Most Effective Tweaks

You probably already have them, but if you don't, get dedicated lines. I think they are the biggest bang for your buck available in Hi-Fi.

Now for a controversial suggestion - get your cables burned in on Nordost's new Vidar system. I am likely to labled as a sucker for audio voodoo by suggesting this, but I can only say it really works. I NEVER would have believed it, but people I trust told me to try it. They were right - my cables sound dramatically better. Please don't ask me to offer any logical explanation for why running a computer programmed pattern of frequencies through my cables for four days should make them sound any different - they just do.

I have put either Maple shelves (where they would fit) or smaller Maple blocks under everything..... It has made a big difference under some stuff, small differences under others.... All for the better.

Chris

- go to your doctor and have your ears pumped. i'm serious.

All of the above suggestions have their effect on the music.
My pet tweek is speaker positioning, and speaker isolation. The more precise the positioning relative to the listener, the more focused the soundstage, and you can tune things by changing the distance to anything, including walls, floor, distance between speakers (especially effective in tuning the amount of center focus). Don't be afraid to find your own inexpensive imitations of expensive tweeks - if you thoroughly understand the working principle, you can have all kind of fun with your own "implementations" of any idea, and some will work very well, indeed.

CAPT369 on 2/20 you wrote...
"Replacing the brass cones under my maple isolation stands with racquetballs inserted in inch and a half PVC end caps. Made a big difference on my carpet covered concrete."

Any chance you could post a picture? I'm picturing the raquetballs cut in 1/2 to accomodate the endcaps. One half at each corner of a stand. Does the rubber hemisphere contact the carpet or the maple isolation stand? I have the same floor situation in my listening area and was thinking to run thin furniture screws through a 10"x10" piece of wood to penetrate the carpet and couple to the cement below. Sounds like you went from coupling to decoupling your speakers??? Thanks in advance for your reply.