It has always been a revelation to me that when one strips out all of the tweaks and listens to their system that all too often the sound is better without. The reality is exactly what howiebrou said a few days ago "that once you go down the rabbit hole it is difficult to remember what sound you used to have". To me that means "all bets are off"
I always treat as suspect when I'm at someones house and want to hear what something sounds like with and without the tweak or modification and they refuse for a variety of reasons. I was one of those people myself until ddk convinced me to listen to my system before and after removing tweaks I had added. Not only was it shocking but it was a revelation as those rabbit holes do become deep
Ummmm, Steve, I perceive tho hast openeth up rabbit holes.
1. Surely you would agree there exists superior as well as inferior tweaks and accessories and methods just like there exists superior and inferior components, speakers, rooms, etc. And as usual, the number of inferior versions greatly outweigh the superior. At the very least the law of probabilities is not in anybody's favor.
2. We should always be suspect of everything and everyone, especially in a overwhelmingly subjective audio-only hobby.
3. I've had a few visitors request to hear the system without my "tweaks" and "accessories". I mention to them the 5 months it took for my amps to settle in using my extreme mounting method, the 18+ months for my line conditioners to settle in using an even more extreme mounting method and 3 years later still hearing an occasional little improvement, my rack 8 months to settle in and it hasn't budged one mm since October, 2011, etc. And then I say, sorry but that's just not going to happen. Before I mount a new component in place, I first install a cryo-treated fuse and open up the lid to check every possible connection and fastener I can find for tightness, because once it goes in, if it's good enough it's not coming out until it dies. Shoot, if somebody asked, I wouldn't even remove my little custom speaker cable lifters that took 4 days to settle in. Not to sound insulting, but nobody is worth going thru such efforts. Except maybe Katie Perry and even then she'd better be wearing a short skirt with her hair in pig tails.
4. As somebody mentioned in a tweaks thread a while back something about you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, my reply was,
"Show me an out-of-the-box SOTA-level playback system and I'll show you a me-too hi-fi system aka a sow's ear. Show me a humble but extremely well-thought-out playback system fine-tuned with certain superior "tweaks" and "accessories" and methods and I'll show you a playback system with levels of musicality few if any can match aka a silk purse."
Or something like that.
Anyway, chances are pretty good, if it's easy to install and uninstall and re-install it's probably not very benefiical, otherwise everybody would be doing it.