Tweaks - An Honest Discussion

With over 30 years of obsession in Hi-Fi I have tried out quite a few recommended system tweaks. Looking back I have no idea why I wasted so much of my time on them.

A lot of it was down to reading popular writers of the day. Here in the UK Jimmy Hughes was the standout pioneer tweaking champion. In those days he was seen as a maverick, an amusingly controversial advocate of unusual audio advice.

He proffered advice such as turning your speakers to face the rear wall, replacing your speaker cables with twin and earth mains cable, removing the LP12 power switch etc. Later others jumped on the bandwagon, the most famous being Peter W Belt who really pushed the tweaking incredulity boat out into the already murky waters on both sides of the Atlantic.

He advocated stuff like putting bits of paper under just one foot of your speaker stand, amp or CD player, using silver foil stickers and a whole host of strange suggestions, many of which could be bought from his own company.

As crazy as it seems now, I fell for a few of these tweaks myself. I mean they were cheap and easy to reverse if nothing happened, so why not?

Yes, indeed why not?

Well, for one they were a major distraction from actually enjoying music. A doorway to audio neurosis.

Secondly the cost of the tweaks increased over time. Tweaks can now cost more than entire systems.

Thirdly some of them actually led to damage to your equipment. Anyone remember being told to tighten your cartridge head shell bolts (also speaker driver bolts, speaker stand bolts etc) to high heaven? Headshells got mangled and cartridges snapped and eventually we came to our senses.

There were also those ghastly upturned spikes upon which to place your beautifully veneered speakers - but that was a definite step too far for me.

Finally there was the small issue that none of them actually worked. Ever.

It’s true that there usually seemed to be a difference at the time but this ’difference’ usually evaporated into the ether in a matter of hours or minutes.

So nowadays I regard my tweaking days as truly behind me, a two decade lapse of audio sensibility. Why did I fall for such obvious nonsense? Was it greed, a simple irrational desire for bargain price upgrades? I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was stupid.

Even those brave determined souls who succeeded in making their Rega 1s sound as good as say, a Rega 5 usually admitted afterwards that the cost involved meant they had saved precious little from not having bought a Rega 5 in the first place!

Similar things now happen to gamers who wish to upgrade their budget PCs to higher spec than off the shelf models (other than a graphics card, RAM and SSD) and then discover there’s very little money saved - especially if your time is precious to you.

If it isn’t now, trust me, it will be one day.

So am I against all tweaks?

Not quite. I believe there might just be something worthwhile in the realm of mechanical isolation, especially for loudspeakers, eg Herbie’s footers, Townshend isolation stands etc.

However I can’t swear to it, and no credible explanations have ever been put forward to explain this effect apart from some resonance graphs for loudspeakers.

If I ever want higher sound quality in the future the now obvious answer is to find and pay for a better pair of loudspeakers.

As simpe as that. Forget the ridiculous shortcuts. The tweaks didn’t work, not for me.

cd318
Later others jumped on the bandwagon, the most famous being Peter W Belt who really pushed the tweaking incredulity boat out into the already murky waters on both sides of the Atlantic.

He advocated stuff like putting bits of paper under just one foot of your speaker stand, amp or CD player, using silver foil stickers and a whole host of strange suggestions, many of which could be bought from his own company. 

>>>>Tweaks can be heaven or hell. That’s the way things go sometime. 😩

"....It’s true that there usually seemed to be a difference at the time but this ’difference’ usually evaporated into the ether in a matter of hours or minutes....."

That's been my experience as well. I've made changes/tweaks that provided a perceived improvement in sound quality only to find, days later, that the system actually sounded better in the original configuration.

Hey Millercarbon,  change out your BDR cones, for Nordost sort cones. Just a suggestion.

Frankly, it is a sad state of affairs. Just look at your e mail box in the morning. One scam after another. Most people do not have an extended scientific background thus are open to believing stuff that a person with the right learning would laugh at. None of us can know everything.
Audiophiles are easy targets because of the manner in which we perceive sound which is extraordinarily complex and open to interpretation by that thing sitting in between our ears. I'm afraid there are an unlimited number of scam artists willing to take advantage of this.
Go here  https://www.thecableco.com/ and check out the accessories section. What  party of garbage. My favorite is the Bybee Quantum Clarifier. Dig this. A 2" square chunk of wood that you attach to the back of all your drivers right to the magnet. $100 dollars each. That would be $600 for your average three way speaker system. Buyer be ware is the old adage. If you make the choice to buy something it is not theft even if the item is severely miss represented. There is not one item on those 5 pages I would even be remotely interested in. This does not mean that there are not some great products out there but the vast majority of "accessory" items would fit better in the category of "garbage." So, from a statistical perspective you are more likely to buy junk than a useful item.
My own approach to this problem is to stay away entirely. I would much rather buy music.