The next best Tweak ???


There have been several postings at AA about a new tweak from the mind of a gent named unclestu that I would like to share with Audiogon members.

I really don’t know why it works or how it works.
This tweak will cost you about $10 bucks but hold on to your hats...

unclestu discovered that the Ground Control (that was designed by Bud Purvine and sold by AudioPrism)design could be improved on.

You will need to make two sets for your speakers.

What unclestu came up with is to take a 6V Lantern Battery, add a 1000uf Electrolytic capacitor across the top springs (+ to + and - to -) connect a wire to the negative side of the battery and then attach the other wire end to the negative post on your speaker.

I have also made a couple that I plug in to my Preamp and Amp. Those were made with RCA’s ground on the wire end and I used 9V batteries utilizing 9V battery clips.

I've got to say, big improvement across the board, Soundstage, bass, mids, treble. But the most dramatic change is in the dynamics.
128x128ozzy
Dtsag, I used a 9V battery snap on clip that you can buy at Radio Shack part #270-0325 package of 5 for $2.99.
Solder the 1000uf Electrolytic capacitor to the ends (red to + and black to-).
I then soldered another wire from the black wire to the ground on an RCA. It makes a nice compact unit that you can try on various pieces of equipment. It seems to take a few hours to charge up.
Thanks Ozzy and Elizabeth for sharing. I went to Radioshack today because it is right near my office. They did have 1000uf 50V caps for $2.79 but I decided to just opt for the 35V 1000uf caps along with the 6V alkaline lantern batteries. I couldn't tell which end of the caps was positive or negative because they weren't marked. I just saw arrows pointing from left to right on the Nichicon caps so I put the arrow tip on the positive terminal and the rear on the negative terminal. I did manage to find some 16 AWG speaker wire to use.

When I was about to hook up the Unclestu/Ozzy tweak up to my speakers I saw I had Elizabeth's copper wire and ferrite core pigtail tweak still in place. I then decided to merge the 2 tweaks. So I've got the battery and cap on 1 end of a 16 AWG speaker wire. On the other side of that wire I have the 10AWG wire with ferrite cores on the bottom. It is quite the site.

Now regarding sound improvements I don't know if this tweak did anything. I'm not sure if I heard a difference. I was employing this tweak in my HT/multi channel music set-up. I think with certain recordings I heard a little more treble and even a bit more brightness but with movies I think I heard more clarity in dialogue and sound fx. I'm going to spend more time with this tweak in place to hear if I can pick up any more improvements in sound. If not I have 2 spare batteries for my emergency flashlights. My HT set-up is solid state gear from Oppo, Outlaw Audio and Emotiva.

Ozzy. With the 6V battery/capacitor tweak did you have to have it charge up like the IC tweak you did? If so how long did it need to charge up?

Thanks
Jedinite24 , I am at work right now, but I think the arrow is pointing to the negative side on the Cap. After installation the first few moments there was an improvement in the mids and treble, the bass quality took a bit longer to flesh out.
Hi Ozzy

It turns out I did misread the capacitor ends. (I feel like a dumbarse for getting it wrong.) When I was done listening to music with the battery tweak in place I removed the whole tweak and hooked them up to the negative terminals on a small Class D amp. I think it is supposed to put out 15 watts/channel max. I thought the set-up needed to be charged up from reading your posts so I ended up feeding as much power as the little amp could to the battery/capacitors. I left it on for the whole night and day and when I got home I found the caps had leaked all over the batteries. Oh well. The batteries are still good though.

I went back to Radioshack and got the 50V rated 1000uf caps because they had no more 35V rated caps. I re-did everything properly this time and will try to evaluate if this tweak will make a difference in my mostly solid state systems.

Thanks again
Well, at least you learned how to destroy a capacitor...LOL
I hope your replacement try gives you an improvement.