I am motivated to start this thread to facilitate a dedicated and an informed discussion about this aspect of our hobby as opposed to a Zu centric or other component centric exchange.
A useful starting point for me is what should we regard as a tweak.
I don't see cables be they interconnects, speaker cables, power cables or usb and ethernet cables really qualifying as tweaks. To me they are part of the audio mainstream and there is overwhelming experience and evidence that they do make a real difference to sound quality. How you divide your spend between cable and amps/sources is an entirely valid issue. In general ,and to use an old English proverb, I do not believe you can turn a sows ear into a silk purse. Or in other words the spend on cables needs to bear a sensible relationship to the spend on the component concerned. No point in spending a small fortune on cables for a "budget" amp or whatever. Far more cost effective to buy a better amp.
As a long term proponent of the benefits of grounding I approach that feature in the same way. IME experience it is cost effective but it makes no sense to buy a Tripoint Emperor and Anaconda cables to connect to a system of mid priced kit. Investment in grounding needs to be proportionate to the rest of the system. Indeed, I can see the argument that you should shun grounding completely and use the saving to spend on upgrading other aspects of the system.I do not agree with that but I can see the logic. It's a matter of maintaining a sensible balance IMHO.
Vibration insulation is another issue on which I take the same view.
I won't seek to try and set out an exhaustive list of tweaks/real or alleged performance products, but it does seem to me that we could all benefit from a sensible discussion on this topic if only because the evidence suggests that it is all too easy to get the balance of investment in ones system expensively wrong.
Interesting thread. Considering that roughly 65% of my entire system’s cost is dedicated to many of the so-called “tweaks” and “accessories” mentioned in this thread, my take is perhaps a bit out of the ordinary.
The words "tweak" and "accessory" by their very definitions imply insignificant contributors and since both terms are often times used synonymously and interchangeably, so will I. Ignoring for the moment all the potential superior/inferior designs, materials, treatments, and installation methods (superior means everything) many of the tweaks and accessories listed in this thread just so happen to apply either to the electrical energy management or mechanical energy management sectors.
That’s interesting because about 6 years ago I reached the conclusion that even though electrical and mechanical energies are a basic requirement for any playback system to even function - that when under-controlled or poorly managed these same two energies will utterly cripple our sensitive components’ precision and accuracy such that they can only perform at a small percentage of their real potential. Thus leaving a majority of the music information embedded in a given recording (regardless of format) so distorted that even though read and processed, much of the info remains inaudible at the speaker due to a much raised noise floor. A universal performance-limiting governor if you will (think hi-fi sound).
Few if any can agree on what is most important in a playback system as that horse has been beaten to death many times. But hopefully most would agree that whatever is truly most important must apply somewhat universally to every playback system and that becomes the foundation for which to build any playback system.
It’s fundamental from an architectural building structure perspective that the structure’s foundation is paramount to the structure’s performance and longevity. I’m also convinced that for perhaps every performance-oriented industry, it is the foundation that ultimately determines the performance of whatever is placed on top of it.
Try thinking of a playback system as a vineyard where every component/object has its place in the vineyard with little or no overlap (impact) into other parts of the vineyard. That is, unless its related to the electrical or mechanical mgmt. sectors which impact all or nearly all parts of the vineyard.
Sure upgrading a tiny fuse in a single component may be considered somewhat of a joke. But when all fuses are upgraded in all components the laughter turns to a little smile. Even more impacting when all AC plugs, outlets, and IEC connectors are upgraded to superior versions. Vast improvements can be achieved when installing/upgrading to superior line conditioners for all components. Still more significant gains can be achieved when all cables, fuses, connectors, and outlets are cryo-treated. Still more gains can be achieved when such electrical objects are cryo’ed via the superior cryo’ing method.
With every superior upgrade to the foundation, it’s simply observing the sonic gains exponentiate as perhaps every part of the vineyard is impacted. The keyword being superior. Superior products, designs, treatments, and installation methods. Thus implying there exist plenty of inferior types that give the illusion of little or no sonic benefits can be had.
If you haven’t noticed, what we’re talking about here is building blocks. Building piece by piece a superior foundation to address universal distortions induced by electrical and mechanical energies that severely cripples every last component when left untreated. Moreover, it’s imperative to note that building such a foundation requires an all or nothing effort. Especially for the mechanical energy mgmt. sector. A token or half-assed effort is hardly better than no effort. Whereas, applying an extreme focused effort is potentially life-changing as every component built on this foundation is allowed to perform far closer to its real potential. IOW, when taken to the extreme, you just might eventually conclude that the components and speakers from the buy-sell merry-go-round are the real tweaks and accessories when it comes to performance. Even though this seems bass-ackwards.
If I stop here and consider my entire foundation complete, most any playback system employing superior electrical tweaks / accessories including those ingredients listed above will have already achieved a level of musicality few other systems can match. But the electrical energy mgmt. sector only gets us maybe 1/3rd of the way toward a well-rounded complete and superior performing foundation. The other 2/3rds falls to the mechanical energy mgmt. sector.
So when you ask, “Is a tweak a sensible investment or a waste of money?” my broad-brushed response is, that depends. Not on the tweak but on your own mindset, the importance you place on performance, and your end-game plan toward experiencing real musical pleasure. For example. There are those who arrive at the drag strip with hubcaps removed from their station wagons to lower wind resistance and there are those who arrive with their finely-tuned fully-blown Top Fuel dragsters indicating one group is taking performance far more seriously than the other.
Maybe a better question is, when you think of a building structure’s foundation, do you envision the foundation as a single unit? Or do you envision all the various products, designs, ingredients, and installation methods that make up a superior foundation e.g. rebar, cinder blocks, beams, cement, stones, columns, packed soil, curing times, frames, etc? And do you envision that the responsibility has to fall to somebody to assemble a superior foundation?
You said, “I do not believe you can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.” But I say, show me a playback system regardless of cost that employs few or no so-called tweaks and/or accessories and I’ll show you a playback system that cannot rise above the all-too-common me too hi-fi sound aka a sow’s ear.
Alternatively I say, show me even a humble system that employs superior versions of these so-called tweaks and/or accessories i.e. superior designs, materials, and installation methods (aka a well-thought-out foundation) and I’ll show you a playback system with a level of musicality aka a silk purse that is perhaps unmatched by any other system regardless of cost.
IME, this explains exactly why a few years ago a well-regarded amp designer admitted in another forum when discussing measurements that every last one of his designs as well as every other designers’ designs included at least one serious and unknown flaw that could not be measured. Having never heard his designs, my response to him was that his designs contained no such serious unknown flaws but rather his designs were simply incomplete without being properly installed in a playback system employing a superior foundation that would allow his and others’ designs to soar far beyond the universal performance-limiting governor. My response was not well-received even though I touted his designs far higher than he did.
The bottom line is, whether we realize it or not and whether superior or inferior every last playback system is built on this same foundation whose performance is determined solely by our desire to sufficiently manage electrical and mechanical energies – bar none.
