Wood blocks underneath components?? snake oil?

To Sonfun's point, hockey pucks have been used for this in the past, at much less expense. J10 documented this in Stereophile back in 2001 in his Fine Tunes column. And remember, the NHL cryoes all pucks prior to gametime!

The unignorable manifestation of this phenomena, using woods used as tuning devices, became highly apparent to me when I replaced my equipment rack. The very same rig, when placed on my new rack, sounds very different (and not in a good way) than my original rack sounded. I had to completely revise all of my platforms, footers, pods, cones, etc. in order to attain the sonic signature that I prefer. I still prefer the sound of my older rack but it was too small and way too overloaded for all my components.

Mike VansEvers offers an entire tuning kit, which is comprised of different woods fabricated into different shapes. The blocks are placed in various locations underneath components, &/or sometimes atop of or alongside of components (not so much for mass loading as) for resonance tuning.

Of course you may also place full size platforms made from different woods &/or other composite materials underneath of and atop of your componentry, which also accomplishes tuning adjustments. Anyone can easily discern the differences in sonic signature. Those who remain in denial may not have an adequate level of equipment or cabling quality, or perhaps listening skills may simply be deficient.

I've found that pine -- yes, pine -- makes a huge difference in the spatial presentation of my system. In fact, I recently took out the wall (non load -bearing) adjacent to my listening seat so that I could erect a pine tree I cut down. Occasionally it rustles, but the sonic trade-off is well worth it.

Bojack,

Are you still able to listen to John Mayall doing "Back To The Roots" with that tree there?

I too am very skeptical of certain tweaks. I mean the Magic Pebbles and Clock have been the source of much entertaining conversation with me and a few audio buddies but I have personally never tried them.

The way I see it, if you have not tried a tweak, your opinion is pretty much null and void. If you have tried it and did not hear or witness a difference, that is a whole different matter.

After seeing the Vibrapods and reading about them I was curious so I tried them. In my experience, they are the WORST sounding vibration treatment available. I see people using them and it makes me question their whole setup as they can make a perfectly good component sound like crap.

The fact that several manufacturer's are putting wood feet on they players should speak to this tweak. To anyone with a Tube Amp and a Digital Source, I would encourage you to try the Mon Ref SoundPosts and see for yourself what I described. Maybe it is just me but I seriously doubt it and no I do not work for the company. Just sharing my resuls.

Anyway, an open mind can discover a lot of things a closed mind misses along the path of life..

Chris