Cheap tweaks...What would YOU reccomend?

Treble Magic: Cup one hand behind each ear as you are listening. You will notice a substantial increase in volume and clarity of treble response. You can decide whether this provides additional clarity, or is instead a distortion.

I think for hands free operation; one could take an old pair of headphones/ place them behind the ears and then pull them forward till your ears flap forward???

Get a black permanent marker felt chisel tipped
Apply marker to the top outer part of i.e 4mm closer to top outer edge.

Some of my discs I (the ones with little print) have painted the complete top side. Liked the results.

You should get better resolution, quieter background and better decay (echoes)separation.

One marker should treat ca 50+ discs..........

If you doubt about the results, get two identical CD's- and treat one and compare.

For anyone using oriental screens:

I used an oriental screen at the back of my room to diffuse a nasty flutter echo. I eventually realized that it was resonating at a bunch of different frequencies and creating large peaks in the frequency response that I had previously attributed to poor room dimensions.

I found that filling each compartment in the screens with sand helped immensely. My screens had six panels and each panel had 7 compartments. I drilled into each compartment at the edge of the screen (and on the edge that faced away from the front) and used a funnel to get the sand in. It was hard to avoid clogging so this process took some time. However, it decreased the resonance and even seems to have prduced some bass trap effect. Smoothed the room response right out and made everything tighter in the process.

I recommend the iso blocks from meniscusaudio.com (amoung other sites). $2 each, 8 for $15. its about a 2 inch square piece of cork with a rubber laminate on each side. I placed four under each component, not on the feet, but between the chassis and the shelf. It smoothed out a huge amount of sibalance in vocals, mids, etc. I was shocked, really at the improvement.