What are the best tweaks in your experience?

[Lee]

Hey friends,

Was wondering what tweaks or devices you have inm your system that have made a sound quality difference for you? I am curious more along the lines of accessories like footers, grounding devices, various noise reduction devices, special racks, sound filters, room treatments, power distributors, etc.

 

[audioblazer]

Hey friends,

Was wondering what tweaks or devices you have inm your system that have made a sound quality difference for you? I am curious more along the lines of accessories like footers, grounding devices, various noise reduction devices, special racks, sound filters, room treatments, power distributors, etc.

I won’t exchange Shun Mook Clamp for a Diamond ring

 

[bonzo75]

I won’t exchange Shun Mook Clamp for a Diamond ring

It’s very good, i have one to sell, in case anyone is interested please PM

 

[Elliot G.]

BY far the greatest tweek for an audio system is moving your speakers to find the proper place in the listening room as well as your listening chair. If you don't do this the rest are just audio bandaids

 

[Keith_W]

Hey friends,

Was wondering what tweaks or devices you have inm your system that have made a sound quality difference for you? I am curious more along the lines of accessories like footers, grounding devices, various noise reduction devices, special racks, sound filters, room treatments, power distributors, etc.

I have to admit I have a really hard time hearing any difference that any of those tweaks make.

However, one exception. I recently became fed up with the tangle of cables going from my equipment rack to the amplifiers and speakers, so I bought some air conditioning conduit and routed all the cables through them. This included: power cables, interconnects, network cable, microphone cable, HDMI cable, and USB cable. It looked so much neater! But then, I noticed a problem. There was a low level hum coming from the tweeters. To explain, I have an 8 channel DAC on the rack, with 8 outgoing interconnects which are long to amplifiers located near the speakers. The tweeter IC's are the only ones which are RCA, all the others are balanced. I removed the tweeter IC's from the rest of the bundled up cable and the hum disappeared immediately.

 

[Kingrex]

I'm not fully formulated in my opinion. It seems there is no such thing as a tweak. Everything matters to a degree. To fully tune a system to maturity, one must assess all parameters. Due to costs, one must decide what investment are affordable. In doing as such, an evaluation of cost benefit needs to be made.

Per Elliot, the single most valuabe gain for coat one can achieve in an audio system is setting up ones speakets properly. Its basically free and has a profound impact.

Juxtapose speaker placement to a custom room. A custom room might possibe give a much greater gain to overall playback. But it costs hundreds of thousands.

 

[Lee]

BY far the greatest tweek for an audio system is moving your speakers to find the proper place in the listening room as well as your listening chair. If you don't do this the rest are just audio bandaids

Agreed.

 

[Elliot G.]

Agreed.

In fact and with my personal experience I don't understand why more people will not hire someone to do this for them especially if they dont have experience or don't know how to do it. It is the MOST underrated, not talked about and understood part of audio and IMO the most important part of getting an audio system to sound good. Tryng to put a "gizmo" in a system to fix whats wrong makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[Lee]

In fact and with my personal experience I don't understand why more people will not hire someone to do this for them especially if they dont have experience or don't know how to do it. It is the MOST underrated, not talked about and understood part of audio and IMO the most important part of getting an audio system to sound good. Tryng to put a "gizmo" in a system to fix whats wrong makes absolutely no sense to me.

I have recommended to several friends that they hire Jim Smith or Stirling Trayle. So much better than buying a new component.

It can be a tough sell because so few have experienced what a setup artist can do and how much of a difference it makes.

 

[trekpilot]

In fact and with my personal experience I don't understand why more people will not hire someone to do this for them especially if they dont have experience or don't know how to do it. It is the MOST underrated, not talked about and understood part of audio and IMO the most important part of getting an audio system to sound good. Tryng to put a "gizmo" in a system to fix whats wrong makes absolutely no sense to me.

I had the Sumiko Master Set done a few years ago, it was the best $450.00 I have spent..and I thought I was pretty close on speaker location.

Scott

 

[Elliot G.]

I have recommended to several friends that they hire Jim Smith or Stirling Trayle. So much better than buying a new component.

It can be a tough sell because so few have experienced what a setup artist can do and how much of a difference it makes.

to quote Dirty Harry " a man's got to know his limitations" High End Audio participants seem to all think they know better. One wouldnt dream of tuning thier own Porsche ( unless you were trained in it) or a million other things that require experience and expertise but in audio its the feeking wild west

 

[Elliot G.]

I have recommended to several friends that they hire Jim Smith or Stirling Trayle. So much better than buying a new component.

It can be a tough sell because so few have experienced what a setup artist can do and how much of a difference it makes.

BTW when you pirchase a Gobel Speaker system in the USA you get professional set up included with the sale from either me or from Stirling Trayle which Bending Wave will pay for. We want all our clients to be thrilled not just ok. Of course the client has to let us do that which surprisingly not all will FYI

 

[dbeau]

BTW when you pirchase a Gobel Speaker system in the USA you get professional set up included with the sale from either me or from Stirling Trayle which Bending Wave will pay for. We want all our clients to be thrilled not just ok. Of course the client has to let us do that which surprisingly not all will FYI

And regrettably, that's my limitation. My room must serve as a 'living area' and as much as possible serve the audio system requirements.
I know that a professional, to do his/her best, would need to encroach into the living area though this room is 18x30 feet and open.
Wife, nor I, would be happy with the trade-off. BTW, I think I have rather great sound now due to fortunate room size, characteristics, and good kit..

 

[sbnx]

I agree 1000% with what has been said above. Most have never experienced a truely aligned system that is optimized to the room and components. The Sumiko "master set" is the lite version of what is truely capable. IMO, this is why a lot of people report not hearning any difference in cables or footers etc. Get the system really dialed in and these changes become very obvisous.

As far as "tweaks" that have worked well for me. Revopods are really great footers. The GigaFOIL for streaming. Damping plates for some equipment tops. Custom Titanium spikes for the speakers. Both the Nordost and CAD grounding devices work well. I use Shunyata power so I guess that counts as noise reduction but I don't really count that as a tweak. I have tried all kinds of room treatment (ASC, GIK, etc.) positioned at different locations in my room. Not sure that is a tweak either.

All of these things are almost impossible to live without once I heard how they improved the sound.

Edit: I forgot to mention Herbie Tube Dampers. Used these on the Lampi Pacific to great effect.

 

[Sablon Audio]

‘Magic’ tubes

 

[sbnx]

And regrettably, that's my limitation. My room must serve as a 'living area' and as much as possible serve the audio system requirements.
I know that a professional, to do his/her best, would need to encroach into the living area though this room is 18x30 feet and open.
Wife, nor I, would be happy with the trade-off. BTW, I think I have rather great sound now due to fortunate room size, characteristics, and good kit..

You might be surprised. You can still optimize the system within the constraints that you have. (Unless you are saying that the speakers have to be pushed against the wall). If you have/allow 2-3 feet from the front wall that is usually enough space to get the system sounding good. Not the best you could achieve in the room if there was no restriction but still quite good.

 

[Carlos269]

to quote Dirty Harry " a man's got to know his limitations" High End Audio participants seem to all think they know better. One wouldnt dream of tuning thier own Porsche ( unless you were trained in it) or a million other things that require experience and expertise but in audio its the feeking wild west

How many Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren owners hire a professional driver to find out what their sports car can actually do or how they perform on the track?

How many Rolex or Patek Phillippe owners send their fine timepieces to Contrôle officiel suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) for certification after purchase?

High-End audio systems are the same, just vanity items, and un like sports cars and fine chronographs, with no criteria for measured performance, other than those rejected and not accepted by most members of this forum.

What qualifications does Jim Smith, Stirling Trayle, and you have to assume that your resultant set-up is more optimal than the owner’s? My understanding is that you are tradesmen, without academic credentials in acoustics or electronics, but I could be wrong.

How do you, Jim Smith, or Stirling Trayle go about certifying your results?

 

[Lee]

How many Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren owners hire a professional driver to find out what their sports car can actually do or perform?

How many Rolex or Patek Phillippe owners send their fine timepieces to Contrôle officiel suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) for certification after purchase?

High-End audio systems are the same, just vanity items, and un like sports cars and fine chronographs, with no criteria for measured performance, other than those rejected and not accepted by most members of this forum.

What qualifications does Jim Smith, Stirling Trayle, and you have to assume that your resultant set-up is more optimal than the owner’s? My understanding is that you are tradesmen, without academic credentials in acoustics or electronics, but I could be wrong.

How do you, Jim Smith, or Stirling Trayle go about certifying your results?

The answer is experience.

Jim and Stirling have done meticulous setups of thousands of high end stereo systems in a methodical way. Most audiophiles can't duplicate that level of experience.

 

[Al M.]

I agree 1000% with what has been said above. Most have never experienced a truely aligned system that is optimized to the room and components.

While I don't claim that my system is "truly aligned", I have worked on my set-up and room acoustics for years, to tremendous effect. Five years ago I never would have dreamed of the performance that my main components were in fact capable of.

It is my suspicion that most people switch gear too quickly without putting time and effort into optimizing what they already have, and without even remotely knowing at what level their existing gear really can perform.

 

[Elliot G.]

How many Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren owners hire a professional driver to find out what their sports car can actually do or perform?
None. However they can take their precious show pony to a track and learn very quickly that they cant drive for shit! Thats more the point Carlos.

You shouldnt pay for their services, you wouldnt appreciate it. For you it would be foolish since you already know everything.
Greatest fool of all is the one who fools himself.