Here's one point of view. Systems have been steadily improving and the proper "dressing" of components, wires, power conditioners, room acoustics have allowed tweaking to be heard in a manner we never really thought about until recently. And we're still finding out....how many showrooms have bad sound with great gear? We're still learning. Even older gear can perform very well if we're very careful in setup and realize system setup can almost be an art in itself....the better the setup the more "magic" or difference the tweaking reveals and it can have a wow effect. I've done tweaking that was wrong, bad, no different , all the way to "I don't believe it" good.....I'm looking forward to eveyones comments on this one...good listening everyone as I get ready for the eastern storm coming though...
Tweaks
When did we go from "it can't hurt" to "produces a HUGE improvement in the sound" when talking about tweaks? Was it the "Lead Balloon" that did it with turntables or the "Arcici" stands with the Quad electrostats, oh so many years ago? Was it "Tube Traps"? Was it magic bricks to put on top of power amps? Now days audiophiles seem to argue over the type of loop in the carpet of the listening room and its effect on sound. Anything that is exagerated becomes insignificant. Have audiophiles gone wrong somewhere? Why not admit there is no difference in the sound, you just want to be on the safe side?