Tweaks you got rid of because they were not effective (enough)?
There are some audiophiles for whom cost is no object; they buy what they wish and every single tweak and gadget which promises to improve the sound. And the industry is all too happy to produce such tweaks -- often made of expensive materials with elaborate engineering explanations. Those who question the value of these tweaks are frequently accused of being "naysayers" who are either too ignorant or insensate to realize that "everything matters."
Of course, money spent one place cannot be spent elsewhere; expenditures on tweaks take the place of other more central factors affecting the sound. In some cases, those tweaks are worth it; you can hear the difference, and that $400 (or whatever) really could not have improved your speakers or sub or amp, etc.
So, the question here is simple: Which tweak have you tried which, after some experience and reflection, you realized was either *not* effective or not the most effective way to improve your system?
IsoAcoustics Gaia footers under Totem Arro loudspeakers. I returned them and bought adjustable outriggers instead. I suspect some of the Gaia rave reviews result simply from raising the height of the speakers a bit. But YMMV.
I had trouble with hdmi cables for home theater >Oppo bdp105 >TV. kept buying better and better cables to overcome hum and glitchy connectivity issues. matter finally solved when I tried the standard cable supplied by the cable company. I never noticed differences between spikes or no spikes, not that I invested heavily in them.
@mahgister With all due respect, if you say the word "Embed" one more time, I'm going to send a trickster genie to your house to switch the polarity on your speakers. We get it man, we get it.
To borrow a phrase from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "A system is perfect not when nothing else can be added but when nothing else can be taken away."
I have gotten my best results, and only recently, with simplicity. A Roon pi-based streamer; i2s to a non-oversampling DAC; XLR Mogami to a Class A amp. The basics. The music comes out of the wire just like it went in. The only way to improve it would be better musicians or a better recording engineer.
Because tweaks are not always major improvement, or even improvement at all for some ears , and sometimes costly, some conclude :"snake oil"...
The human mind is sometimes too swift to make a conclusion...
And some other advise to upgrade....But most people had already good components and the truth is that they never listen to them at their potential maximum level ever in the first place.... Because they are badly embed in the system, in the room, and in the house, mechanically, electrically and acoustically....
My friends the truth is not so simplistic at all....
The alternative is not this simplistic motto :
"snake oil" purchase or upgrading....
Some sheep buy "snake oil" and other sheeps upgrade....But we are no more sheeps if we wanted to....
Be creative....And think about the way any components must be EMBED rightfully to gives his utmost S.Q.
To get a real improvement it was better and more cost effective in the long run, to just buy better equipment
Bingo! - Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!
Better Equipment.....everything else is just icing on the cake.
I have been underwhelmed with most tweaks (many already listed here) with a few exceptions, which are listed below in the (approximate) order of the tangible benefit I perceived:
Decoupling/springs and/or Herbie's products below components, and especially beneath speakers
Stable, heavy, acoustically inert platforms/bases
Damping the room
Mass loading components and speakers to reduce cabinet resonances
From exotic cables, to spikes, to fancy mains leads, to various cones, excessive contact cleaning /enhancements, various wall shelves, deep freezing CDs (yes, even that!) none of them were worth anything more than the initial thrill of trying and hoping.
Eventually the penny dropped.
My point is precisely that, "tweaks" are deceptive often because there is a world difference between a minor improvement with a costly product, and an incremental improvement one step at a time always in the same direction because of our listenings experiments about each embeddings dimension....
A tweak is NOT a method nor a methodical set of experiments.... It is a very partial solution on a deeper problem, i call the problem an embedding....
By the way even the springs boxes i bought were unsufficient by themselves....It was necessary for me to double the 4 boxes and put an heavy load to compress asymmetrically the sets on top and under the speakers....( something the sellers will not reveal if even he know it because this solution is impractical for most anyway). Then springs are good but not sufficient used like most want to use them directly under the speakers only...They improve the isolation yes but dont solve all the problems linked to the isolation and to the internal resonance by themselves out of the box....
No ready made tweak is more than a beacon on the road we must take by ourselves to improve the embedding (mechanical,electrical or acoustical)
I dont trust now any product more than my own ears and it is my ears that guide me to correct sometimes the product .....
I pay only peanuts and after 2 years my system is now relatively at my saisfaction and i can listen to any music with a perfect details imaging and natural timbre....My system (500 hundred bucks in all) is a "mini" top of the world audio system, thanks to an incremental sets of improvements each weeks for the last 2 years....
No tweak for me thanks i prefer to improve them my own way or replicate them or create some new one at no cost.... I succeed....
Then dont upgrade before embedding what you already own if it is some already good components...
I once bought some contact improver oil stuff. Most of my silliness was in buying stupid equipment the apogee of which was a Transcriptors Vestigial tonearm. Then to make matters worse I stuck a Koetsu Rosewood in it. I learned fast about tonearm resonance. The Koetsu would fly out of the groove with every good kick drum beat. Tail between my legs I ran back to my trusty old SME 3009. I had a Transcriptors Gyrodec. That chased me back to LP12 #2. Then there was the Wyn Strain Gauge Cartridge the worst tracking cartridge I ever owned. Even worse than the Koetsu in the Transcriptors arm! Back then I wqs getting everything at salesman's comp and would usually sell it off without much if any loss. We did not have all that tweaky junk back then and the marketing was not there to support it. Humans need time to perfect their lies.
@cd318 Thanks for your candor on the things you've tried but decided weren't doing much. It's so easy to imagine one is hearing something "subtle" in response to a tweak, that it's nice to hear someone just come out and say, "nope, didn't hear a difference."
And by the way, anything that removes a problem -- like a hum -- or prevents a problem -- like a surge protector -- does not fall into the definition of "tweak" that I'm utilizing in this thread. They seem like necessary or obviously prudent things to do.
Once I got my Audioquest Niagara 1200, I had no more need for the Gutwire grounding wires that connect to an unused RCA and a AC outlet.
On one component, a hum was introduced so I had to remove it. On the other, there was no hum so I kept it in for awhile. It was when I removed it to see how sounded was when I heard how it hindered the overall sound.
From exotic cables, to spikes, to fancy mains leads, to various cones, excessive contact cleaning /enhancements, various wall shelves, deep freezing CDs (yes, even that!) none of them were worth anything more than the initial thrill of trying and hoping.
Eventually the penny dropped.
To get a real improvement it was better and more cost effective in the long run, to just buy better equipment, eg cassette decks, turntables, Minidisc machines, and especially loudspeakers of course.
I’ve tried so many tweaks and they’ve all been more or less a useless waste of time and resources.
Except maybe 2.
Securing the removable stylus assembly to the cartridge body (MM) with a drop of superglue may have resulted in a drop in surface noise.
[ I’ve also heard of another tweak involving some form of isolation between cartridge and headshell (as mentioned by the Funk Firm), but have never tried it myself]
Like @mahgister (see above) I’ve also found that some form of isolation placed under loudspeakers (sorbothane, springs, or just pieces of thin rubber etc) usually helps to clean up the bass end and as a consequence, the midrange too.
Springs might be the best but are far too wobbly for my domestic arrangements, so I suffice with a few simple rubber pads which also seem to help.
Despite the lack of much factual evidence, there also seems to be growing acceptance in pro circles that something like speaker isolation pads can be of real benefit in mixing/ monitoring.
Athough some manufacturers will now offer the consumer the choice between using spikes or rubber feet, none as far as I know have commented upon the differences or which they think is better.
I bought only 2 ready made products(used) with a good reputation few years ago before i started my own set of experiments...Bybee one and Alan Maher.....They made a small difference...Enough to convince me about the importance of the electrical noise floor embeddings...
But this small benefit was for me expansive...
I explore for myself other solutions and with the months passing, i discover many unorthodox way to replicate some results of very costly products ( Bybee for example use some crystals)...
After 2 years i discover that there exist 3 embeddings dimensions and that no tweaks can solve all the three and even one by itself...
I then explore these 3 dimensions with a systematic listenings experiments course of my own discoveries...
NO tweaks can solve all embeddings problems, you must solve them one by one by listening and move a step at a time....
The good news is that i paid peanuts for all my created homemade devices and what i bought new was revised and modified and paid also peanuts...
People who speak about tweaks wait for a simple solution to a complex problem, easy to solve by listening experiments and cheap materials....but there is no simple ready made solution that will replace your EARS listening experiments...
The 3 embeddings are the mechanical resonance/vibrations problems, the electrical general noise floor, and the acoustical passive and active dimensions...
You must adress each one by listening first....Not buying....
Example: i bought springs boxes to put under the speakers on top of my own multi layered sandwiche isolation platform....They made at peanuts price a difference.... But after listening i discover the weakness of this spring isolation idea ( they dont affect the desctructive internal resonance).... I decide to finetune it and put a second set of springs boxes on top of the speakers and under a heavy load.... The difference of compression between the 2 sets of springs boxes, one under the speakers and the other one on top of the speakers and directly under the load made a great improvement, decreasing the internal speakers resonance....Then an apparent solution(springs) revealed itself unsufficient by listening experiments, and was revised and greatly improved by the listening experiments....
And trust me the mechanical embedding is as important as the other 2 embeddings, unbeknownst to most....
Ready made tweaks are never a solution by themselves, only a pointer to a true solution that you must create yourself for your particular system and house and ears.....The good news is it is useless to pay much money, all is easy to replicate or be inspired and create your own devices....
Dont upgrade, dont buy anything costly, think and embed everything one step at a time....
True hi-fi cost peanuts if you know how to listen attentively....
It is not so much the price paid that define a true audiophile system, it is first the way the system is embedded in the 3 dimensions.... There is NO comparison between the same system before and after the rightful embedding process...NONE.... Not knowing that, people unsatisfied, upgrade toward costly new hyped electronic component or costly "tweaks"....
Not that effective? Too many cones and footers to recall, let alone list. Probably the most over-priced over-hyped is the Shakti Stone.
With others, cost-effectiveness is everything. Ordinary laundry anti-static spray doesn't make a big difference, but doesn't cost hardly anything so is well worth it to me. Ditto painting CD (back when I listened to CD, yikes, that was long ago!)
Tube dampers not only don't work, but actually made the sound worse.
Synergistic cables that have boxes that plug in the wall which just throw noise into the system.Luna cables phono ground caused a channel to go out after i took it out the channel came back and put my original ground back everything was ok
Interesting list. And of course, all your experience, so no arguments from me.
What you say which I profoundly agree with is the need to treat my room. Not sure how, but if it is like nearly everyone else's room, it's got "issues."
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