Crazy cheapo tweaks and impressive SQ hacking

Color CD edge with an ordinary felt marker pen.
Use paper cups to hold cables up off the floor.
Rearrange cables to eliminate tangles, space apart, and avoid running parallel.
Play the demagnetizing tracks like on the XLO Test CD.
Spray Static Guard laundry spray on cables just before playing.
Flip off all unused circuits on your breaker panel.

For anyone using spring type isolation including my springs, air springs or air bladders, ensure that power cords and interconnects and speakers cables do not exert any force on the iso system, as that will constrain the top plate/component from moving freely. Cables and cords can be supported by appropriate size objects or suspended by thread to eliminate any vertical or horizontal forces that might be acting on the iso device.

@millercarbon @geoffkait 

Very interesting..

i think I’ve seen similar suggestions on other threads...time to try what you’re saying. Hopefully without my wife thinking I’ve gone completely nuts ;)

I have already set up an an array of 
adhesive backed hooks behind our cabinet to separate and suspend power cables and signal cables. Hearing difference after doing this got me thinking about more cheap tricks in the first place. Need to try raising the speaker cables. Can’t wait to try the CD color edge and spraying the speaker cables!

@geoffkait 

Where could I find your springs? That makes so much sense from a cancellation standpoint. 

There’s an ad on Audiogon as we speak for 4 Cryo Baby Prometheans for components weighing up to 40 LB. 5 springs for components up to 55 LB. For heavy components like monster amps and turntables and subwoofers use my Super Stiff Springs, 4 springs for components weighing up to to 120 LB. 5 Super Springs for components up to 150 LB. 

I have already set up an an array of
adhesive backed hooks behind our cabinet to separate and suspend power cables and signal cables. Hearing difference after doing this got me thinking about more cheap tricks in the first place. Need to try raising the speaker cables. Can’t wait to try the CD color edge and spraying the speaker cables!

Sounds like you’re the same stage I was at some 30 years ago- stuff sounds nutty, but if it can be tested for free.... what the....? it works???!

Then by trial and error over time gradually worked out a very general but useful concept of what’s going on.

Everything vibrates. Especially playing music. Even when it seems there are no moving parts, the signal itself is a dynamic electromagnetic field and we all know magnetic fields push and pull. So its all vibrating.

But vibration is not a one-way street. The signal excites the vibration, but then the vibration feeds back into the signal.

So its vibration control. The better you control the vibration the better it sounds. Over time three principle means stand out: Mass, Stiffness, Damping.

For comparison I suggest you find something with the same mass as your rock but much less stiffness and much more damping- sand in ZipLoc baggie say- and swap back and forth and listen. So all three are necessary, and they need to be in balance, and the more they are in balance the better they will sound.

Then when you got a pretty good handle on all that you will be ready to appreciate why BDR Cones are so darn awesome.

On to static and electrical charges. Anything that lifts a cable up off the floor will be an improvement. But things that electrically insulate work better than things that don’t. Ceramic insulators specifically designed to prevent surface charges propagating work best of all. You can buy Cable Elevators, but they are really just telephone pole insulators, and there’s a whole bunch of em for sale on eBay all the time. I’ve compared, they all work just fine.

So its static charges. Which is why the spray works. This also explains why its temporary. Spray immediately before listening. The improvement is immediate and easy to hear, but then the effect dissipates and this gradual degradation is much harder to hear. Experiment, and by trial and error learn how long you can go without hearing a difference. In my room, serious Better Records listening, I spray just before every side. Other times, lesser recordings, might go all night without it. Nice to have that arrow in the quiver.