Tell me about your hifi improvement tweak or tip.

Hello folks

I know it sounds a bit kinky but please tell me about something you did to your system that yielded a sonic improvement.

As we know the hifi industry sells plenty of gizmos that promise or suggest improvements . By all means talk about official purchases but what I really want to hear is stuff that is unconventional & stuff that costs NOTHING yes FREE.

Yesterday I went to a UK hifi exhibition and bought some Chord Epic Twin speaker wire 2M off cut for £20 (normal price £90) I paid £10 for some spade terminals . Below are a few examples.

When I went home I got out a Stanley Knife & some scissors & an hour laterI made my own speaker jumpers! These things normally cost about £90 so I was pleased about that & it has improved the sound (cleaner in the treble)

Two years ago I took the spikes off my B&W 703 floor standers put them on butchers chopping blocks & raised them on heavy duty coffee tables. No more room boom, floor board sing along & voice projection is correct.

I personally when switch on play my equipment at a low volume & gentle music before I rock out & always rest my ears at hourly intervals. Strange but it works & stops me going deaf!

Magic eraser for stylus cleaning was a tip I read.

Anyway let's here yours

Please respect each others opinions & could we avoid answers such as " Yeah I bought a Krell amp that was a tweak huh huh huh" or " I sit cross legged praying to Yoda every day " sort of thing .

Thanks

 

All IMO!!!!
Power conditioner and power cables gave me more consistent sound and better dynamics.
Jumper wires from my pre to amp outlets on my integrated. Seemed to help with the highs.
Gold/ceramic fuse, no difference I could detect.
Digital force gauge for my tables, now Gives more accurate, repeatable settings. More a tool than a tweak.
An RCM, well a Spin Clean, keeping the vinyl clean is/should be numero uno!

 

Bumping this back up.

I just added wool on the face of my speakers surrounding the tweeters. I've only listened for an hour and the change was very evident.

My speakers have always been set up to fire almost straight into the room to reduce what I felt like was extra high frequency energy. Firing them straight ahead put me an estimated 20 degrees off axis. After 20 minutes with the wool I was able to toe them in a bit.

More listening to follow but so far this was a great use of $4 from the fabric store.

 

I don't have any. I just play & enjoy the music.

Ok ...
1. vintage cables, OR vintage 'style' cables... for vintage stereos! It's been proven to me that THAT works.
2. synergy in equipment and accessories.
3. vintage 'box' speakers: use speaker stands if you can and get the tweets up to ear level.
4. use a 'stylish' TT rack. That always makes everything better!
5. only use equipment that you 'love', or 'love the sound of'.
6. get as 'direct of a signal' as you can from source to speakers.
7. cross you power cables and other cables at a 90 degree angle. Been told that, I do that, why not.

 

One other one:

If you don't have a ton of cash, like most of us, and you are using a 'regular' old vintage stereo with 'regular' older speakers, or maybe even newer less expensive speakers, and you want really fine digital CD sound, try a BBE-462 Sonic Maximizer between your CD player and your amp. You will be amazed at the sound improvement coming out of your speakers.

You can get them used off eBay for $60 or so. Super cheap for an outrageous, jaw dropping, immediate sound improvement!

** I'm talking about if you have just a regular, nothing special, mid-fi amp and regular speakers and want great sound. **

The sound improvement is dramatic... dramatic for the better! I have two and still still use one on my wife's family room Sony Stereo system. For me, that's not a 'tweek', it's a mandatory piece of equipment. With my own personal stereo system I don't use one, it's not necessary. But for older regular Mid-Fi... it's an unbelievable improvement in sound quality. And it's extremely apparent... like - 'immediately'. It will put a smile on your face. And a... Wow in your thinking!!

Originally made for musicians 'on stage'. The BBE-462 is something else. 'Jaw dropping' sonic improvement for older, vintage, or less expensive, stereo systems.

Just try it. What's $60+/- bucks now-a-days? A pack of cigarettes in Seattle or New York? I'd rather have the BBE.

 

My improvement was even cheaper. As some engineers have done with the Yamaha studio monitors, I placed one layer of toilet tissue over each tweeter.
Really. (By the way, this is not a threadcrap )

 

Move speakers around a little to experiment with the best positioning and hence the best sound. Easy tweak, often never even considered yet reaps potentially huge rewards.

 

Beer. And lots of it.

Whiskey, wine and women are also good substitutes though the women require constant tuning and an excellent mute button.

 

But not cheap.

 

Speaker positioning.(but my khorns must be in the corners; ported designs really benefit)
System synergy If nit sounds good it is good.

 

Room treatment! I use GIK. Relatively inexpensive for the improvement. No matter what equipment you have, it yields fantastic dividends. Great thing about it is you can start small and slowly and a piece at a time.

 

How about vodka? You went to Russia recently, I've noticed.

 

And a few more things I won't mention

 

Torqueing the speaker drivers mounting hardware equally with a torque wrench, I like to check them annually. This can really improve bass response especially on sealed cab design.

 

My buddies at work and I call those Kettle Beers. Long story. We drink a lot of Kettle Beers.

 

Someone should probably mention Barry's inner tube tweak, but I'm too lazy to track the link to that long **** thread down. If you haven't seen it, search for floating components on bicycle inner tubes. It works wonders.

 

The wool or felt surrounding the tweater is to reduce defraction caused by the cabinet width being too wide. It reduces the reflections off the cabinet unhiding the true tweeter response.

Note the design where some speakers become narrowed around the tweeter. It's the same principle.

 

GIK here as well. It made a huge difference in a tough room.

 

Improvements that cost $0

Shutting off other components when not in use.

Balancing shelves holding units with a level.

Being OCD about speaker placement (equidistant from "center).

All cables set-up in phase.

Keep LPs and stylus dust and lint free.

Cleaning used LPs before playing.

Using a lens cleaner disc on CD player a couple times a year.

Turning off EQ/Bass Boost/etc.

~This post can also be called things I learned in SH's Forum.

 

I also like listening very late at night when the load on the power grid is low, plus I turn off everything in the house that has no good reason to be on. Checking all cable connections for secureness occasionally is an easy freebie too. Especially bare wire speaker post connections.

 

My type of thread.
1:Love your gear.
2: speaker positioning.
3: imo 'clarity /listenability
sounds better when your not tired.
4: Positive frame of mind when spinning the black gold.
5: Album cover gazing can be a joy.
6: Thinking of your next vinyl fix.

 

My listening room is our basement.. The stairwell leading upstairs is in the front left corner of the room. When the door at the top of the stairs is closed, sound bounces around the stairwell for a LONG time. Simply opening the door at the top of the stairs eliminates that. Makes a massive difference when listening.

When the door is closed, spacial cues get blurred and the sense of "at the venue" is lost. Open the door and the front wall vanishes, pretty amazing.

 

Open doorways are beneficial! Slowing down reflections off windows also helps.

 

The improvement is more likely in lowered diffraction off the cabinet edges. Diffraction produces odd harmonics, and a time smear that is audible by comparison to high freqs without these artifacts. The wool surround has simply attenuated off axis response and thus cleaner, more detailed highs. Many manufacturers have utilized acoustic material or a wave guide to control dispersion. Wider dispersion is not always better.

 

Getting a 7.1 Onkyo receiver for $50. Have lots of pairs of speakers, some pretty good, previously had four pairs hooked up to a single stereo receiver. Now have an amp stage for those each of 6 speakers plus two hooked up together for the center channel plus two in the surround mode. A radical improvement. Also found some Monster interconnect, enough for five of those channels, $6 at a thrift store.