True or False?

Ok, so what I've gathered here is that the better a component is, the less it needs a tweak yet the more it is affected (not necessarily improved) by one.

If you say so. That is not the case whatsoever. But if that is what you got out of it, that is what you got out of it.

It is demonstrably the wrong conclusion. Read the comments on my system page. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 There’s one where the cable elevators were removed. Actually I think there are two. In both cases the people clearly heard the improvement. Not change, improvement. What it takes a little more effort to understand, this was the same test but in two different systems. The Tekton Moabs in there now are WAY better than the Talon Khorus. Ditto the speaker cables. Heck every single little thing improved between those two visits. But the improvement heard by this one tweak, that did not change.

Totally blows your conclusion out of the water.

Also if you read the Townshend Podium review you will find the same huge improvement I got with my Tekton Moab speakers as another one got with much more expensive Wilson, I forget the model but way more expensive. Multiples. Most would say better. So another one blown out. 

I could go on and on. Suffice to say it is trivially easy to take even the most expensive SOTA system and make it sound a whole lot better- UNLESS it has already been systematically and thoroughly tweaked. 

To put it another way, you don't tweak, you are leaving mass sound quality on the table. 

We all can agree that even the best speakers respond to room placement but is it true or not true in (your experiences) that the better your audio components are, the less they respond to various tweaks?

Totally agree to placement (as they are measurable).
And it depended on the "tweaks" you mean, for the second half of the question. EG: snake oil ones or legit measurable ones?

Cheers George

For sure the costlier a system is, the more it seems for the owner that his system is "immune" to any embeddings controls...There is some truth in this because the engineering is more sophisticated to a point...

But no speakers at any cost beat  the vibrations aggression , a too high  electrical noise floor in the house nor acoustic control...

Embeddings controls are not for the gullible crowd unable to afford 100,000 bucks system but for all of us....It may cost very low....


By the way it is not necessary to prove or measure anything... We are  in audio listening experiments  not in a reunion of the "sunday club scientism and skeptic association "....

What i have found is the best audio components respond and show more about what the better tweaks and cables and conditioners do in a system so my answer is tweak away to get the best sound for any level of component.