Your most recent system tweak, did it help or hurt the sound?

Why did you ever stop ? I play like 8-9 CDs per Lp I play, and I don't do background or casual listening.

 

At one point I had a Rega Planet which I listened to a lot. But I traded in to "upgrade" to a Rega Saturn. Sounded great but for some reason was a bit more fatiguing. That combined with some upgrades to my TT and vinyl record collection I started greatly preferring vinyl over CD.

This AC power cord has removed the edge from the CD's so they now sound almost as good as the vinyl. So the CD player get's a lot more run lately. Especially when I'm in the mood for Classical.

 

CD has so many advantages over Vinyl that if a CD mastering is almost as good as vinyl version, I will reach for the CD.

There are some genres such as 50's and 60's Jazz where I almost always listen to the Vinyl version.

But for classical and movie soundtracks I almost always reach for the CD's (unless the mastering is really bad)

 

Amen to that bro !

 

Ah ok, the photo definitely gave me a wrong impression about the depth !

 

It damps micro vibrations at the connector. I was shocked at the difference.

 

I Bi-amp and I bought a pair of chord clearway leads to connect the amps together. These are high quality leads at a very decent price(around £100 max)
Yes they did improve things.

 

Not really a tweak but I finally understood why one of my dacs (audio note Dac2) was strangely inferior to a simple smsl su8 in my office system : it has an inverted phase... It worked very well in another room cause it was plugged to a wall socket on which I inverted the phase when installing it, two errors annulation.
I've never heard a phase inversion so remarkable before...

My second tweak of the day was moving back to Qobuz, so much friendly to me than the other streaming services.

 

Added a record weight. It did what was expected. Slight overall improvement sonically.

 

I lifted my Kef Rference 1 on original stands for about 4 inches by putting woodblocks underneath the spikes.
Improved soundstage and tonal balance.

 

As a fellow European I know what you are talking about! The 2 pin European Schuko system creates a 50% chance that you get it wrong. Companies should really mark the side which should be connected to the phase. A few, mainly European companies are doing this already.
Users of a 3 pin system are lucky as there is only one way to plug it in, and hope that the manufactures got it right!

 

It's inverted inside the DAC !

 

Most recent tweak is changing audio rack from Target Audio to Salamander Design Synergy offering more body and fulness.

 

Just added a $0.75 ferrite choke to the RCA cable of my old Lenco L75/S, and it got rid of the tiny vestige of hum. Overjoyed

 

Edit...read by cartridge chage isnt' a tweak.

So...record weight? Yes. I like to say it made everything track equally. Light pressing/heavy/slight warp/not...so, it's not that improved the sound of EVERY record...but, it made every record track more consistently.

 

I Put a Jitterbug on the USB port of my streaming machine (old laptop).
it seems technically impossible that this thing is responsible for any improvement I hear (or think I hear) but I'm too lazy to remove it.

 

My local hifi shop is now a Stabilant 22 dealer so I confiscated some to try. I treated the whole system. Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, cartridge pins, the whole 9 yards. It was a mild pain in the rear, but what an upgrade in sound quality.

 

6 iQSE RF/EMI absorbers as well as Stillpoints aborbing sheets in the breaker box. Exceedingly effective. Opens up the system across the board.

2 AQ Hurricane PCs. Actually a bargain.

QSA Red outlet.

Tweek Geek QSA power distributor.

Each of these bring more to my system than they cost.

 

Yes, I installed the latest version of Anthem's software for my DAC-preamp. The new version does a better job of integrating multiple mono subs, so better sound overall.

(I was running my two subs in stereo, but when I added a thirds, there was no good way to do that.)

It's great to have a free tweak that improves things.