For the skeptics, which tweaks have you found to actually work?

[Ctn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo Oh yeah. How much vibration are you guys thinking of when talking about vibration dampening? I, for one, have my cd player on my desk with a speaker sitting on the far right and a subwoofer firing at it from the left. I can very clearly feel my desk vibrating from the oscillation of my speakers, which will clearly shake my cd player up. Actually, all my amps are sitting on this desk too, including my tube pre

Enough to bring the house down

 

[Mark of Cenla]

Sorry, but I do not consider a component upgrade a "tweak". In a few weeks, I will buy a pair of Paradigm Titans to replace the Radio Shack bookshelf speakers in my bedroom. I am sure that just about anyone would be able to hear a huge difference in the sound quality.

The tweak that worked for me was replacing the interconnects that came with my gear with Midwest Cables interconnects. The sounds is better in every way, and the DVD picture is more detailed. Peace.

 

[Ticky]

Tomek,

Perhaps this is an example of what you were thinking about when you first requested for comments on "tweaks" that work (as oppose to component upgrade priorities).

Tweak for Speakers (sorry not headphones)

I've read about this cheap tweak on an audiophile magazine many years ago. Was skeptical at first, but because it didn’t cost much I tried it out and found that it did improve performance by a touch.

You need to get some Styrofoam (ok, not environmentally friendly) – like those that comes as packaging for your electronics. You could either used foam from those packaging or go buy a rectangular foam sheet. Ideally, the foam should be at least ½ inch deep.

The tweak is simple. You cut two foam rings and glue it outside (i.e. along the outer circumference) of the tweeters - one ring for each tweeter. Care must be taken in measuring the diameter of the tweeters. The ring’s hole must be big enough not to cover the tweeter, but small enough such that it doesn’t leave too much space between the tweeter and the ring. The ring should be roughly ½ inch thick and ½ inch tall.

You might find that the speaker grilles might not fit on the speakers anymore, but on some speakers the grilles should still fit. I suggest placing some scotch tape around the tweeters and gluing the ring to the tape when you first try this tweak. That way, if you don’t like what you are hearing, you can put the rings off (and the tape along with it) without making any permanent marks on the speakers.

NOTE: AT NO TIME SHOULD THE FOAM, TAPE OR GLUE TOUCH THE TWEETERS.

This tweak might not work on some speakers because the tweeters are recessed deep into the cabinet or there are already built-in “rings” surrounding the tweeters.

Personally I’ve found this tweak improved the treble response on the speakers’ “sweet spot” zone. However, it comes at the expense of reducing treble dispersion outside the sweet spot by a touch. Treble in the sweet spot is more focused and less splashy sounding.

Try it out if you have the time and means. Have fun!

 

[Ctn]

You mean felt right? not foam.

 

[ooheadsoo]

1/2" felt?

He meant foam. Actually I've never seen it with styrofoam, only soft acoustically absorbent foam. Some speakers have a variation of this design, which is a strip of foam affixed perpendicular to the ground plane to the outside of the tweeter. However, many have commented that it does have beneficial effects, it may also skew the balance of the treble enough to have to alter the L pad value in the crossover.

 

[Ticky]

I can't recall exactly what the article said. But as far as I can remember the author used regular styrofoam - and hence, cheap tweak - and it works. I've always tried it using regular styrofoam and the improvements were noted.

I do like my music with a touch more treble. Hence, over brightness wasn't a problem. But, I think that the treble didn't become brighter. IMO, the quality of the treble improved, not quantity.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I think the styrofoam may be redirecting the treble towards your sweetspot as opposed to the acoustically absorbing foam sucking it in to prevent early reflections. Kinda like proactive room treatment. Might be opposite ideas.

 

[tomek]

I was in a stereo shop recently and was looking at the top of the line Tannoys that they had. Heavy felt lined the entire front baffle of the speaker.

I've read recently that larger speakers don't image well because the baffle is a source of early reflections and was actually wondering whether this tweak of dampening the front of the speakers would become commonplace in several years. From what I remember reading at Audio Asylum, several manufacturers have begun to do this.

Who knows....any want to try?

 

[Ctn]

I thought all good speakers have recessed tweeters with felt around them?

 

[ooheadsoo]

Recessed tweeters are usually for time alignment, but raises a whole bunch of baffle issues, some resulting in the need for you to use felt on the baffle, not to mention the ledge that is created between the tweet and the woof. Not exactly ideal. Plus you can't time align ALL of the frequencies, by definition, only a rough average, so it's still a compromising position. Some speakers like the new b&w designs deal with it by mounting the tweeter in its own enclosure sitting on top of the cabinet.

 

[Ctn]

How's this for thick felt.

 

[JefferyK]

Major Difference:
- Granite tile between floorstanding speakers and suspended wood floor (really brought out the mids)
- KABUSA Technics SL-1200 fluid damper (really cleaned up the image)
- Speaker cable upgrade from cheap TARA Labs to Belden (solved a problem I was having with sibilance)

Slight Difference:
- KABUSA record grip (slightly cleans up the image)
- Foam isolation blocks under CDP (slightly cleans up the image)
- Eyeglasses cleaning cloth (wiping my CDs with this before playing slightly cleans up the image)
- Hunt record brush (good at removing dust)

Tweaks I Stopped Using:
- Herbie's Grungebuster CD mat (cleaned up the grunge, but dulled the sound---I may try this one again)
- Fluid CD treaments/CD markers (no audible difference and a huge PITA)

As far as source components go, I can hear a difference in sound quality between every CDP I've ever tried in my system. I can also hear differences between ICs. I'm not deluding myself or putting my faith in hype: I'm merely trusting my own ears.

Jeffery

 

[Tomcat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JefferyK - Herbie's Grungebuster CD mat (cleaned up the grunge, but dulled the sound---I may try this one again)

Amen, Jeffrey. My sentiments exactly.

And anything that involves wiping the CD before playing it seems to introduce some kind of static charge that has detrimental effects.

However, a CD tweak that has worked great for me is the Furutech Disc Demagnetizer.

Another thing that works great for me are Cardas Golden Cuboid Wood Blocks - as component feet and on top of components. I have some DIY variants made from ebony and canarywood that perform even better than the myrtle wood Cardas uses (which dulls the sound to some degree). Hard to believe that a single 15 grams wood block placed on top can influence the resonance behaviour of a 10 kg CD player but to me, the difference is audible.

Generally, I find it quite easy to perceive the effect a tweak has. The hard part is judging whether the change is an improvement. One cannot judge long-term effects on a system's musicality during a brief A/B-comparison.

 

[edstrelow]

Interesting to see the list of tweaks that people stop using after some period of use. I think this type of information is far more informative to other readers than double blind testing or a/b ing which are highly overated procedures and probably not appropriate to the psycho-physical type of judgments which are involved in audio. I agree that long-term listening probably is needed, and that it is easier to hear a difference than decide that this constitutes an improvement.

The problem with A/B and Double blind testing to deterine what is real in audio is that it is not easy to perform a psychophysical test which keeps both false negatives and false positives at bay. Imagining that you hear a difference which is not there would be a false positive. Failing to detect a real difference is a false negative. An A/B or double blind comparison which finds a difference beyond statistical certainty is convincing but if it fails to find a difference this does not prove that that there is no difference. In statistical terminolgy, if you find a statistically signficant result you reject the null hypothesis (of no difference). You are almost never able to accept the null hypothesis and few if any statistical tests exist for this purpose.

As a one-time practitioner in this area I should note that negative (i.e. no-difference) experimental results are almost always rejected for publication, in part because aside from statistical issues, any fool can carry out an experiment which doesn't work. You have failed to find a difference, not proven that there is no difference. Failure to find a difference may simply be due to experimental error.

What sort or errors are we talking about? Firstly just confusion about what you are hearing, or listening for, such that your judgmental standard goes astray. In the end you are so confused you don't know what you are listening for.

There may be equipment errors, for example I would not want to asses any interconnect just after being unplugged/replugged since the connection may take some time to settle down or break in. Cardas claims that cables should not be moved and be allowed to rest for several hours to avoid certain charging effects. You could avoid this somewhat by having an A/B switch, such that nothing actually moves but the switch. But can you be certain that adding this extra circuitry or breaking the circuit for comparisons does not affect performance?

The consequence of various manipulations may be simply to increase "noise" of various type in the system such that in the end everything sounds about the same and you swamp the difference with noise.

What about warm-up effects as you continue to use equipment? Most equipment sound better as it warms up, possibly to some optimum then it may even deteriorate, making comparisons over time difficult and aren't almost all comparisons made over time.

There are several other procedures available in psychophysics... testing thresholds by adjustments, assesing "just noticeable differences'' and many variations of these which are used to test for subtleties of perception. Generally such testing involves trained observers since taking the man off the street, or characteristically, the undergraduate psychology student, forced to do experiments as a course requirement just gets you unreliable data.

As far as judging equipment or tweaks, I find that simply listening to material with which you are very familiar is about as good as you need. If I start hearing more detail or other good aspects of the music than I have heard before, then I am on the right track. Also the diffrence should show up over repeated listening. It used to be the custom of small audio shops to allow people to audition components and the like for several days in their own set-ups before buying. Alas such practices are now uncommon although most things bought through the mail are returnable within 30 days or so.

As regards tweaks that I have finally rejected are a number of disk pad attachments, any one want a "Blacklight?" But I still think Herbies Grungebuster is great. I also continue to use CD weights, generally the old Allsop Sorbethane rings which which are almost impossible to find.

Most disk polishes are not worth the effort unless your disks are dirty as generally you end up scratching the disc. However the Aric Illuminator has the best, non- scratching cleaing pads I have encountered and the the polish itself has a small effect. I think the black paint that come with it is about as effective as the polish.

"Tweak" contact enhancer is bad, it works, especially on bass, but later dirties up the contact. Pro-gold seems good and seems to clean the contacts too.

 

[tomek]

well, i've established a personal rule which states that although A/B may not reveal all differences, if a component provides a difference so subtle that I cannot even hear it when listening for it actively then I really don't need to spend the money on it.

i started this thread asking for advice on tweaks from the sort of people that have more extensive lists of tweaks that they have found not to work because they have similar guidelines to me in that they need to prove to themselves that it is the tweak making the difference, not just a placebo effect.