System tuning tips from Hi Fi Plus


The folks from Hi Fi Plus put on a system-tuning seminar at RMAF. Their recommendations included: (1) use cables from only one family in your system, (2) get a non-resonant, non-ferrous component rack, and (3) clean your cd's....They had equipment problems during the session of the seminar I attended, so I didn't get to judge the actual improvements gained by these tweaks, but I'm interested in just how important/helpful you all have found these suggestions to be...
77jovian
1. could make sense, because a serious cable manufacturer, who hopefully also listens both to live music and his main system, would tune his ware according to his aural preferences. If those are close to yours, you are probably well served.
2. Non-resonant is obvious. Non-ferrous makes sense too.
3. Cleaning every cd before listening is tedious and the results are far less obvious than pre-cleaning an LP before settling down to listen. You get far better results by, yes, cleaning your cd, demagnetising it and then ripping it to your HD or music server and listen say through a good USB-DAC. The results are far better than using a transport in MO. Just my two cents.
I have Audio Note Sogon SC and Gabriel Gold Rapture IC. When I ran all AN Sogon cables the sound was not as good from top to botttom as when I installed the GG wire.I also tried the GG Rapture SC & IC together and it was no where near as good as when I has the Audio Note Sogon SC with the GG Rapture.

So there is no rule that works every time in any given system.

Cleaning your CD's is a real deep revelation. I hope you didn't pay for this get together.
Cleaning CDs & then TReating them with Ultrabit Platinum has been a pleasant surprisingly effective process in my Spectral based system. (I have absolutely no interest in & do not know the folks at Ultrabit)
Psacanli- Did you find vocalists, instruments, etc. to sound much more focused after treating the CDs with Ultrabit(ie: more definition between kick and bass guitar or stand-up notes, etc.)? That seemed to be my biggest improvement. Further: I rent DVDs from a place called Family Video quite often during the week(no cable/satellite- hate commercials). For some reason, many people that rent there think it necessary to use prybars to remove the DVDs from their players(lots of scratches, gouges, scuffs on the optical side of the discs). I've two players(Toshiba/Sony) and often neither will play a whole disc without going mosaic, stalling and skipping to the next chapter of the movie. Without fail- After treatment with UBP, the discs play perfectly. To say the the product is VERY effective in aiding the LASER in it's ability to track more accurately, eliminating/minimizing read errors, and/or reducing stray/reflected LASER light is in my opinion an understatement. I bought the stuff two months ago(about) after reading a thread in here regarding it, and it has improved or repaired every disc to which I've applied it. I have no interest in the company either, outside of being a very pleased customer.
demagnatize a CD? Why? it's aluminum, for Pete's sake.
Aluminum is paramagnetic. And, while an induced current will also (by definition of electromagnetism) make a magnetic field, how does this effect anything?
The demagnetization of a CD is for the label, not the CD itself. Sometimes the ink used for the printing contains ferrous particles.