Craziest tweak?

What's the most mentalist tweak you've seen? This gets my vote:

http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/rio5/rio5_01.html

A £400 ioniser that cleans the air (fair enough, negative ions attract dust) in order to enable the sound waves to travel the room easier... Really.

Interestingly, it also improves picture quality - not sure whether that's simply down to removing airborne particles from your line of site or by eliminating the light bending gravitation pull of dust... Maybe it just allows the protons to travel the room easier

 

You're on the wrong forum mate if you want to call this stuff crazy, believe me!

 

How about the CNC machined from Carbon Fibre sheet, Epos badges I have just made to replace the ones on my speakers. The original badges were lovingly recreated (by me) in CAD to look absolutely like a manufacturer item and the logo was CNC machined with a 1mm slot drill. I made a pair for myself and a friend (who's normally pretty tolerant wife was rendered quite speechless by the madness, excessive obsession etc of this particular mod).

I've got 3 more pairs too which I plan to sell to cover my costs, each badge is 28X24mm (1mm thick real CF sheet). Guaranteed to make your Epos speakers better (also spell SODA if fitted upside down).

 

Oh yes, that's a cracker!

 

believe you ...ha thats very good... arn't you the same person who said [and I'm paraphrasing] that you can't be bothered with tweaks....I left out the obscenities !

so it seems odd you want waste time bandwidth etc commenting on them unless of course you had other motives ?




As to tweaks

do you mean one's that work or don't ....

there are loads of mental tweaks ....

those that I've found ineffective ...

there are others that seem on the face of it ....but I alway think you have to try them first before you should make any comment...as things said in ignorance tend to come back and bite your bum

biwiring for starters just gives me more of the same
cryogenically treated things never heard the difference
stillpoint feet ...did nothing in my system
various metal cones ...most just damaged the support surface

the cost of some of these could have bought you many tens of cd's !

Things that work .....in mine and other peoples systems

Arkustic raumanimator .......bob muddles favorite [though he refused to accept an offer hear it !]
ic Cables of course to a lesser or greater extent
power cables
speaker cables
ball bearing feet
sorbthane
damping
mains conditioning

most of these you can do for pennies

 

Pete

I don't entirely agree with Bob here.

I guess its horses for courses though?






D.

 

I guess I meant those with comedy value; those which on the face of it appear patently ridiculous. Whether or not they work is a moot point and very subjective - someone somewhere (quite often me to be fair) will love whatever crazy tweak you care to name.

 

Who made those jars of pebbles - that was ace! not to mention inspired

...I like to put a can of beans behind the settee :duck:




http://www.machinadynamica.com/

now I remember... I think the phone calls the best!

 

Zanash, you mentioned ball bearing feet - can you explain? Also I've never heard of the raumanimator either. As far as equipment supports are concerned, I've taken to using squash balls (whole not cut as this defeats the advantage) that are either placed in fitted wooden cups or in aerosol can tops. The tops with inner circle protrusions will work best because it provides a ready made support for the squash ball. I then fill the bottom quarter of the 'cup' with a sand/leadshot mix. For most components three such supports do well, but one will need more for heavier components as the squash balls become more compressed. This approach is particularly useful for CD players and valve electronics (microphonics). I get the aerosol cans in the form of spray starch or carpet cleaner cans - any household cleaner spray can will do just look for the inner circle protrusion that is designed to cover the spray head. Some don't have this. Cost per can is $1 at my local 99cent store. The squash balls are 4 dollars for a pack of four of the best ones. It cost me about $6 to support most components (three feet). Mind you I think the till attendant must have thought I was the unibomber when buying 12 cans at a time.

 

Beans Beans good for the gear, the more you eat the more you hear!

 

Now that's what I'm talking about!

 

That's a rip-off for a start! Overcharging!

 

My understanding is that mechanical vibrations should ideally be drained way from audio equip such as cd players etc. These vibs are produced by movin pparts suh as the disk mototr etc.

The oak cones will themselves absorb some vibrations.

The balls (as Corky expressess it so well) though are held captive in their semii circular seats, are free to dissipate vibrations away also.

The cones also serve to minimise feedback resonance absorbed by the rack from acoustic energy from speakers.




Intersting idea for valve amps btw.......might try that!


edit; in my experience stability is they key word here.

The ball smust be a really close fit in cones.......but the balls should also be as free as pssible to move.

The sonic differnences I ahve experienced just with this 1/2 inch or so of oak on metal have been astonishing.

(IMO!!!!).

 

There is some impressively cracked stuff on the Machina Dynamica site. Yes the phone call "Teleporation Tweak" probably takes the prize - improves the colour and contrast on your telly too ... er, so they say.

I think Machina Dynamica is in reality some sort of Art project.

 

A £400 ioniser that cleans the air (fair enough, negative ions attract dust) in order to enable the sound waves to travel the room easier... Really.

======================

As a matter of fact there is nothing crazy about it. It is a well known effect. Also anyone-in-the-know will say that that particular device is nearly worthless since it produces iones with a very short live span and short travel distances. Whats worse - it may produce ozon as a result, which is dangerous. A proper ioniser which is capable of producing longer living aeroiones and will give you a real effect, needs to be at least 35kV, preferably 50, and it will be too large (no less than 1 meter in diameter) to be practical in a normal room.
PS And it has nothing to do with dust. If you are crazy enough to install your system in your garden prior to a thunderstorm, you will hear some dramatic if not jaw dropping changes minutes before the first lightning.
PPS and no, I am not crazy.

 

mwuuHAHaha! :beer: Nice one mate!

 

The most bizzare and plain crazy tweak that I know is disassembling the system. And I do not mean pulling out your interconnects and speaker cables.
You will need to get rid of the boxes and break all your equipment to pieces - transformers, circuits, anything which is possible - take it out of the boxes and hang it all independently by elastic stripes ( the longer the better, ideally they should be fixed to the ceiling) all these parts should be connected by wire, which is supported the same way. All connections should be hardwired and soldered , no jacks, no RCAs, nothing like this. Effectively it will be a skeleton of the system with all the parts hanging in the air. It will sound like nothing you have ever heard before. How about that for a crazy tweak. I know a man who actually did it. And some more, I will not elaborate here. It requires you to know very well what the hell you are doing.
I have to add that it may be extremely dangerous, and breaks all possible UK regulations, so please, please do not do it at your home.

 

David - thanks for the explanation. I can't say if the squash balls work for sure as I've not taken the time to evaluate closely. I do know my system sounds very good at present and does have my squash ball solution in place.

Zanash, With respect to your conclusion that bi-wiring makes no difference, I have found that bi-wiring can indeed take speaker performance up a notch. I've used 'shotgun'/jumpers, bi-wire, bi-amping and tri-amping. The Bi-wire advantage will I think be more evident on some speakers than others. The experiences I've had led me to the conclusion that bi-wiring can make a significant enough difference in terms of control and clarity, to use a bi-wire cable instead of a shotgun type - again the results may be different in each application.

 

I love those rooms at hi-fi shows where the Shakti fairy has been