Cheap/Free Tweaks ($10.00 or less)

EDS_ · « **Reply #100 on:** 14 Oct 2007, 02:39 pm »

Quote from: Wayner on 5 Mar 2007, 10:34 pm

What I would really like to know is how many people have their speakers against the short wall and how many have them against the long wall of their listening room. I know what the experts say, but to me the short wall method sucks in so many ways, at least with my speakers.

W

I have tried my home office/second system along a short wall and long wall (the room is 12.5ft x 16.5. ft.). Given my circumstances the long wall placement is superior - by quite a bit.

bummrush · « **Reply #101 on:** 14 Oct 2007, 04:10 pm »

Put a cutout square of that rubberized slipmat stuff under speakers.I think its mainly used in cupboards for glasses.Your speakers wont slide anywhere.

Wayner · « **Reply #102 on:** 14 Oct 2007, 04:17 pm »

I buy those stick-on 3/4" square X 1/4" high black bumpers from Rat Shack and put them under my bookshelf speakers. They work great also. I think you can by a set of 8 for just a few dollars.

Wayner

denjo · « **Reply #103 on:** 14 Oct 2007, 04:24 pm »

Just a word of caution about some rubber non-slip mats. I placed them on my speakers and about a year later I realised that the rubber compound had reacted with the black varnish on my speakers, turning that part whitish where the rubber made contact with the enamel.

Best Regards
Dennis

WGH · « **Reply #104 on:** 24 Dec 2007, 09:49 pm »

I came up with the idea (as far as I know) of these simple ambiance enhancers for speakers that have a rear ambiance tweeter, these are installed on Von Schweikert VR2's.

In my listening room, half of the sound of the ambiance tweeter is absorbed by carpeting and turning up the level overpowered the front speakers. I figured room ambiance is supposed to be up, not down around my feet, so I designed a stick on diffuser that redirects some of the sound back up. The ambiance level is enhanced, easily filling the space behind the speaker resulting in increased sense of depth and a slightly more focused image as a bonus.

Wayne

Wayner · « **Reply #105 on:** 25 Dec 2007, 01:17 pm »

Great idea! Opps, there goes your patent out the window.

Wayner

WGH · « **Reply #106 on:** 26 Dec 2007, 04:54 pm »

Quote from: Wayner on 25 Dec 2007, 01:17 pm

Great idea! Opps, there goes your patent out the window.

Wayner

Yea, I know, but then it would be hard to enforce a patent for a tweak that will eventually be made in China.
The more I listen, the more I like what these enhancers do. I my room the treble has always been depressed, with the enhancers installed cymbal brush strokes are now clear and finely detailed.

Anyone who wants to give them a try can PM me, figure $20 for 2 + PayPal fees + shipping.

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Another tweak that will actually save you money:

Check Your Turntable Speed

Buy a compact florescent bulb ($6.50 for 2 at Safeway), then download and print the free Vinyl Engine Strobe Disk

Re-use the florscent bulbs in lights that are always on and save energy and money.

Wayne

Murph · « **Reply #107 on:** 31 Dec 2007, 08:49 am »

Quote from: denjo on 14 Oct 2007, 04:24 pm

Just a word of caution about some rubber non-slip mats. I placed them on my speakers and about a year later I realised that the rubber compound had reacted with the black varnish on my speakers, turning that part whitish where the rubber made contact with the enamel.

Best Regards
Dennis

Plasticizer migration. It'll mess up a fine wood finish faster than you'd imagine. Try rubbing mayonaisse onto the wood where the damage is. Seriously. Might take some time but might work. Well known fix for water rings.

emac · « **Reply #108 on:** 31 Dec 2007, 03:36 pm »

Don't know if these have been mentioned in this thread yet, but I'll toss out the idea of playing with opamps. I play with tweaks regularly, and adjusting the opamps has made a bigger difference than things like my Dakioms and ERS Stillpoints.

1. Rolling opamps. Most opamps go for under $10, and if you put in a socket, you can easily put the opamp out and try another. Made a huge difference in my Constantine DAC to go to the OPA2107.

2. Bypassing and biasing the opamp. Can also do this for under $10 for the resistors and caps. Has made another large difference with the opamps I have in my equipment.

iGrant · « **Reply #109 on:** 31 Jan 2008, 02:01 pm »

Quote from: pacifico on 16 Jan 2007, 05:58 pm

I was thinking of trying hockey pucks

I've used hockey pucks often in my music career, especially in studio (very few better ways to do a floating floor) and in staging, excellent isolators !! Up until 1967 the Toronto Maple Leaf puck was the best, they have sucked tho since

iGrant · « **Reply #110 on:** 31 Jan 2008, 02:32 pm »

I've been joking about this one on another forum for a bit. Cotton swabs and cleaning your ears is a great system tweaks. The rumour is that manufactures are lining up to market high end cotton swabs and the 'C' rating standard for cotton purity is being established.

But seriously, your ears are part of your system and back when I took recording music a little too seriously I did test my hearing, then had my ears professionally cleaned and retested my hearing. The difference was quite noticable on paper and in what I heard. And what comes out of your ears will suprise you.

I spent a lot of last week setting up demo systems with a dealer who has been at for quite a while. Two of his 'no-cost' tweaks that made the difference between decent sound and a system that sings (and sells) are:

He calls it 'absolute phase' (he is also a guitar playing, studio and live engineer) and notes that many pieces of gear can be reversing the absolute phase. In his store you will find many of the amps with the speaker connection's negative and positive reversed, still in phase between left and right of course. What he explained and demonstrated to me so that I could hear it, was that speaker's soundstage should be coming forward from the speakers, as well as back. When out of absolute phase the soundstage is all behind the speakers. This made much sence to me as I know that JBL Pro monitors are out of phase, which is easy to test, by putting a small battery to a speaker and seeing which direction the woofer travels, it should travel forward with a positive to to postive connection and if JBL can't get it right on a speakers, then it makes sense to believe other manufacturers may be missing this one too(including my gear, checks have been instigated). When in absolute phase you can then find you don't need to toe in your speakers so much when doing free tweak number 2:

Speaker toe and soundstage, start with the speakers straight out and ignore the vocals, which are generally centered in the mix anyways, first check to see if the bass is centred (a good live mix will usually have the bass down the centre, except orchestra of course), get that centred by toeing in if neccessary, then listen to the soundstage of the instrumentation and see of there is a whole in the middle and toe in until the instrument soundstage just meets in the centre. The more you can keep the speakers pointing straight ahead, the more you can make your speakers dissapear and the better the soundstaging.

zmanbands · « **Reply #111 on:** 5 Feb 2008, 11:30 am »

The toe in needs to be exactly identical for each speaker, relative to the sweet spot listening position. From the listening position, looking at the inside side of each speaker should look the same ie same surface showing.

reflex · « **Reply #112 on:** 5 Feb 2008, 01:22 pm »

When I was doing the vinyl thing, way back when (too lazy to spend all the time cleaning the things now), I'd check absolute phase on every lp and mark the label as to in or out of phase. Even though speakers might be wired 180 degrees out of phase, it's more likely the recording console. What is also possible, is that some mics are in phase and some out. Then you have to chose between better and worse, rather than right or wrong.

The human ear can definitely tell the different between a recording that is in phase with the real world and out of phase. The first inward movement of the microphone diaphram should result in an initial outward movement of the speaker cones, rather than vice-versa. The difference, as you pointed out, is in our perception of dimensionality. I also noticed a smoother, more liquid, texture to the recording.

I hate using banana plugs on my speakers, but that's the only easy, quick way to make the phase change.

HiFiSoundGuy · « **Reply #113 on:** 9 Aug 2008, 04:12 pm »

Put some PTFE teflon tape from (Lowes) on your AC plugs and on the center pin of the RF cable coming from your satellite dish and to your satellite receiver RF hook up. Take about 3 inches of tape and wrap it around each ac prong (all three AC prongs) and then push it all the way up to the base of the plug. On the RF cable take about 2 inches of tape and wrap it around the center pin of the RF cable (I used a Toothpick to hold one end of the tape down at the base of the RF cable and then used another toothpick to wrap the tape around the center pin tightly) and push it up to the base of the RF cable. This Tweak lowers the noise floor a little giving you a better sounding system and a better TV picture ! Update.....I put some teflon tape on both ends of my speaker cables and interconnects(I put it on the center pins of the interconnects) and this took my system to a whole new level ! Update..... I put teflon tape on the female RCA ground connection on the gear and on the ground connection of the RF cable too. I would like to get some feedback from you all on this tweak....... I also noticed that putting teflon tape on the AC plugs makes your gear RUN COOLER too, giving your gear a longer life!

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #114 on:** 9 Aug 2008, 06:42 pm »

Whoops. Overlooked the price cap.

HiFiSoundGuy · « **Reply #115 on:** 13 Aug 2008, 03:54 pm »

I noticed putting teflon tape on my AC plugs made my gear run cooler....but WHY?

slbenz · « **Reply #116 on:** 13 Aug 2008, 05:18 pm »

Have a carpeted concrete floor for my home theater and after talking to Mapleshade, they recommended I try putting 3/4" plywood boards under my Magnepan IIIa with Mye Stands to combat the effects of the concrete. Went to my local lumber yard who gave me two pieces for free and sure enough, my Magnepans had greater bass output while the mids and highs improved. Also, Mapleshade suggested I put my Velodyne sub on a stand so that again the concrete would not suck out all the bass. Had a stand available in the house and again, Mapleshade was right. My meter registered a 3dB increase in bass output but at the same time, the bass very much tighter and better integrated with my Magnepans. With these two free tweaks, it was like my home theater was transformed. According to Mapleshade, these two cheap tweaks only work on concrete floors that are carpeted.

AliG · « **Reply #117 on:** 27 Sep 2008, 12:25 am »

Mouse pad under my VPI motor! Worked marvellously cleaning up the bass!

rajacat · « **Reply #118 on:** 4 Oct 2008, 04:02 pm »

Russian TF3 Teflon capacitors @~$6.00 ea shipped. I doubt that any grossly expensive power cord could impact your system as much as a couple of these caps appropriately placed aa.http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=59361.0

--Roy

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #119 on:** 12 Nov 2008, 09:05 am »

Anybody got any experience with silver fuses of contact solution??