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Feeling Tweaky

I recently tried my first system tweak, purchasing IsoAcoustic Orea isolation footers for my Luxman 507uX Mk2 integrated amp, Marantz Ruby CD/SACD player, and Shunyate Hydra Denali 6000S power conditioner. I liked the improvement in sound quality so much I’ve gone ahead and ordered IsoAcoustic Gaia feet for my VPI Classic 2 turntable and Magico A3 speakers. I never expected a tweak to make such an improvement, not just a change, in sound quality. By the way, my cables are Audioquest Rocket 88 speaker cables, Audioquest Colorado cables from the CD/SACD player, and VPI phono cables. The Shunyata Hydra Denali has a Venom power cable. All the other power cords are what came with each component.

Acoustic room treatments that would affect room decor are unfortunately out of the equation and I’ve already tried my best to design component shelving to be a vibration free as I could. I’ve thought about are redoing the house wiring to create a dedicated circuit, and making an ultrasonic record cleaner.

So my question to you all is, what tweaks have had the most positive impact on your own system, that you could you recommend for the above described system? There seems to be a lot of tweaks out there that range from the sublime to the ridiculous in both performance and price. I’d like to know what tweaks of the many out there have worked best for you so I can make a list and prioritize each in terms of performance and budget. Please share your favorites and I’d appreciate your advice. Thanks,


Mike



skyscraper
skyscraper OP
836 posts
 
Audioguy, that book thing was some sort of joke. I think. I’m sure you’re right this hobby can earn you a divorce. Honestly if I wasn’t a widower in here, I’d never have this fancy system, much any tweaks at all. The cost of the IsoAcoustic footers alone would have have gotten me my head handed to me, much less providing fodder on the list as one of the things I’d done wrong since we were married. There were a few of those trotted out any time we argued. I don’t understand why someone my redecorate their home as a tweak to get better sound. But what the hey, it’s better that than many other far worse things you could be up to.

Millercarbon, I glanced at the content of your link. The article references Ernst Haeckl, an early, but probably by now obscure, Darwinian, a vintage copy of one of whose books is in my library. I did enjoy that reference. That volume will remain in my listening room/library doing whatever good or harm it may to the room acoustics, morphic or otherwise, along with the rest of my stuff. Audioguy would certainly approve.

(As an aside, Haeckl was famous for the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" observation, re: fetuses having gills and the like during a portion of their development). I’ve always enjoyed Natural History and being in a room filled with everything you like, to include a nice stereo system, is the best.

Mike
isochronism
2,893 posts
 
Who need's TV when we've got this soap opera here?
skyscraper OP
836 posts
 
Try to play nice boys, although this last bit was pretty funny.
terry9
2,354 posts
 
Ultrasonic record cleaning is a good idea. It gave me as much as doubling the cost of a major component. Also, after nearly 1000 hours, my Koetsu shows minimal wear (according to a photomicrograph) - so my US cleaner has already paid for itself. I use an Elmasonic and run it at 80KHz. Look up the Rushton thread.

The next best upgrade is exchanging inferior parts for better ones. Film and foil caps usually sound better than factory, because factory makes to a price point. MIT RTX series caps give lots of performance for not so much cost, and may be a good match to your Magico's. BUT - this constitutes a mod, which tends to diminish resale value.

Good luck.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
skyscraper:
that book thing was some sort of joke.


Is this a joke?
So, let's start with the hypothesis that information itself produces detrimental information fields and that those things, the electronic devices, that bring that information into the house, that are essentially the LINKS to the OUTSIDE WORLD OF INFORMATION, are also detrimental to the sound. Thus, TVs, computers, cell phones, as well as LPs, CDs, DVDs, Blu Ray discs, cassettes, I.e., all music and video media, produce detrimental info fields. i won't even get into books, magazines, newspapers, bank statements, telephone books and bar codes. So while it's nice to collect these CDS and records and have them all nicely arranged on the shelf the more you have the worse the sound gets. Sorry to be the one to break it to you. You're just not aware of the degradation of the sound because it happens over a long period of time - and even if you were clued into the degradation who would suspect the CDs, right? Who would suspect information fields? I mean, really. But I digress.
I mean okay yeah of course its a joke. But read it. Does it read like a joke? It sure doesn't read like a joke to me. Did you look at the website? This stuff is for sale. For money. Some joke.

Here's a laugh: Believe a word of it, the jokes on you.
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