Audiophile Priorities and Recent Topics

Thanks for sharing your experiences @danager... exactly the type of input I'm so curious about.  The roles and impacts of tweaks relative to entire system/room.  

With that foundation I can now work on tweaks.

I totally agree with this.  Get everything else optimized and then see what you can do to tweak out the remaining goodness - if available.

The last tweak that I made that really felt like it moved the needle was using isolation transformers ahead of my amps.  Really effectively lowered the noise floor and didn't sound like it was choking the dynamics like other conditioners. It worked better than AQ Niagara and PS Audio regenerators.  I'm using the Equi=Core combined with the Deep=Core.  Makes the biggest difference with my tube amps...yet still notable with SS.  On other components I can't really tell any incremental gains.  I would say my overall sound quality moved up by at least 5% with this tweak so it was worthwhile. 

I'd say for me that amp/speaker synergy is 65%+ of achieving the sound experience I'm looking for with at least 20% remaining in room acoustics/treatment/speaker positioning.  Any remaining ~15% is a combo of tube rolling/isolation & vibration control/cables/isolation transformers.  And yes, sound per dollar is exactly right.

Dana you should bring one of your cheapo PC over to compare with some of my old ones. Probably not that far apart on price but a lot better on performance I bet. If nothing else it will be useful to demonstrate the irrelevance of gauge. Amps has nothing to do with it. Both the ones you heard demo'd were the same gauge, the same amp rating, the same everything. Just not the same sound. Even the connectors cannot be judged that way. The ones you heard, the builder tried much more expensive connectors and didn't use them. They look real nice, they sure seem superior on paper. Only problem, they don't sound as good.  

This is the crux of the whole thing. More or less a total waste of time to talk about "tweaks" as the word can mean anything. Leads to colossally wrong conclusions.  

The biggest difference I can see so far is when people who know tweaks work, when they talk about tweaks they mean the ones that work. When someone wants to disparage tweaks or diminish their value they talk about obvious total garbage.    

Harley said "many" tweaks are garbage- and then gave as an example a few tweaks that are total garbage. There really is no argument or dispute here. The question is what about the ones that are not only not garbage, but that work and work well?   

A little apples to apples honesty will go a long ways here. 

@Miller

I'm an IT guy and couldn't for life of me figure out where I could plug my computer into your system???

Power Cable... I get it.

I could compare my cheapo cable to a stock one.  The better test would be for you and wife to come to coast and compare them here

You're invited.

I've watched movies off laptops for years. Got a couple different USB, Lightning or whatever you call em to RCA adaptors. 

Synonym:

MC = indefatigable.