spikes onto coins or a spiked stand (for floor standers a spiked granite slab is excellent)- standing a speaker on something soft would allow the cabinent to move and even store energy - a very bad thing.

- Acoustic relections that arrive in less than 11 miliseconds are 'evil', so damping first order reflections should be a priority. Hard parallel surfaces are bad as they encourage 'slap echo' and standing waves, break them up with hanging rugs or other treatments.

All these things can be done very cheaply and will elevate a modest system to greatness and allow great systems to perform on a par with their prices! ignore these things and great gear can sound worse than cheap gear thoughtfully set up! (I managed to inflict a nasty case of 'upgarde-itis' on someone with a $40k system vs my (then) $4k system!)
Some tweakery is 'theoretical' &/or 'smoke & mirrors' but your ears will tell you whether they are BS or real steps towards accuracy.

Clean up your power supply.
I discovered this last, but it should have been first. Get an electrician to run a dedicated cable from your switchboard to your power outlet for your analogue components (amp, power amp),and another for your digital (CD etc). The induction noise induced by fridges etc is amplified and creates background 'noise'. The changes for me included a bigger soundstage, more bass (even at low volumes), more black (quiet behind the music), and a general ease in the delivery. In terms of bang-for-bucks, this was the biggest improvement over new Transparent interconnects and Purist Audio Proteus speaker cables (the latter gave the best improvement but at a RRP of USD8000, they should).

Power Cords
Definitely work, it's just a question of which one, and how much improvement you get for the $. They often take 100s of hrs to burn-in, so see if you can borrow a few and listen to their effect. I have found the greatest improvement on my amp and pre-amp, rather than CD.

Power Conditioners
You can spend heaps on these, and whilst the good are exceptional, the others are VERY ordinary. (If you can't here the difference it is not for you, regardless of the hype.)
Bang-for-bucks: If you have access to a computer UPS uninteruptible power supply, give that a try to clean up the noise. The best are those which convert your power to DC and then back to AC. If you are drawing heaps of power, you will need one of suitable size, but I would recommend one of 1000kVA or better for amps or pre-amps. The small ones do a great job on CD players.

PS Rememeber it is about listening to your music, not your system.
Cheers

I just read all the posts on this thread; a very interesting thread to say the least. Here is my suggestion:

Go to radio shack and buy four spools of solid 18 gauge wire in both red and black colors. Each spool has 60 feet of wire and you will need a total of two red and two black. Also pick up 8 to 10 gold spade connectors with the red and black insulation covers on them. If you don't own a soldering iron, buy a 60 to 100 watt iron and some 60/40 rosin core solder. Get the lead based solder, not the lead free kind. Make sure it has rosin flux center and is rated for electronic work. Thicker solder, about 40 to 60 mils thick is fine.

You need this particular wire as it is soft drawn copper, which is ideal for hobby boxes. It also happens to be perfect for speaker wire.

Cut each spool into six 10 foot lengths of wire. Keep the red and black wires separated. Tie one end of all six red wires to a door knob and close the door. Chuck the other end of all six wires into a drill chuck and tighten the chuck.

Step back and pull most of the slack out of the cable, then run the drill at low speed, which will twist all the wires. I recommend clockwise simply because most cable sets are wound that way and this wire may have had the insulation processed with that thought in mind. As the drill twists the wires, the wire lengths will shorten, so walk up slowly on the door knob. With a 10 foot run, you should get at least 5 to 7 feet out of it. Obviously, you can make longer runs, but you need to buy more wire. Don't use less than 6 strands, although you can use more if you like. This stuff isn't expensive, but the cost does add up. I used 10 strands each and I was wiring up a pair of 16,000 dollar speakers.

Stop the drill when you reach the length you need or the wire starts twisting up on itself. Straighten out any kinks in the wires from the twisting, so you have one long, straight, twisted bundle.

Do exactly the same thing for the black spool of wire. Now, you have two lengths of twisted homemade litz wire of approximately 12 to 14 gauge wire. Repeat for the other two spools.

Strip back the insulation on each of the red wires in one bundle about 3/8 of an inch. Slide the red insulating cover over the wires facing the proper direction. Slide all six wires into one spade connector and solder it in place. You can crimp it first if you like, as it will help you solder everything nice and neatly. Do get someone to help you, if you run out of hands.

Repeat the spade attachment on the other end. Slide the insulating covers over the spades. Do the same thing for both black wires and the other red wire. If you get any flux on the connector part of the spade, wash it off in rubbing alcohol. Make sure the alcohol doesn't catch fire, as it has a low flash point.

Now you have made a high class litz speaker wire pair. It is up to you if you want to put a slow twist of red and black together or keep them separate. If you twist them, you get more capacitance and less inductance. If you keep them separate, you get more inductance and less capacitance. Try both ways and see which one you like the best. In general, less inductance is best when dealing with speaker cables but too much capacitance can cause some grief to your amplifier. In my system, I twisted them.

It is cheap, works great, and beats a number of better speaker cables I had lying around.

Stack 6 pennies and wrap them in duck tape and put them under three of your component's feet! GOOOOOOOD Cheap Tweak!