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

I LOVE the question from the original OP!  

Frankly, experience over years has taught me that auditory hallucinations abound, undergirded by shameful, greedy marketing.  To wit - "I know what I heard - and I promise you the $20K, 3-foot speaker cable on cryogenically frozen risers sounds better!"  Smart, sophisticated people become infantile science deniers spouting absolute alchemic bunk as if it's fact and then go on the attack towards the physics-educated "non-believers" among us who don't sign on.  Their typical narrative - our systems are substandard, our hearing is flawed, etc., etc. 

Now that my rant is out of the way, I agree that the right, complementary components are key.  Upgraded components generally upgrade the sound.  Different combinations of different components (Tube, SS, etc.) offer different "flavors" and that's all about individual tastes and preferences. Paying attention to equipment specs and that which can be objectively measured is certainly worthwhile.  Room conditions, sound dampening etc. - all sound physics and worth paying attention to.  Cleaning up some power supplies (or combinations thereof) to eliminate extraneous noise has also helped in my experience. 

I have always loved this hobby for the MUSIC. Unfortunately, so many of my audiophile (audiofool) brethren have been totally distracted from that essence by dressed up lies designed to separate one from their cash.

Vibrapods.  They seem to make the sound worse, not better, and leave a nasty residue.

@tbakin It’s always good to have a reality check with one’s self about whether one hears a difference or not. I’m glad you enjoyed the question I posed; there are so many debates over these products and phenomena that I wanted to try just to elicit a list from people of what they decided, for themselves, were just not helping. It’s likely that none of the answers here can add up to anything like an objective answer, given the range of different equipment, rooms, ears, and tastes involved. But some patterns will probably emerge, patterns which may provide at least a pretext for some of us to try something, avoid something, or do some interesting experiments for ourselves.

@big greg

oh yeah vibrapods - i HATE those damned things

arrrggghhhhh