Your single most profound tweak or upgrade

rollo · « **Reply #40 on:** 15 Mar 2010, 12:55 pm »

Cleaning up the electricity with Alan Maher CBFs with A shulman resonater and negative Ion generation. . Amazing. Better than anything so far.

charles

decal · « **Reply #41 on:** 15 Mar 2010, 01:35 pm »

Installing a Lite DAC Ah in my bedroom system.For $136.00 it is by far the best upgrade I've ever made.I am not one to hyperbole but, this unit made a cheap Sony changer sound highend.I am amazed at the sound coming from this DAC.

BobM · « **Reply #42 on:** 15 Mar 2010, 01:46 pm »

Hard to really point to one thing, especially since I think of tweaks/upgrades in terms of what they really cost me out-of-pocket.

So the best free tweak is probably speaker positioning, but we all already know that's important.

The best not too expensive tweak was 4 GIK panels on the walls.

The best expensive tweak was teflon caps in the preamp and as bypasses on my speaker's tweeter crossover caps.

SteveFord · « **Reply #43 on:** 15 Mar 2010, 01:55 pm »

Switching to tubes.
Going from box speakers go planars was also a revelation.

Nick77 · « **Reply #44 on:** 15 Mar 2010, 02:48 pm »

Building a ClassD Audio amp which allowed me to do seperates.

PhilNYC · « **Reply #45 on:** 15 Mar 2010, 03:03 pm »

Going on the definition of "Tweak" as "a minor adjustment", a couple of things come to mind:

- Speaker *and* listening seat positioning. 'nuff said!

- Wiring my speakers: My speakers are bi-wireable, but I don't bi-wire them. Instead, I take the black/- cable from my amp and connect it to the low-frequency terminal (and then use a jumper to the high-frequency terminal), and connect the red/+ cable to the high-frequency terminal (and use a jumper to the low-frequency terminal). Was pretty surprised to how much effect this had on the sound. Note that it sounds better on some set-ups than others...I don't do this in my primary set-up, but have a secondary set-up where it works really well.

- Footers and weights to help control vibration on my CD player. Had the most success using brass cones and weights. However, eventually I went with a rack that used a design combining constrained layer boards, cast-iron dampers, and other "high tech" items to control vibration and isolate components...after which none of the cones or weights really had much additional effect. Rack was expensive, so I don't consider it a "tweak".

Everything else (eg. power conditioning, room treatment, etc) I have done more than "tweaking" to get the results I want...

doctorcilantro · « **Reply #46 on:** 17 Mar 2010, 06:30 pm »

Quote from: rollo on 15 Mar 2010, 12:55 pm

Cleaning up the electricity with Alan Maher CBFs with A shulman resonater and negative Ion generation. . Amazing. Better than anything so far.

charles

Where did you put the CBF?

ajzepp · « **Reply #47 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 03:48 am »

I'll have to agree with the folks who said GIK treatments....I added about 18 or so traps to my room and it was the first time that I could ever use the term "night and day" in this hobby. Even more shocking was the day when I moved and took them all down before removing the stereo gear....it was shocking!

I live about 30mi from GIK's front door, so anytime I need something I just take a quick trip down to pick something up from Glenn and the boys

Martyn · « **Reply #48 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 06:26 am »

My ears...getting them syringed!

Seriously, if you're no longer a puppy and especially if you tend to use ear plugs instead of ear defenders when using machinery, you probably have a build up of wax against your ear drums (ear plugs tend to push the natural wax that protects the skin of the ear down towards the drum). Get 'em checked next time you see your doctor - you'll be amazed and will want to play all your discs again! Talk about lifting a veil...

doug s. · « **Reply #49 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 01:27 pm »

i can't honestly pick yust one. for me, there's been a few. first was active subwoofer system w/a pair of subs, active x-over and dedicated amp(s). can't imagine ever doing w/o again. even if i get a pair of tonian d-tl-d1's.

second was going to tubes. third was melos preamp.

regarding room treatment, something i always knew - room being the most important system component - was really driven home when i had the opportunity to set up my system in a 28x36x8.5 room, w/openings to two spaces w/similar areas. it's hard to imagine any system not sounding at least wery good in that room. i wish i still had it. some day again...

doug s.

revrob · « **Reply #50 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 02:21 pm »

Hard to pick one but if I had to it would be buying Salk HT3 speakers that have allowed me to really enjoy music the most. Close second would be the Esoteric DV-50 universal player.

I have made a few blunders in the past but my system is at the place where I don't worry about upgrade just sit back and listen.

dBe · « **Reply #51 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 02:27 pm »

Noise reduction in the system: from room treatment to power filtration. Less (noise) = more (music), always.

Dave

rajacat · « **Reply #52 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 02:32 pm »

Dumping my CD player and changing to a computer based audio system. No other single tweak or upgrade even comes close.

-Roy

K Shep · « **Reply #53 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 03:10 pm »

Quote from: rajacat on 18 Mar 2010, 02:32 pm

Dumping my CD player and changing to a computer based audio system. No other single tweak or upgrade even comes close.

-Roy

When asked "profound tweak or upgrade" I immediately thought of what made an audible benefit. But I too would say not having to handle CD's and a CDP was a profound upgrade in convenience, the change to a computer based front end did change audibly just not as significant a change as room treatments and moving from an integrated to separates.

rajacat · « **Reply #54 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 03:22 pm »

Quote from: K Shep on 18 Mar 2010, 03:10 pm

When asked "profound tweak or upgrade" I immediately thought of what made an audible benefit. But I too would say not having to handle CD's and a CDP was a profound upgrade in convenience, the change to a computer based front end did change audibly just not as significant a change as room treatments and moving from an integrated to separates.

In my system it was a sound quality upgrade too!

Getting rid of the CD player electrical/mechanical interface helps eliminate a source of distortion and errors. When you burn the CDs to your hard drive they go through an error correction method which makes sure all the bits are there.

-Roy

James Romeyn · « **Reply #55 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 03:30 pm »

I'm in my mid-50s and have into this hobby about 45 years as a professional and hobbyist...several hundred thousand dollars of gear having passed through my hands. My last room had the equivalent of several thousand USD of acoustic mods including an acoustic ceiling soffit on three walls.

"Most profound" is the multiple distributed subwoofer designs pioneered and recommended by Todd Welti, Dr. Earl Geddes and our own beloved Duke LeJeune of AudioKinesis. Second most profound is the abandonment of stereo in favor of pure analog Trinaural by James Bongiorno, inventor of the high-end standard dual-differential full-complementary circuit. (My wife, whose ears are much better than mine, also has no use for stereo compared to Trinaural...center is not summed mono...two-channel deficiencies have been well and scientifically documented since it arrived a half century ago...early stereo adopters often employed a summed mono center channel and many early stereo components indeed had a center ch output...the Trinaural's pure analog 3.1 processing lends perfectly to subwoofer-based systems ala Geddes/LeJeune.) Third most profound is offset fullrange bipolar speaker designs by Duke/AudioKinesis.

The sum total of every other known upgrade is less than any of the above separate upgrades, including components, acoustic treatments, wire, cable, etc.

revrob · « **Reply #56 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 05:07 pm »

Quote from: rajacat on 18 Mar 2010, 02:32 pm

Dumping my CD player and changing to a computer based audio system. No other single tweak or upgrade even comes close.

-Roy

Interesting there are two threads who state going to a computer based system from a cd player has changed the way they listen to music and made it more enjoyable. I have both a great CD player (Esoteric DV-50) and a Squeezebox Duet and I absolutely still love putting cds in my player and playing them. I only used the Squeezebox for non-critical listening.

I like my cd player better than the squeezebox but maybe I am in the minority.

Steve

rajacat · « **Reply #57 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 05:13 pm »

You have to tweak your Squeezebox to realize it's potential. The sound quality of the stock unit is nothing special unless you just use it as a transport and get a quality external DAC.

-Roy

ctviggen · « **Reply #58 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 05:26 pm »

I had to get my SB modified, then it was better than any other source I had. I sold my tube-based CD player. It's too archaic to have to select a CD and put it in a CD player, when you have instant access to any song or CD in your collection.

jtwrace · « **Reply #59 on:** 18 Mar 2010, 05:27 pm »

I also found my computer audio system MUCH better then my Cdp.