Tweaks you got rid of because they were not effective (enough)?

From exotic cables, to spikes, to fancy mains leads, to various cones, excessive contact cleaning /enhancements, various wall shelves, deep freezing CDs (yes, even that!) none of them were worth anything more than the initial thrill of trying and hoping.

Eventually the penny dropped.

To get a real improvement it was better and more cost effective in the long run, to just buy better equipment, eg cassette decks, turntables, Minidisc machines, and especially loudspeakers of course.

I’ve tried so many tweaks and they’ve all been more or less a useless waste of time and resources.

Except maybe 2.

Securing the removable stylus assembly to the cartridge body (MM) with a drop of superglue may have resulted in a drop in surface noise.

[ I’ve also heard of another tweak involving some form of isolation between cartridge and headshell (as mentioned by the Funk Firm), but have never tried it myself]

Like @mahgister (see above) I’ve also found that some form of isolation placed under loudspeakers (sorbothane, springs, or just pieces of thin rubber etc) usually helps to clean up the bass end and as a consequence, the midrange too.

Springs might be the best but are far too wobbly for my domestic arrangements, so I suffice with a few simple rubber pads which also seem to help.

Despite the lack of much factual evidence, there also seems to be growing acceptance in pro circles that something like speaker isolation pads can be of real benefit in mixing/ monitoring.

Athough some manufacturers will now offer the consumer the choice between using spikes or rubber feet, none as far as I know have commented upon the differences or which they think is better.

Once I got my Audioquest Niagara 1200, I had no more need for the Gutwire grounding wires that connect to an unused RCA and a AC outlet.

On one component, a hum was introduced so I had to remove it. On the other, there was no hum so I kept it in for awhile. It was when I removed it to see how sounded was when I heard how it hindered the overall sound.

All the best,
Nonoise

@cd318 Thanks for your candor on the things you've tried but decided weren't doing much. It's so easy to imagine one is hearing something "subtle" in response to a tweak, that it's nice to hear someone just come out and say, "nope, didn't hear a difference."

And by the way, anything that removes a problem -- like a hum -- or prevents a problem -- like a surge protector -- does not fall into the definition of "tweak" that I'm utilizing in this thread. They seem like necessary or obviously prudent things to do.

10+ @cd318. 

I once bought some contact improver oil stuff. Most of my silliness was in buying stupid equipment the apogee of which was a Transcriptors Vestigial tonearm. Then to make matters worse I stuck a Koetsu Rosewood in it. I learned fast about tonearm resonance. The Koetsu would fly out of the groove with every good kick drum beat. Tail between my legs I ran back to my trusty old SME 3009. I had a Transcriptors  Gyrodec. That chased me back to LP12 #2. Then there was the Wyn Strain Gauge Cartridge the worst tracking cartridge I ever owned. Even worse than the Koetsu in the Transcriptors arm! Back then I wqs getting everything at salesman's comp and would usually sell it off without much if any loss. We did not have all that tweaky junk back then and the marketing was not there to support it. Humans need time to perfect their lies. 

From exotic cables, to spikes, to fancy mains leads, to various cones, excessive contact cleaning /enhancements, various wall shelves, deep freezing CDs (yes, even that!) none of them were worth anything more than the initial thrill of trying and hoping.

Eventually the penny dropped.

My point is precisely that, "tweaks" are deceptive often because there is a world difference between a minor improvement with a costly product, and an incremental improvement one step at a time always in the same direction because of our listenings experiments about each embeddings dimension....

A tweak is NOT a method nor a methodical set of experiments.... It is a very partial solution on a deeper problem, i call the problem an embedding....

By the way even the springs boxes i bought were unsufficient by themselves....It was necessary for me to double the 4 boxes and put an heavy load to compress asymmetrically the sets on top and under the speakers....( something the sellers will not reveal if even he know it because this solution is impractical for most anyway). Then springs are good but not sufficient used like most want to use them directly under the speakers only...They improve the isolation yes but dont solve all the problems linked to the isolation and to the internal resonance by themselves out of the box....


No ready made tweak is more than a beacon on the road we must take by ourselves to improve the embedding (mechanical,electrical or acoustical)

I dont trust now any product more than my own ears and it is my ears that guide me to correct sometimes the product .....

I pay only peanuts and after 2 years my system is now relatively at my saisfaction and i can listen to any music with a perfect details imaging and natural timbre....My system (500 hundred bucks in all) is a "mini" top of the world audio system, thanks to an incremental sets of improvements each weeks for the last 2 years....

No tweak for me thanks i prefer to improve them my own way or replicate them or create some new one at no cost.... I succeed....

Then dont upgrade before embedding what you already own if it is some already good components...

:)