Tweaks - An Honest Discussion

I would argue that the valid approach is: build your "perfect" system and THEN optimise it by any number of tweaks. The snake oils are not meant to replace a component upgrade but to complement a keeper. If one still contemplates a component upgrade, the tweaks, since most of them are system dependant, are money / time wasted.  

But once everything is in place and the big job is done, I see no harm in trying lifting cables, controlling vibration, trialing different cables and any other number of "tweaks".

I am in such a place. I could afford to go further but I can only have so much in a small room. A decent integrated, a decent DAC, a decent pair of bookshelf speakers. It's not the "ultimate" system but one I am happy to live with and I have no need / desire to upgrade any of the components in the near future.

I am now playing with Stillpoint racks, power cables, network switches and other snake oils not to "upgrade" or "improve" my sound but to OPTIMISE my system, to allow it to perform at its best, unhindered by a number of known issues.

And yes, all of the above make a difference. Good, bad, worthy or not worthy of your money - only one way to find out. Most of these things can be trialled and dealers are more than accommodating, particularly now.

In my book, since this IS my system, anything that makes a positive difference is a keeper and money well spent. And "positive" can be a very subtle thing. People argue about speaker cabinet resonance but the more educated ears can actually hear the rack resonance and, while dealing with that can costs ridiculous amounts of money and the difference is not night and day, I would argue that removing that subtle distortion, wherever it strikes, bass, midrange, treble - depending on shelf material / build, is worth my money, even if it costs as much as my amp.

And that is the point of tweaks. Your system performance is negatively affected by a number of issues - physics, your room, your mains etc. The added benefits of dealing with vibration, bad power, EMI etc can be a cleaner, clearer, undistorted sound, better tonal balance, a lower noise floor, a sound that flows better, more like the real deal and less like a stereo system and which can be enjoyed equally at any volume. Not extra power, not hearing more. Not transforming a NAD into a DD or a Benchmark into a dCS. 

Some of the better (read expensive) components deal with these issues directly because high end manufacturers have the budget for better, heftier cases, better isolation, better power supplies (those amps you can't lift with massive transformers / capacitors etc) so I would say that in fact many of these tweaks benefit cheaper components more. 

reven6e

The snake oils are not meant to replace a component upgrade but to complement a keeper ... I am now playing with Stillpoint racks, power cables, network switches and other snake oils not to "upgrade" or "improve" my sound but to OPTIMISE my system, to allow it to perform at its best, unhindered by a number of known issues ... all of the above make a difference.

I think the phrase "snake oil" is overused in this forum and here's a fine example. By definition, if a product fulfills its promise and makes a genuine difference, then it isn't snake oil.

@reven6e  

But once everything is in place and the big job is done, I see no harm in trying lifting cables, controlling vibration, trialing different cables and any other number of "tweaks".

Completely agree with this and it has been my approach.  The tweaks get me the last bit of goodness allowing well designed gear to work its best.  Through experimentation I've noted benefits from raising speaker cables off the floor (haven't found a benefit on power cords though).  I have adjusted speakers, added footers, added cones under most components, added HFTs to improve imaging a bit....etc.

But at the end of the day NONE of these tweaks ever were transformational enough to claim any one was the equivalent of a multi-thousand dollar component upgrade.  Not even close....tweaks are rewarding, allowing you to be hands on and get even more engaged in the hobby, train your ability to hear subtle differences, better understand what sonic qualities are most important to you, etc...but let's not pretend we have a choice on either spending $5K for component upgrade or putting some tape on a tonearm or putting some cones under your DAC and realizing the same benefit.    

I experimented with Stillpoints in the past. I liked them under my DAC but I hated them under a Devialet Premier.

Melco S100. Not going to start an argument. I know ethernet switches are a snake oil, a con, bits are bits and idiots are idiots. But it has an obvious effect on a streamer (and dCS at that). I heard several people complaining that it sounded too "soft", that it had a "sugarcoating" effect on their system, robbing it of some impact, of some drama. I like mine.

Some swear by conditioners, others by regenerators. And then there are plenty who say: best conditioning is a dedicated ring.  

And so on. One man's Nirvana is another man's disappointment and wasted money. I will continue to call all of the above snake oils not to take sides but because, as per my original post, I think most of these products are system dependant. There is no one size fits all and there is no guarantee that they will work FOR YOU.

The main components are generally a certainty. Double the amount you have spent on your DAC and anybody can hear the improvement (hopefully). Upgrade from a slim class AB or D integrated to class A mono blocks and everybody and their dog will notice the difference.  

But an AQ Nirvana? A Melco S100? Tornado vs Hurricane?
Isoacoustic vs Track Audio vs Townshend vs anything else you can think of under your speakers? Unknown quantity. Hic sunt leones. Your very personal adventure.   

S.Q. increase in the 3 main embeddings with a relatively optimal tweaking in place in my own audio system :

20% mechanical(resonance-vibrations)

30% electrical grid

50% acoustical field of the room


Remember that this % is only an indication and can be qualitatively misleading...

For example vibrations resonance problems are less impactful than the acoustical non treated field in a comparative S.Q. scale evaluation...But in a treated acoustical field, an audio system with a non adressed mechanical problem will be less tone acurate with a more blurry imaging, and there will be a spectacular increase in S.Q. when the right tweaking will be implemented to address it...

Then all methods or tweaks are important, and these % ratios are only an indication of the relative importance of the 3 dimensional embeddings TOGETHER ( or 4 if we distinguish the passive way to treat room and the active way via S.G. or various active resonators or Helmholtz bottles etc )


Fine tuning an audio system implicate a systematic overview of these embeddings and of their mutual complementary interactions and feed back in the S.Q. audible effects "measured" by the learning and experimenting brain-ears...It is fun, cost me low cash, and I bought almost nothing except USB cheap S.G. (10 bucks each), all other materials is cheap and homemade except stones and crystals bought in China at low price...


Today with what I have learned, my audio system will cost : Amplifier, Dac, speakers, + all materials for treating the embeddings around 1000 dollars...


To upgrade with a significatively better one will cost me around $16,000 + all my controls methods for the embeddings which is the most important thing... I think that this upgrading is not necessary now because my actual system being very good as it is....Then when I read that someone has bought only a dac around 16,000 bucks, today I can smile without any frustration or enviousness, only the curiosity to listen to it if possible with a grain of skeptic salt about the Price / S.Q.  ratio.... :)