lmnop-
Wasn’t always like this. Was in fact very, extremely, unbelievably skeptical of all of this stuff! Once wrote a letter to the editor telling him to quit wasting space on such useless nonsense. Then I tried a few things. Cheap stuff. Cheap as in zero cost. Elevating speaker cables improves sound? I got wood. Paper cups. Plastic. Try it out. Nothing to lose. Damn, it does make a difference!
Not all tweaks work. An awful lot do change things, but not always in an unambiguously good direction. Lots of cones for example improve some aspects but not others or even make some things worse. Same goes for interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, conditioners, shelves, all of it. Same as amps, phono-stages, CD players. All of it.
Some of these we call components. Others we denigrate as tweaks. The epiphany is when you realize those distinctions are arbitrary. A fuse is as much a component as a CD player. Don't believe me? Try upgrading your fuse with a Blue Quantum fuse. Then try upgrading your CD player by $150. And tell me which made the bigger difference. I already know the answer. A fuse is just as much a component as an amp or a speaker.
That’s just a fact. That many, probably most, haven’t come around to understanding this does not in any way diminish the truth of it.
I sometimes take the easy way out and agree that yes I am a tweaker. Because I tweak. But the deeper more meaningful way of looking at it is that I am a value oriented audiophile. I do whatever gets me the most SQ for the money. Tweaks do that. In spades. To not tweak, its like leaving money on the table. Why would you do that?
@millercarbon. You’re a tweaker. That’s so not me. Not my skill set. I’m more a set it and forget guy. But gonna look into your anti-static advice. Static electricity is brutal where I live.
Wasn’t always like this. Was in fact very, extremely, unbelievably skeptical of all of this stuff! Once wrote a letter to the editor telling him to quit wasting space on such useless nonsense. Then I tried a few things. Cheap stuff. Cheap as in zero cost. Elevating speaker cables improves sound? I got wood. Paper cups. Plastic. Try it out. Nothing to lose. Damn, it does make a difference!
Not all tweaks work. An awful lot do change things, but not always in an unambiguously good direction. Lots of cones for example improve some aspects but not others or even make some things worse. Same goes for interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, conditioners, shelves, all of it. Same as amps, phono-stages, CD players. All of it.
Some of these we call components. Others we denigrate as tweaks. The epiphany is when you realize those distinctions are arbitrary. A fuse is as much a component as a CD player. Don't believe me? Try upgrading your fuse with a Blue Quantum fuse. Then try upgrading your CD player by $150. And tell me which made the bigger difference. I already know the answer. A fuse is just as much a component as an amp or a speaker.
That’s just a fact. That many, probably most, haven’t come around to understanding this does not in any way diminish the truth of it.
I sometimes take the easy way out and agree that yes I am a tweaker. Because I tweak. But the deeper more meaningful way of looking at it is that I am a value oriented audiophile. I do whatever gets me the most SQ for the money. Tweaks do that. In spades. To not tweak, its like leaving money on the table. Why would you do that?