What’s your vote for the most ridiculous, overpriced, and useless tweak?

Piezoelectric wall outlet covers work and they work extremely well. You can test this yourself with fo.Q tape, stuck onto the outside of a regular outlet cover. A cheap way to re-arrange your thinking.

I agree with Frank. But first coat the inside with fo.Q tape and then apply the Total Contact onto the fo.Q tape. I found that to be even better, and it’s easily removable if you move out of the house.

My main wall duplex outlet has SR graphene treated screws for the wiring, fo.Q/TC inner plate lining, fo.Q outer plate lining and AVM paint on the internal wiring and casing. Unused outlets are plugged with PPT Stop-It! duplex plugs. I think it was also blasted with the SR Tesla coil when I sent it to SR for treatment. I’m happy with the results.

This is at the centre of the Venn :

http://www.kempelektroniks.nl/en/918/kemp-elektroniks/products/shunt-conditioners/fostac-maxiimus-p1...

Ridiculous - check
Overpriced - check
Useless - check *

* smears imaging and de-focuses soundstage so it has a use, but not one that I would call useful.

Re - the PWB red pen. This tweek wouldn't work for me at all. The term "Past" is not dominated by all that is "black evil and horrible". For me, it's where all the best recorded music exists. The "Present" is black evil and horrible.

To quote from the PWB site

"...what you can do is to ‘treat’ the cables, wires, components, equipment and listening environment to give them different ‘energy patterns’ which we (human beings) are able to interpret as ‘friendly’., ‘acceptable’., ‘reassuring’ and ‘relaxing’. Once you do this, the human being can relax, be under less tension and hear (perceive) more of the information which is already in the room !!..."

But if you don’t accept/agree with a basic premise of the suggested operation of the specific device (in the case of the red pen, that "the past is black evil and horrible"), how can you relax sufficiently for the device to perform as intended by the designers, regardless of the resolving power of your system?

I have the Furutech demaganetizer (demag alpha). Anyone who listens to LPs or 45s, who doesn’t use one (or something equivalent) is only hearing maximum 90-95 percent of what’s on their records (varies per record). Subtract another 5% if you don’t use the Furutech SK-Filter.
As for PPT, all their stuff is just the best you can get. 

It may be amusing to tear down and poke fun at weird products. But if it’s done to a genuinely great product out of ignorance, then it’s more destructive than fun. Is it any wonder that  someone with actual experience using such a product may have a desire to set the record straight?

I like juju noise.

I slightly disagree regarding over-damping. A chassis can not be over-damped, it can only be under-damped. If you apply the wrong damping material, it can be under-damped at certain frequencies and amplitudes. That can be worse than no damping. If you apply the correct type of damping that uniformly and consistently eliminates all chassis resonance and vibration at all frequencies and amplitudes, then you have total damping, which is what you want. Why on earth would you want the chassis to be vibrating at all? Even worse, to be vibrating only at selected frequencies?

Converting vibrational energy to current and then heat in situ is a more instantaneous and effective method of dealing with the problem of vibration, than any isolation method. As long as all frequencies and amplitudes are dealt with consistently.

Unwanted vibrations will bounce and reflect throughout a component chassis many times before exiting via the earth or the atmosphere. You don’t want that. Kill ’em fast. Convert them to heat on their first pass.

Not the Furutech LP Demagnetizer. It's worth its weight in gold. And it's very heavy.

Let me remind you, we’re discussing ridiculous, useless, and overpriced tweaks

So discussion is allowed? For and against? Or are you insisting that the topic be limited to a vote as stated in the title?

What about my vote for the Maxiimus P16?

ridiculous - a glowing crystal pyramid powered by two "tachyon accumulators" housed in a tin box.
overpriced - 1800 Euros
useless - it generally makes the sound worse, smears focus and destroys the soundstage.

What’s more, they promise a "flow of electrons" from nature and electrons don’t even flow.

http://www.kempelektroniks.nl/en/918/kemp-elektroniks/products/shunt-conditioners/fostac-maxiimus-p1...

Could there be two broad categories of tweak? One which reveals something new in the sound/music which you have never noticed before, and one which increases pleasure but does not necessarily reveal anything new or previously un-noticed. I don't think the PWB free tweaks revealed anything new to me about the recording, even though I was enjoying the listening experience more than usual. A more traditional tweak usually jumps right out and hits you with something you never heard before. The resulting stimulus is not necessarily pleasure, it could be excitement, interest or anticipation.

As for sound and pleasure being equivalent enough to use interchangeably, I think that may be a stretch. I could probably judge the sound (quality) of a system using source material which gave me no pleasure at all. Such as a dog vomiting, if it was really well recorded.

Yes I own one. I would not have the gall to criticise something without having heard it in my own system for a long period. I know exactly what it does to the sound (but not how it does it). It’s main effect is to artificially exaggerate front-to-back dimensionality (not the same as depth, because sounds appear to come forward from the speakers), at the expense of soundstage accuracy. Try to imagine a processed, blurry 3D photo compared to a normal crisp 2D photo of the same scene. That’s what it does to the sound.

I tried some of the PWB Electronics free tweaks. You shamed me into it. I found that I was able to perceive a difference. However, it was more in line with what May Belt herself claims for the PWB tweaks. She asks you to "see if you can listen to the same music with the same pleasure" without the tweak in place. She does not claim that it improves the sound, only the pleasure. She specifically states that the PWB tweaks do not change the sound, which is already in the room. I found that the presence of the tweaks did increase my listening pleasure. However, afterwards, I was able to train myself to experience the same pleasure without the tweak in place, through relaxation and concentration. And when my niece poured scorn on the PWB tweak (in the nicest possible way), it killed all the listening pleasure of the tweak and I shuffled off to bed crestfallen. Maybe I should try a more potent and expensive PWB cream tweak, but how would I ever choose between Green Cream and Cream Electret? Both sound so delicious.

I judged the experience "better" because I was more relaxed than usual and found my mind wandering away from sound quality considerations and towards the fun aspect of the music, the talent of the players, the songwriters and the spirit of the era (1965). After all, I had been instructed to listen for pleasure, not technical perfection. I took May's instructions literally. But that's because I'm a beginner.

I better understand the "morphic resonance" concept (philosophy?) behind many PWB products after viewing this short youtube clip of Rupert Sheldrake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_RGEpJSr6s

+1 benjie's post, comparing the water filter / power cord. It is the last 6 feet that matters most. And not just what gets into the cable in those last 6 feet, but what gets out of it (or doesn't get out) is even more important.

>>>If you believe the power cord is filtering RF you’re mistaken.

No, I’m not suggesting power cords filter RF. I’m suggesting that well designed power cables and their terminations can prevent EMF from influencing components and other cables in the vicinity. Benji’s comparison of a water filter and a power cord should not be taken literally. For one thing, electrons don’t flow.