Discussions about cables & interconnects and, for that matter, just about all things audiophilia always have a propensity for generating strong opinions, especially when it comes to speaker cables & interconnects. After all of the proselytizing, hogwash and mean spirited satire from some "experts", however, it always comes down to the same thing. All one can do is a bit of due diligence with respect to researching products of interest in an attempt to become as informed and knowledgeable as possible and, then, go out and do the most important research of all (i.e. critical listening). If those $5,000 speaker cables sound better to YOU than the $300 cables and YOU think they are worth the extra $4,700, buy ’em.
True or False?
Many high-end manufactures deny the benefits of tweaking their components with upgraded power cables, fuses, etc. We all can agree that even the best speakers respond to room placement but is it true or not true in (your experiences) that the better your audio components are, the less they respond to various tweaks?
70 responses Add your response
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Don’t get me started on room correction. What a nightmare. Get a test CD (Stereophile for example), and a sound measuring device. Run the test in your room at listening position. Look at the frequency response. Gaps, holes, peaks? now what is causing it and what does it take to fix it?It is all relative to the road taken...i had the fun of my life with room correction... I used a mechanical equalizer (32 tubes and recycled plumber pipes with straws for neck all variable and different for volume/lenght/ diameter ratio) which will become part of my audio room...Not an electronical equalizer with a mic. I used the timbre of voice or instrument instead of a set of limited tested frequencies response and my Ears for the feed back instead of a mic... Results: the 2 listening position which are good are large enough and not a very narrow one in millimeter out of which no measure means nothing... I control all aspect of acoustic at will: imaging, timbre perception, soundstage, listener envelopment ,source width... Is it perfect? no Is it good? so good that i "trash" all my headphones (7 pairs) and my average speakers work at their best.... Because like Helmholtz i modified the room response and tuned it to the speakers or instrument which was playing...Not the opposite modifying the speakers or the instrument for the room... You can chose for sure to modify ALSO the speakers response to some set of frequencies but it is good for a last fine tuning, that will NEVER replace room passive material treatment at all, and that will NEVER replace my activation of the pressure zones of the room by mechanical means...Passive materials treatment in small room must be done using in a positive way the timing treshold and reverberations of the small room... The mechanical equalizer is used to mark out or to " buoy" the waves of EACH speaker differently FOR EACH ear, making the brain easily able to recreate 3-d directions and image in the room.... It is was fun and rewarding ....It takes me a month.....It is like tuning a piano... The room geometry and content is like the piano particular form and the pressure zones are like string tightly vibrating or resonant.... At the speed of sound, waves may cross a small room many times before the brain analyse them in some 80 milliseconds....Then acoustic of room is not only a set of passive wall enclosures waiting for the sound to bounce politely on them it is a complex distribution set of pressure engines... I dont need a Smyth realizer headphone anymore... cost: peanuts Inconvenient: impossible to put this unesthetical devices in a living room... The only luxury in audio is not costly gear it is a dedicated room.... A straw can kill a room or transform it completely... Embed everything before upgrading anything... |
I wish it was true - it would make things a lot less expensive and easier. In my experience I have found its not true. Regardless of budget each adjustment applied works towards achieving a personal goal realized by the listener. Even for the the "better" equipment - which require "better" more expensive esoteric "tweaks." I have also heard "high-end manufactures deny the benefits of tweaking their components", which I find hypocritical because they perform "tweaks" to their models all the time. They refer to it as R&D. As others have pointed out - those are not stock power cables you see on lifts in the show room or at audio shows. Manufacturers switch out for better Chips, Caps, Fuses, Tubes, Internal Cabling, Volume Controls and even Hand Wound All Silver Transformers to name a few; which leads to the launches of new models that they want you to buy. This is true with most all products in general. |
@rixthetrick I've never had a crossover I've designed fail on my sorry. When designing myself, I find the best parts I can find (within my price/budget range). Since it would be a one off project, I'm not worried about availability later. I was more speaking about manufacturers that have to make certain about the parts availability and the quality of the parts manufacturer. For example some Classe amps were designed with FETs that a few years later are no longer made. you can't find the FETs to repair the amps. So,unless you find a repair shop that stocked up on the parts before they became unobtainable, then you are screwed. So, an equipment manufacturer can't be blind to where they are getting their parts from and whom they are getting their parts from. There may be better caps and resistors out there, but if there is a serious possibility that in the near future that parts supplier may not be there, then I'm looking elsewhere. Also, as you can see on this web site. Some people love to tweak and adjust. They can't sit still if you paid them to. I can't see myself saying, wow! my system sounds great. I wonder what the change would be if I changed this or that. Added padding, footers, fuses, etc. I only ask myself this question if I feel something is wrong or missing. Then you take the long and sometimes expensive journey into trying to find out what is wrong (component or room) and what it takes to fix it. Don't get me started on room correction. What a nightmare. Get a test CD (Stereophile for example), and a sound measuring device. Run the test in your room at listening position. Look at the frequency response. Gaps, holes, peaks? now what is causing it and what does it take to fix it? not fun. enjoy |
Townshend Pods under my tube integrated amp was at least as big an improvement as under the turntable. Podiums under my speakers was at least as big an improvement as under the amp. Hard to quantify these things, probably it was greater under the speakers. My turntable motor controller on the other hand responded poorly to pretty much everything I tried, until I tried springs and Pods. Both were clearly better, with Pods being the best by far. So I think it is risky saying it depends which component. It depends more which tweak. Evidence is they all respond well once you find the right tweak. |
The more revealing a system is, the more likely you will be able to hear any change when listening closely. The magnitude of the change and its positivity is subject to interpretation and exaggeration. I have tried changes to internal vibration and isolation and the improvement depends on the piece of equipment. I find the turntable to be the most susceptible to external vibration and most improved by isolation. The amps had a more subtle improvement if any with isolation and coupling doesn't make sense because of ventilation concerns, and speakers in between with removing internal vibration by coupling it with a platform to a floor. Anything that touches the equipment or the room acoustics can make a difference. Other hocus focus is environmental, not acousitical, and some may like that as well. It's just not an audio tweak. The degree and value is up to the listener and his budget. |
*yawn* Another ’tail-chase’ forum on yet another daze.... When back ’up there’ (pointing back up the responses) that ’audiophiles have infinite hearing’ nearly made me fall out of my chair in mirth..... ...uh huh, Right. In the same way one can have an infinite orgasm; interesting to contemplate, terrible in practicality. Ears of that claimed nature are connected to wetware subject to infinite delusion, housed in an organism that is, technically, Flawed. We age, we die; things wear out, much to our chagrin. Your ’infinite hearing’ allows hearing my laughter over your claim. ...meanwhile, back to Reality....;) |
@hshifi - got one, lovin’ it immensely. 12 days sounds about right, I felt like returning it after day 3. Then I left it on at moderate levels while my wife and I were at work, all day for the next two weeks (I had a month to return it, so I wanted to give it every chance).
I was looking at the In-Akustic filter (more expensive) before a fellow Agoner gave me this great tip off. I will admit that I wasn’t overly happy with the resulting sound at first, however it’s a great asset in my system. I was looking for a power supply that didn’t limit current, which would affect dynamics, did have circuit protection built in, and this has a DC filter as well as what hshifi has mentioned. I have lost absolutely no dynamics, the noise floor has gone dead silent, attack and decay are more pronounced, voices are more holographic and the mid bass is now even more palpable. It is the device that answered all my desires, and delivered qualities that I hadn’t considered. It is a hifi bargain product. The biggest complaint I’ve read about on this forum was loss of dynamics using a power conditioner / filter. This thing leaves the sinusoidal waveform from the incoming power intact, and shunts (shorts) the high frequency hash to ground, well shown in videos. After initial break in, this device has shown no downside, and proves to be a valuable asset that punches hard for the investment. a big ++ to hshifi |
@minorl - sorry to come in late, to ask you this: So, no, I would not be trying to find the small producer, latest and greatest caps and resistors, If i'm fairly certain that they may not be available later on.Have you had a crossover using the highest quality parts fail on you? If so, what make and model? and did the driver windings fail before the crossover did? |
Hello, I feel like I am going to get a verbal beat down for this. Every audiophile should try a Puritan PSM156 power conditioner. It doesn’t matter what media you prefer to play. That’s the beauty. It improves every component plugged into it. Each plug is isolated from one another. Most have banks of four. That means the four in the same bank are contaminating each other. Not with the Puritan PSM156. It filters everything it needs to without chocking the sound. I hope you have dealers that let you demo one. It has to be fully broken in which takes 12 days. I call it the 12 days of Christmas. On the twelfth day you get the best gift of all. Unbelievable sound! Stop tweeking until you try this. If you are in the Chicagoland area the store I purchase my Hifi gear from lets you try before you buy. https://holmaudio.com/ I hope all of you get to try this. It’s like lifting a vale off your entire system. |
I totally agree about the earlier comment regarding listening skills. Very important. Put aside the issue of listening to different pieces in A/B comparisons without making sure the volume levels are accurately matched before listening. Because this will give the totally false impression that one hears something better on one than the other. But, it is only a volume difference that gives that impression. Now, listening skills. Same as for wine. If you don't know what to taste for, you are going into the comparison missing information. If one doesn't know what a real cymbal sounds like or what a real violin (don't get me started on the differences between violins) sound like versus electronic violin, you wouldn't know if what you are hearing is accurate or not. I would go to concerts, especially live un-amplified concerts, orchestra performances, etc. and take my children and friends. listen and enjoy. go home and listen to analog and digital recordings. They would comment that the cymbals sound tinny or not close to as real as what they heard earlier. Same is true for musical instruments, etc. Ask them to close their eyes at concerts and tell me where the musicians were on the stage. They had no trouble doing that. Listen to recorded playback music and on some systems, they couldn't tell you. On others with the same recordings, they could. They were starting to get a grasp on what to listen for and the differences based on the equipment they were listening to. then they realized that their ear buds, inexpensive systems may sound great as background music, but when they sit listen, it didn't sound right. That is the education of listeners. Same for wine and other things. I had alcoholics in my family and it caused some negative destructive issues in the house. I didn't drink or like wine at all for quite some time. Weddings, parties, etc. yuck. Why are people smiling and acting like they were enjoying themselves drinking this crap. It wasn't until much later that a good friend turned me on to Napa/Sonoma and wine tasting that I realized that I just never had a good glass of wine before and then started on the journey of enjoying and learning what is good and what isn't with regards to the various varietals. Some wine, I just don't care for. Others, well... the issue is also for non-Audiophiles, they aren't really listeners. They are playing music as background music while doing other things. Which is not a bad thing at all. But, they aren't really sitting and listening and would never justify spending the ungodly expensive amounts audiophiles spend on equipment. I listen to a piece of equipment either in my system A/B comparing or in the dealer's store (hopefully in my system). If I'm happy with it enough to purchase it, I rarely, if ever feel the need to tweak it. Again, as I mentioned previously, correcting the room to me isn't a tweak. Upgrading equipment isn't a tweak to me also. That is just getting to that next level of "there" for me. I actually don't consider replacing interconnect cables or speaker cables as tweaks also. vibration control? tweak, fuses? enough people have reported significant improvements to the extent that as an Electronics/Electrical Engineer, I can't dismiss it. If it is in the signal path, then any changes can affect the sound. Not convinced about power supply and rail fuses. But, who knows? anyway, I don't believe that most high end manufacturers deny that certain tweaks work, they are saying that what they designed and installed works great in their view, it isn't cost effective to install $2000 fuses and basically they haven't seen the need to install that fuse, low availability resistors or caps. Or as the case of many manufacturers that provide SE versions later on, they caps or resistors that were used to upgrade from regular to SE version may not have readily available in sufficient quantity and reliable enough in the early versions. enjoy |
Good listening skills for musical playback enjoyment include the ability to mask out unwanted sounds and anomalies and reconstruct in our heads things that aren’t really heard. Bad listening skills would be to be able to hear things as they really are. If you could do that, you would never hear a phantom center image. You would always correctly interpret all the sounds to be coming directly from each speaker. That would suck. Nothing wrong with learning to better imagine sound that isn’t there, except perhaps that it can make us vulnerable to magical claims that are sometimes rather expensive if we don’t remain aware of what’s going on.Psychoacoustic has laws about timing threshold of wavefront from direct, early and late reflections and from back reflections for example... These laws has nothing to do with bad or good listening skills...These laws work for anyone.... If you come to my room you will listen the 3-d holographic as real this illusion is for me.... You apply them and you will listen to a holographic 3-D real illusion which you can control in some way and modify at will....And applying these laws in my room dont make me "vunerable to magical claims".... It is the opposite, because i know how to create any "illusions" out of my mechanical room controls... Then i dont fall for cheap costly acoustical "tweak" sells to those who dont know how ton control their room...I will not name a company here.... 😁 In acoustic, an illusion controlled is the perceived reality.... |
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Good listening skills for musical playback enjoyment include the ability to mask out unwanted sounds and anomalies and reconstruct in our heads things that aren't really heard. Bad listening skills would be to be able to hear things as they really are. If you could do that, you would never hear a phantom center image. You would always correctly interpret all the sounds to be coming directly from each speaker. That would suck. Nothing wrong with learning to better imagine sound that isn't there, except perhaps that it can make us vulnerable to magical claims that are sometimes rather expensive if we don't remain aware of what's going on. |
sgreg1- Question for some of the responses. Are your listening skills better in hearing the tweaks? Or is the delivery making the sound better and your listening skills are the same? A little of each I think. Used to think it was entirely down to listening skills. Because in the beginning I was like a lot and had a very hard time hearing any difference between a lot of different things. Different systems sounded very different, sure they did. But between two DACs or CDP or sometimes even amps was hard to be sure. Then one day something clicked, and suddenly all those audiophile glossary terms fell into place, I could hear them, and talk about them. When this first happened it seemed to me it was all down to listening skills. I even made a point of trying the same tweak in lots of different systems with lots of different components, different rooms, and always heard the same thing regardless. I still believe this is largely the case. Recent experience however has forced me to re-evaluate and allow that there might be some times when for one reason or another something works but you just can't or have a very hard time hearing it because of something to do with the system. Hate to say the system isn't resolving enough, but that just might be it. What made me reconsider was trying Townshend Pods under my turntables Verus motor controller. That thing has Synergistic Orange fuses in it, cones under it, a Shelf and weights on top. It is treated inside with fO.q tape and TC. It has a nice Shunyata power cord. It even has Active Shielding added to the umbilical. All these changes when done to all my other stuff each and every one of them was an obvious improvement. For whatever reason with the controller the changes were very subtle to the point I wasn't even all that sure some of them did anything at all. I was thinking this is the one thing impervious to tweakery! Then recently I tried Pods under it and was surprised the improvement was easy to hear! Now I guess it could be that the controller with all its timing circuitry is so different that it responds better to Pods than anything else. Or it could also be my system has finally reached a point where something even as subtle as motor control is revealed. At the very least it has to be considered. |
The tweak eliminator in my experience is good room treatment.Wise observation! Controlling vibrations,decreasing the electrical noise floor and controlling acoustic are not "tweaks"... They are first necessity for any working systems to reach his peak optimal... It is called " embeddings controls" to not confuse them with secondary "tweaks" like cables, fuses, etc.... |
Question for some of the responses. Are your listening skills better in hearing the tweaks? Or is the delivery making the sound better and your listening skills are the same? Reason I ask is I have noticed this mostly in my car. I think the combination of better bandwidth they are broadcasting with and the stations using higher quality dac’s have me hearing things I can’t recall hearing just 5 years ago. I am getting older and don't think the normal progression in hearing is it gets better with age. I am in the camp of little tweaks can make a difference but don't think it can be attributed to my ears getting better. |
@artemus_5, Superchargers work, cable elevators do not. You are more than welcome to do anything you want to your system. My problem comes when you try to sell that BS to someone else. I tweak my system by modifying it's frequency response and adjusting speaker location with impulse testing. I do not do it with silly cables or overpriced tinker toy garbage. I suggest if you really want to tweak your system get one of these https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-OmniMic-V2-Acoustic-Measurement-System-390-792 |
Obviously a more resolving system will resolve more including anything resulting from some change in the system. No mystery there. At that point, the "benefits" of tweaking further (other than to adapt to room acoustics) are mostly subjective and determined by personal preference. Once a system is highly resolving (and dynamic), the rest is basically room acoustics and seasoning to personal taste because you have achieved low distortion and noise, the things that muck with an accurate reproduction. Again though, if you do not first address the fundamentals of putting together a system that is both resolving and dynamic, no noise and minimal distortion, you will be seasoning ie tweaking forever because tweaks cannot produce what is not there to start with. Or you just may like to tweak out of curiosity. More power to you! It’s only when people talk solely about tweaking and mostly ignore or discredit the fundamentals of assembling a system that works well to-start that a red flag will go up for me. Sometimes people may tweak to try to get all or most recordings to sound some way that they expect or want them to all sound as opposed to how they actually do sound. Big mistake!!!! You will be spinning your wheels forever trying to make everything sound like some ideal. It’s delusional to think that can really happen. Every recording is different. If you can hear the differences clearly you are in a very good place! |
Ahhh, the Scientismists are at it again. Science has all the answers according to this "religion" Yet when they are backed in a corner they will say "science doesn’t have all the answers. Yet when someone tells of an experience they disagree with, they ridicule it, calling on science which they already have said doesn’t have all the answers So which is it? Either you rely on science exclusively, or not. This is the conundrum each one of the scientismists put forth because they always seem to mock experience they disagree with . No ones experience is good enough unless it agrees with the Scientismists POV. But the very word, to "Know" is based on experience. which I and many others have. AAMOF, Science itself is based on experience. But the Scientismists tell us that the very thing that makes science (experience) is totally dismissed when one of us claims our experience all because we don’t have a machine to measure something to tell us what we like or don’t like. Funny thing is that they can tell us about what they have read but I see little or no statements of their experience. Is it because they have no direct experience? There is much more to add but with dogmatic religious people whether it be Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Scientism, it becomes a futile effort because of Dunning Kruger syndrome which dominates most dogma. |
There is an excellent article on this question written by Geoffrey Morrison in Wire Cutter. It’s called: "The Best Speaker Cable". Google it. It’s written from a scientific perspective (i.e. data; measurements; double-blind auditions; etc.). This article features a bunch of additional links to other articles regarding interconnect cables and testing procedures involved. I found it extremely interesting, authoritative and informative. It also corroborates my own experiences in this regard. For speaker (and other audio) cables, it comes down to this: as long as you’re comparing cables or wires, reasonably well manufactured of quality materials, under controlled critical listening trials, length and guage are what matter most. For example: given a 6’ pair of reasonably good speaker cables, will most people be able to hear the difference(s) between 16 AWG and 12 AWG cables or wires in casual listening? Most probably won’t. Will they be able to hear the difference(s) in critical listening? Some will; some won’t. Will bona fide audiophiles be able to hear the difference(s)? Quite likely. Will that difference(s) be profound? No, unless you want to ascribe a subjective definition to the word "profound". Will a $150.00 pair of good 12 AWG cables sound different than a pair of $10,000.00 12 AWG cables to the average listener in critical listening trials? Very likely not. Will the same cables sound different to bona fide audiophiles in critical listening trials? Some may hear a difference(s); some won’t. Will those audiophiles who think they can hear a difference(s) perceive that difference(s) as better or just different. Well, "better" is in the ear of the beholder but, basically, it’s really just a difference(s); not demonstrably better, per se. At this point, any perceived differences are subtle and minute in the extreme and no one will be able to convince an audiophile who has spent $10,000.00 on speaker or other cables that s/he could have spent a tenth of that or less to achieve, effectively, the same results! |
Power cords... Put fancy power cords on a LPS that feeds a DAC and on one on another LPS that feeds a fancy streamer. LPS's got super hot. Sound was straight crap, and I just knew I'd be sending the DAC and the streamer back. Then for sh!ts and giggles I replaced the fancy power cords with the wimpy power cords that came with the LPS's and the LPS's cooled down and the crap sound turned to pure bliss. |
Our hearing from the factory is not as highly developed as it can be. The more we use it critically, the sharper it becomes. Just like all of our senses. I think it improves with paying attention to it’s use, just like visual acuity. I conjecture that as our systems improve, so does our ability to discern differences in sound. For the individual that creates a paradigm where, instead of relying on our ability to make tweaks to our technology, we pay an expert to do it for us. I’m not sure I have any idea of where the point of diminishing returns and zero returns are, because I can’t say what the limits of any particular persons hearing is. I’m much more open to others opinion on what they can and cannot tell by critical listening than I used to be once I started to research the science of hearing, and could relate it to something I know a fair bit about; visual acuity, something that I got caught up in as an artist. It’s fairly maddening to be able to see things that others don’t, and some people are born with it, others have to develop it. I find that the more I listen to the system and not the music, the more critical I become of my system and obsessed with improving it, which results in refining my sensitivity to the changes in it. It doesn’t seem to end, but it is real. |
"Ok, so what I've gathered here is that the better a component is, the less it needs a tweak yet the more it is affected (not necessarily improved) by one." Thank you AEWarren. "NOT NECESSARILY IMPROVED" If something in a complex construction is changed, if it has any effect at all, that effect will either improve or worsen its operation. If the tweaks are determined without scientific analysis (as most are), logically 50% of changes will lead to improvements and 50% to worsening. So guys, what are all the tweaks that worsened SQ in your systems? |
One thing to remember which I learned long ago. $$ money doesnot guarantee your components synergy or even top quality . For example I have had several Loudspeaker companies, cable companies hang up on my when I questioned them on their pricing for substandard quality a $80 k speaker using $20 Mundorf evo capacitors, or a very famous British company known for their great custom midrange driver using Xover parts from Taiwan ,Yes sad but true ,the vast majority feel a ok capacitor ,resistor, or inductor is good enough ,out of sight out of mind .electronics same deal average at best parts even in electronics over $10 k each ,put it in a nice machined case And jack up the price . |
Wow. This opened a can of worms. What I have to say is that “generally speaking”, the better quality the system, the greater its ability to demonstrate the sonic improvements in tweaks ( ie better power cables and interconnects, footers, power supplies, etc). Think of your system this way, it is a system of parts and components that all work together. From the breaker box, the wire up to your listening room, the wall outlets, power cables, power regeneration or conditioning, to the components, interconnects, speaker and subwoofer cables to the speakers and subs, it’s a system and every part matters. It may even be along the lines of the sayings regarding the “weakest link”. Well if all your links are lousy, replacing one of the lousy ones with a great one may not make a lot of difference. But if your links are generally really good and you replace one with an exceptional link, now you may hear that difference since the rest of your chain or system has been well optimized. So I say the better the system , the more likely there will be sonic benefits from tweaks. |
Maybe not so much in a higher humidity climate.. Zone exclusive tweaks..A fine brain with a big heart indeed! Or a big brain with a fine heart.....😊 I am not sure.... You dont need "tweaks" or upgrading for your soul for sure...You even treat your chickens well and even feed them too much.... For your audio system i dont know, because i dont have listen to it....But i always trust a mechanic who like pipe organ.... |
Having owned a Audiostore ,having techs working for me I learned the vast majority has average at best parts even Electronics over $10 k on average l25% or less actually goes into the product,the rest R&D overhead and markup. Some use fancy boxes and get $$ premium cost . Some of these speakers tons of cheap drivers and Xovers for big sound but will never refined like when using lessmuch higher quality drivers and premium Xover parts . thus is why Modwright was so successful modding makes a lot of sense .being in audio over 40years . The majority Donot use premium parts, average at best.This is why I upgrade my own Speakers xovers And have my electronics upgraded where needed with premium parts and connectors another big area most companies use garbage gold over brass , I us3 WBT copper gold , and the stock $2 IEC is a joke ,I use Furutech copper gold .and only Highpurity 6-9s Wiring. Fuses are the last thing, great system enhancement like the New 1260 3D total system enhancer from Hifidelity audio cables ,is like a system component upgrade . Doing mods for 20 + years now many Audiophiles should look inside ,and most speakers pure rubbish for parts in their Xover sad but true.just look inside you will see exactly what I mean. |
Master M.. Now we're talking.. 1. Lower the noise floor, and clean up the electrical. 2. Treat the room to match your equipment. 3. Take care of excess vibration. MC, Master M, and most here believe in that. How many others actually do it, a lot more than we may ALL think. ALL the tweaks in the world come right after these simple principals. Tweak away BUT do the basics FIRST. It saves endless hours chasing a null, suck out, combing or canceling effects... Tune The Room.... THEN tweak all you want.. GOOD Contact Enhancer is one of the best TWEAKS there is... 5 people out of 5 will hear the difference IF they treat the entire system.. I find like Douglas S cables in groups or sets tend to work better together. WHY? the way they are constructed for one, but JUST maybe, pre conditioning the cables and pre applied contact enhancers make all the difference too. I mean after all an RCA and a Speaker IC WHAT do they have in common? Usually two different types of constructs, with two entirely different purposes. low in, HIGH OUT! Maybe the low input might be sensitive to a little noise.. BUT the TWEAK is in construction of the cable and how a given manufacture assembles a product. EX: Cold Press with a contact enhancer and the cable being pulled off the spool the way it was put through the dyes... Is it a tweak or a way of constant thinking and keeping QC the same through simple practices.. Don't cost a CENT... Just peanuts... LOL So we are clear, some things are just for looks... nothing more nothing less.. I like eye candy, it doesn't always have to be pleasing to everyone either... I'm not into a space age studio look AT ALL... More of a Roman column guy. I use cable lifters, WHY? It's easier to clean under and I've ALWAYS had cables off the floor. So I really couldn't tell you what they sound like on the floor other than I know when they are.. It takes a while for me messing around to finally look and see something laying on the carpet or wood floors. You can hear it especially if it is REAL dry and the wind is really blowing... Ozone and humidifiers work.. tweak category for sure.. Maybe not so much in a higher humidity climate.. Zone exclusive tweaks.. Regards |
For sure the costlier a system is, the more it seems for the owner that his system is "immune" to any embeddings controls...There is some truth in this because the engineering is more sophisticated to a point... But no speakers at any cost beat the vibrations aggression , a too high electrical noise floor in the house nor acoustic control... Embeddings controls are not for the gullible crowd unable to afford 100,000 bucks system but for all of us....It may cost very low.... By the way it is not necessary to prove or measure anything... We are in audio listening experiments not in a reunion of the "sunday club scientism and skeptic association ".... |
We all can agree that even the best speakers respond to room placement but is it true or not true in (your experiences) that the better your audio components are, the less they respond to various tweaks?Totally agree to placement (as they are measurable). And it depended on the "tweaks" you mean, for the second half of the question. EG: snake oil ones or legit measurable ones? Cheers George |
If you say so. That is not the case whatsoever. But if that is what you got out of it, that is what you got out of it. It is demonstrably the wrong conclusion. Read the comments on my system page. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 There’s one where the cable elevators were removed. Actually I think there are two. In both cases the people clearly heard the improvement. Not change, improvement. What it takes a little more effort to understand, this was the same test but in two different systems. The Tekton Moabs in there now are WAY better than the Talon Khorus. Ditto the speaker cables. Heck every single little thing improved between those two visits. But the improvement heard by this one tweak, that did not change. Totally blows your conclusion out of the water. Also if you read the Townshend Podium review you will find the same huge improvement I got with my Tekton Moab speakers as another one got with much more expensive Wilson, I forget the model but way more expensive. Multiples. Most would say better. So another one blown out. I could go on and on. Suffice to say it is trivially easy to take even the most expensive SOTA system and make it sound a whole lot better- UNLESS it has already been systematically and thoroughly tweaked. To put it another way, you don't tweak, you are leaving mass sound quality on the table. |
BUT someone that’s using cabling to modify the way something sounds... NO!Very right.... Not because cables are all alike but because they cannot beat control of vibration neither compete with the decreasing of the electrical noise floor, and beat acoustic passive treatment and compare to active acoustic control... CAbles change are SMALL compared to all that... I dont understand fixation with cables, those who negate that they are different which is evident and audible and those who pay a big amount of money vouching that they transform all their system... The 2 groups war between each other blind to the more important way to improve their system.... Incredible!.... Our friend mechanician is right, the power supply and the electrical grid of the house are way more impactful.... |
FALSE, the cost doesn't matter. Tweaks are useless in an inexpensive, moderate or expensive system.Are you born with innate audio knowledge? Vibrations? High electrical Noise floor? Acoustic? That did not ring a bell in your cranium at all? Stop calling that pejoratively "tweaks" and think about common sense solution .... They could cost nothing... |
Room corrections are not tweaks in my view. That is room correction. Not a tweak to me.Vibrations controls is possible at low cost, it is not a "tweak", it is an embedding control, not a secondary addition, a fundamental necessity... Decreasing the electrical noise floor is possible at low cost also... It is not a "tweak" it is a fundamental necessity... Room passive material treatment and ACTIVE mechanical control is not a "tweak" but a prime absolute necessity to hear our system at his optimal working peak... "Tweaks" are most of the times pejorative qualification for the "supertitious" people who believe that their costly system can work optimally without any "embeddings controls" like in the publicity they read before buying them ... They bought it, plug it and boast about it .... And before buying costly "tweaks" try to replicate them yourself at no cost.... Often it is possible...It is way more rewarding than buying....And more fun.... 😊 |
Audiophiles have infinite hearing, allowing them to hear down to ever lowering "noise floors" that no manufacturer’s equipment can measure.Incredible insulting and stupid "preaching" post about all "audiophiles" indiscriminately in a polemical narrow mind way... Do you realize at which point you go astray? And you pretend to rationality in addition.... Funny..... 😊 |
