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Tweaks - An Honest Discussion

I know there is a lot of talk about performance tweaks in this forum and the value that can be realized.  I've started this thread because it seems that folks tend towards believing they are either the silver bullet to sonic bliss or conversely simply snake oil.  I believe tweaks are somewhere in between and in most cases, worth about what you pay for (crazy  I know).

I'm open minded to tweaks and have employed many in my system over the years including isolation, fuses, footers, HFTs, cabling, cable risers and attempts at reducing RFI (among others).  While I believe that many of these tweaks incrementally helped me get better performance out of my system I never for a second found any tweak make a transformational difference the way that a significantly upgraded piece of gear brings to the table.  I think many of us have been quite happy with our systems over the years but that doesn't mean implementing a tweak can possibly compete with the benefit of replacing a piece of gear that is well matched to elevate your system. Just because you're happy with your setup doesn't mean a major gear change can't really elevate the experience - surely well beyond any form of tweakery.  

As an example, I've been very happy with a Hana ML cart and how it's performed in my system.  I recently decided to acquire a Lyra Kleos cart - for a $2K increase the change has been transformational in terms of dynamic range and ability to convey detail and imaging.  There has never been a dot I've placed on a wall, carbon platform placed under gear, or RFI shielding device I've ever used that could possibly come close to this equipment upgrade.  Same goes for upgrades to my system over the years in terms of amps, pre's, and speakers.  For anyone to suggest that through tweaks alone you can elevate your system to a level that only gear changes can achieve simply falls flat in my experience.  Some may be shocked to hear that most of the time a $200 tweak truly only gets you about $200 worth of improvement (if any) and not the equivalent of a $5000 gear upgrade. I know there is a certain allure that by simply being smart and applying elbow grease that we can extend the sonic limits of our system well beyond it's design, parts, and capabilities but that's just not true IMO.

What's your experience been?   
128x128three_easy_payments
newbee
4,767 posts
 
Funny thing about my experience with 'tweaks' (which I consider to be outboard stuff which are add on's, not primary equipment such as cables, interconnects, etc).  I could most always hear a change but, as time passed, not so much. I eventually forgot to reinstall them when changing stuff and am presently using only one. A Loki tone control to help tune some upper mid range glare in CD's, etc. Sort of turned into an agnostic about this issue.

Three-easy-payments, fundamentally I agree with you, and, IMHO, much of the 'tweaks' controversy is driven by folks with financial interest.
three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments OP
2,097 posts
 
@newbee What also has always struck me as conspicuous is the great lengths that some folks go to promote tweaks, often as the primary source of their sonic joy. Fine tuning your system and room is one thing, but dedicating thread after thread solely to the power of the tweak leaves me dubious of the underlying motivation.
discopants
149 posts
 
Mahgister, you are diffinately in the eccentric bucket in approach to your system design.  However I think your philoshopy is an effective one and it opens up better hifi to more people. 
djones51
4,947 posts
 
^^^+10  @ three 
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,011 posts
 
Thanks discopants And thanks djones51


My philosophy is simple:


1-Hi-FI is lower cost than anything you had ever dream of...


2- Buy only what is rightly chosen and after that think and read and buy no more...


3-Owning a very good Audio System, like most of us own one already, is only the beginnings of fun: how to embed it is the goal....Using cheap materials and the ears...

If someone mock your ears with a measure apparatus, answer him that only you know how your audio System really sound in your room with all these numerous, unmeasurable simultaneous, parameters at play in the 4 embeddings in place...

Anyway:

«Human hearing beats the Fourier uncertainty principle»
by Lisa Zyga , Phys.org

In this article(2003) it was explained why the human ears is all we need, to embed our own audio system and what are some of his capabilities...

Trust yourself and music will sound beautiful for your ears ....

https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html

«For the first time, physicists have found that humans can discriminate a sound's frequency (related to a note's pitch) and timing (whether a note comes before or after another note) more than 10 times better than the limit imposed by the Fourier uncertainty principle. Not surprisingly, some of the subjects with the best listening precision were musicians, but even non-musicians could exceed the uncertainty limit. The results rule out the majority of auditory processing brain algorithms that have been proposed, since only a few models can match this impressive human performance. »

This is all that we must know...


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