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New inexpensive Next Best Tweak

Ok, here is another next best tweak.

I just purchased the Audiodharma Cable cooker and I'm now in the process of cooking all my cables.
While this is going on I've been cleaning my audio connections, etc.
I also ordered some Herbies dbNeutralizer damping sheets. While on the phone with the man from Herbies he suggested this tweak.

Use reusable rope caulk under the circuit boards inside my components. At first I thought yeah ok thanks.
But a day later as I remembered that conversation, it dawned on me. Why not? We spend all kinds of money on items to go under our components for vibration control. What are we trying to isolate? Vibrations that’s what? The vibration that vibrate our circuit’s boards!

So, while waiting for my cables to cook, I went ahead and installed the Herbies damping sheets under the inside covers and used the rope caulk under the edges of the various circuit boards. Some circuit boards are very long and I could believe that they would vibrate, so the caulking rope idea does seem like a good idea.

Since, I will have so many changes going on when I hook back the cables into my system, I would not be the best person to be able to actually judge this tweak, but hopefully there are others that will try it and report back.
128x128ozzy
6 responses Add your response
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
I've seen this done as well but I'm too chicken to try and implement this on the insides of me gear. I've seen rope caulk, blue tack, and locktite put in along the sides of an amp and into and up the corners. I've seen the same rope caulk put at the base of large capacitors. The seller of the amp did report a sonic improvement with all the tweaks.

One thing I can't wrap my head around is if you put caulk etc at the base of capacitors what happens should there be a malfunction. That stuff must be a real bear to remove.

I may try the Herbies dampening sheets in my disc players. Right now I just put a 5 lb weight with rubber edges on top of my player.
lacee
811 posts
 
I've used Blue tack on the inside metal chassis of most of my components.

I also damped the inside spaces of a few cd players and this helped reduce a bit of ringing,which I find is always present in digital gear.

I also like to use some copper sheeting in conjunction with the blue tac to help with stray electric fields in both directions.

If nothing else, it makes the gear feel more high end when you pick it up
ozzy's avatar
ozzy OP
7,466 posts
 
Audiojedi, I have only placed a few balled up pieces under the edges of the circuit boards for vibration control. They are very easy to remove if i wanted to.
Do you see any downside to doing this?
sgr's avatar
sgr
689 posts
 
Be careful. You can tweak too much and end up with far less than you started with. In your case you won't know where and what you might have done wrong. It will be a pain to take out all that rope after it has heated up it might do some melting. Even though the theory might be sound, beware. And you must be able to remove all that stuff if you resell. Good luck. I hope it works out, but as a victim of over tweaking myself it is a hard lesson to learn.
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,686 posts
 
Why are you cooking your cables?
audiojedi
225 posts
 
Please disclose this when you are reselling gear.
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