Beavis has a good idea; I am going to try something similar which should look better . If there is one of the company that sell concrete yard art close to you check them out. They have some heavy concrete stands which don't look bad and can be painted. The prices looked to be in the $25 to $50 range for a pair.
Cheap Tweeks
Does anybody have any cheap tweeks to share with us to further our search for "affordable" sonic bliss? I have 3 for you to try that anyone can afford. 1) if your amp sets on the floor, try putting 4 tennis balls under it. you might want to place a piece of half inch plywood under the amp first. 2) If you need to isolate your components better, put a piece of plywood under them and then put the largest size bubble wrap that you can find uner them. These ideas work and are much cheeper than big buck isolation platform. 3)If you use "dynamic" speakers, put a quarter at the top front corners and a dime in the center. It must be the resonence of the change that does the trick. All I know is that it works.
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I forgot to mention one that costs nothing. Some amps , and preamps invert phase. Just wire your speakers in reverse phase to see if they sound better. That is , hot on amp to ground on speakers or vice versa. Not to be confused with out of phase , in which one is wired in on manner and the other in the opposite, The important thing is that they both be wired the same. There is a famous paper in audio called "The Wood Effect" which explanes the importance of Absolute Phase. |
Cheap tweeks.... Diversitech
EVA Anti-Vibration Pad under my Klipsch LaScalas on my unstable wooden floor snapped the audio image into sharp focus. Quite remarkable actually. Short of buying the IsoAcoustics GAIA I Speaker Isolators @ $599.95 per 4 (I need 8), these are about $2.00 each so I went wild and bought 16 and doubled up under each corner. Without daring to overstate the improvement and getting a red flag from the hyperbole squad, I am SHOCKEDI tell you ...just shocked I say.... Focus, focus, focus! Cleaner, crisper. I had tried dozens of other homemade treatments. (I was rightly concerned that some blurring was occurring due to micro vibrations) Once I get an extra $1200 bucks I'll get the real thing, until then BIG IMPROVEMENT HAS BEEN SECURED ON THE CHEAP. Love this hobby! |
Save $1140, get 2 sets of Nobsound springs for $60. Then when you are ready skip right past Gaia and get the much better Townshend Podiums. Meantime the (21 year old) topic is cheap tweaks, so dig some rubber bands out of your kitchen clutter drawer and use them to isolate all your cables. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Just so you know this is from actual experience. |
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