Tweaks you got rid of because they were not effective (enough)?


There are some audiophiles for whom cost is no object; they buy what they wish and every single tweak and gadget which promises to improve the sound. And the industry is all too happy to produce such tweaks -- often made of expensive materials with elaborate engineering explanations. Those who question the value of these tweaks are frequently accused of being "naysayers" who are either too ignorant or insensate to realize that "everything matters."

Of course, money spent one place cannot be spent elsewhere; expenditures on tweaks take the place of other more central factors affecting the sound. In some cases, those tweaks are worth it; you can hear the difference, and that $400 (or whatever) really could not have improved your speakers or sub or amp, etc.

So, the question here is simple: Which tweak have you tried which, after some experience and reflection, you realized was either *not* effective or not the most effective way to improve your system? 
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These things did not work FOR ME:

  • Green pens for CDs.
  • Rings that went around the circumference of the CD.
  • Noise filter on the Ethernet line.
  • Fancy power cords.
  • Fancy interconnects.
  • Fancy USB cables (these days -- they helped back in 1990 or so).
  • Raising speaker cables off the floor with insulators.
  • A reclocker was effective with one equipment combination, but deleterious with another.
  • A friend put crystals on my power cords to show me what they could do (I’m not kidding!). They didn’t do anything I could hear.
  • Ferrite cores on speaker cables and power cords (though they might be helpful in a high-RF environment)
BEST tweak by far: soundproofing! Talk about "lowering the noise floor"!

Interesting list. And of course, all your experience, so no arguments from me.

What you say which I profoundly agree with is the need to treat my room. Not sure how, but if it is like nearly everyone else's room, it's got "issues."
Synergistic cables that have boxes that plug in the wall which just throw noise into the system.Luna cables phono ground caused a channel to go out after i took it out the channel  came back and put my original ground back everything was ok