Most Effective Tweaks


Self explaintory thread. Im looking to experiment with my system and see if I can truly alter the sound of my music with some simple cheap tweaks. If we could all list as many sucessful tweaks as we can to help develop how our systems are put together. Everything to ball bearing isolation to "amber beads" please share your experience and let us know which tweaks you found the most effective or the most dramatic change.

cheers
malakei
Quality power conditioning made the biggest, most audible improvement to my two systems. I use the Ensemble Isolinks and their powercords.
AC caps on the line, as Bigkidz sez. Isolation transformers for digital sources and preamps (and amps if you can find & pay for a big one). Isolation footers.
Send your favorite ics and scs and pcs to Doug at Cryo-Nebraska. If you liked your cables before, you should fall in love with them after. All for about $100 or less.

Replace all external and especially internal fuses with cryo-treated gold-plated ones.

Install cryo-treated audio-grade wall outlets, male plugs, IEC connectors, IEC inlets, etc..

Install double-cryo-treated Romex house-wire from the service panel to your audio outlets.

Install dedicated circuits and lines for your audio components, esuring that your amps have all the juice they need and your digital (cdp, dac, etc..) are on their own dedicated circuits/lines and separated from your tt, pre, amps because of the bi-directional digital noise induced by all digital. (dedicated lines should help but the only cure is bi-directional filtering line-conditioners.)

Get rid of all kitty litter, tennis balls, sorbathane, hockey pucks, sand, mdf, pods, cork, plexiglas, glass, drain stoppers, and all similar junk people install under their components to try to isolate and dampen vibrations and resonant energy. All of these things serve a purpose in life, but should have nothing to do with reproducing superior sonics in a 'high-end' audio system. Any scientist worth his weight will tell you it is against the laws of physics to isolate from vibration. And when you attempt to 'dampen' you squash the dynamics and other aspects of the music and at best it's a complete crapshoot. Instead seek rigidity with mating surfaces in order to create an expedited drain path for all captured resonant energy to exit the components. Rather than trap those vibrations within. Remember, vibrations are captured in a moment in time, but they can only disapate over a period of time.

Standard disclaimers apply, YMMV, IMO, etc..