9 hi-fi tricks you might not believe affect sound quality (but they do)

I used to put 4 Tennis Balls under my Granite Slab then my amp before finding sheets of Sorbothane.

One we can add is Listening during a Snow Storm or after a deep snow. It deadens a lot of external noise.
 
I need to find some blue squash balls for my Pass Amps. :yahoo1:

I own the Russ Andrew cable lifters. They do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the sonic quality of my system - but they do make easier to keep the cables clean and thy match my Quadrasphire racks. The Shunyata ones I borrowed for a few days did help the sonics, but just a little ...

Listening in the dark is good.
 
Yea, a lot of this stuff might make a little difference in ideal situations. Cables, certainly, cable risers, probably not, but they look cool so why not :).

I have seen some isolators that actually hurt. I have some cone isolators that really hurt under my turntable as an example. The Ginko arches don't appear to do anything but they look cool under the speakers and my wife prefers them to the spikes going directly into the carpet.

So some stuff helps, some does not. I also believe that there are situations in which anyone of these suggestions may actually help a tiny bit.
 
Randy Myers said:
Yea, a lot of this stuff might make a little difference in ideal situations. Cables, certainly, cable risers, probably not, but they look cool so why not :).

I have seen some isolators that actually hurt. I have some cone isolators that really hurt under my turntable as an example. The Ginko arches don't appear to do anything but they look cool under the speakers and my wife prefers them to the spikes going directly into the carpet.

So some stuff helps, some does not. I also believe that there are situations in which anyone of these suggestions may actually help a tiny bit.
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Agreed. I'm considering some vibration pads - at .62 cents each it won't break me if they don't work :scholar:

-https://www.supplyhouse.com/Diversi...5Q4zct3O1pfFVSi32ROUvIE8JhzHIatxoCP7kQAvD_BwE
 
They look reasonable... but I don't know... they are kind of expensive :D...

Seriously though, what items (gear) would it be good to put these under?
 
Calvin said:
Agreed. I'm considering some vibration pads - at .62 cents each it won't break me if they don't work :scholar:

-https://www.supplyhouse.com/Diversi...5Q4zct3O1pfFVSi32ROUvIE8JhzHIatxoCP7kQAvD_BwE
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The guy who patented the original Iso-Pads is Steve Monte from Quest for Sound, local to me. I never tried them. What I did was buy a 12 inch square sheet of Sorbothane, 1/2 inch thick and used a Metal Shear to make 2" squares which go under all the feet of my gear, or I take the feet off and place right to the bottom of the unit. My TT sits on a 1" thick Granite slab resting on the pads before the shelf.

One of the best tweaks I ever did was putting my speakers on the Granite Slabs, really cleaned up mushy and boomy bass.
 
Randy Myers said:
They look reasonable... but I don't know... they are kind of expensive :D...

Seriously though, what items (gear) would it be good to put these under?
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If I did them they would go under my Luxman SACD Player and possibly the Aurenders. I'm not sure they would be useful under anything else.
 
Shadowfax said:
The guy who patented the original Iso-Pads is Steve Monte from Quest for Sound, local to me. I never tried them. What I did was buy a 12 inch square sheet of Sorbothane, 1/2 inch thick and used a Metal Shear to make 2" squares which go under all the feet of my gear, or I take the feet off and place right to the bottom of the unit. My TT sits on a 1" thick Granite slab resting on the pads before the shelf.

One of the best tweaks I ever did was putting my speakers on the Granite Slabs, really cleaned up mushy and boomy bass.
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That is cool. I don't have bass problems, but I do have some excess granite left over in the garage. You have me thinking for sure.

The only thing I've done to my speakers - and that today - is take out the isolation discs from under the front spikes, while leaving it on in the back. This aimed the speakers just very slightly downward towards my listening position. It sounds really good right now. But I'm playing a SACD I'm not familiar with, so we will see in a little while.
 
One of the tips is slightly mis-stated, but really works and is free. I think Jim Smith mentioned here a while back. Stop your disc (CD, DVD, SACD, whatever) after a few seconds and restart it from the beginning. IME you only have to do that at the beginning of the CD if you then play it through; if you want to listen starting somewhere other than the first track, do the same thing but just return to the start of that track. I haven't tried to check this out with hard drive, network or computer playback, but some of you who listen that way frequently can easily and quickly test it for yourself.
 
Randy Myers said:
I have seen some isolators that actually hurt.
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If they hurt, they change the sound. So, probably there are somewhere another ones that can do things right.

rbbert said:
One of the tips is slightly mis-stated, but really works and is free. I think Jim Smith mentioned here a while back. Stop your disc (CD, DVD, SACD, whatever) after a few seconds and restart it from the beginning.
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This is the one thing of the 9 tricks that I can´t say it works. Don´t misunderstand me. What I say is: in my system, with my ears, I can´t notice any difference. But I have not the best system and, despiste my name :P, my ears have their limits too.
 
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