"Tweaks" vs. Audiophiles


Back in 1985 Ed Metiner accused me of being an audiophile rather than a tweak. He was right, the more bizarre stories I heard of folks doing the strangest damn things to improve their sound, the more I was convinced the "tweaks" were outta their minds. Pouring concrete pillar to to use as a turntable stand, freezing wires, supposedly hearing differences in power cords, placing quarters on our speakers, spraying stuff on CD's, all kinds of strange behaviour. I had a good system, and figured fooling around with set up, wires, etc was plainly a waste of time and money, I enjoyed listening to the system, if it ain't broke...
Fast forward to today, where I'm tweaking and trying various things to see what kind of effect it has on my system. No, I haven't poured a pillar yet or froze anything, but tweaking is cheap and it's fun. Recently I built an amp stand out of 4X4 lumber, and put some new electrical outlets in. Having just built my first set of balanced interconnect, then carefully drilling holes through the joists in my basement to run them over to my amp, I got thinking. To be in this hobby requires a certain amount of tools and ability/willingness to use 'em. So, have I crossed over to the dark side and become a tweak? Ed would be proud...Jeff
jeffloistarca

Showing 1 response by garfish

Hi Jeff; not exactly a sonic tweak, but my heavy Syn, Res. Master Couplers could use some support at the wall end(s), so I screwed a nicely stained 1" X 4" X 5ft. long board to the wall just above three duplex dedicated outlets, and then screwed 3 "hanging light" hooks into the board just above each outlet.

I used long, black wire ties wrapped around the PCs end and through the hook. Well, it works great, but now I worry that wall vibrations may be getting into the PCs-- geez. However, sonics do not seem to have suffered and my PCs are more relaxed with the supports ;>) Cheers. Craig