(Nearly) Free Tweaks

Willow

even the medical field has snake oil.
It feels good anyhow.
How do we know that article wasn't written by a Naysayer?

VR3

Doctors clean your ears out with a water pic of sorts...

I dont recomend doing this yourself - but it works very well...

Dont think Id want anything sucking anything out of my ears...lol

PolkThug

Candle experiment. http://altmed.creighton.edu/ear/experiment.htm

Polkersince85

I think we have gone from "tweaks" to "freaks". IMO Maybe with the wax out, you will hear the "tw"

Early B.

OK, back on topic. I just painted my nuts. No, not those, the cap nuts on my amp. Screws, too. I wanted to get a more appealing look. Not necessarily a tweak, per se, but it helps visually while I'm listening to music 'cause what looks better sounds better. Same concept in golf -- you buy clubs that look nice, hoping they will improve your game.

Polkersince85

I tried turning the volume up on my preamp, wow, now it's a lot louder. Worked great.

scottnbnj

drops and a bulb that you buy in the drug store work. next time you're at the doctor ask if it could help or hurt.

)

Polkitup2

SACD and DVD-A, all speakers set to large, position them the same distance from your melon, rock on!

Frank Z

Polkitup2 wrote:

SACD and DVD-A, all speakers set to large, position them the same distance from your melon, rock on!

Not a really good tweek. There are plenty of recordings that will blow the drivers if the full range signal is sent to a speaker that can't handle the lower frequencies. Telarc's 1812 Overature is a prime example of a multichannel disc that needs to be played at a low level to ensure that you don't grenade your speakers.

Polkersince85

A good source for an isolation mat is these 1/2"-3/4" thick exercise mats. I often find them in thrift stores for less than a buck or two. Cut them up to size, put it on the shelf, a piece of glass, set the cd player on it and rock on.

janmike

The best tweak was convincing my wife that good equipment, and I mean everything, is important. Works for me!

Polkitup2

My point with SACD and DVD-A is to hear them as the engineer intended, you need five large speakers placed equal distance from your listening position. I know with my setup I also have to select source direct mode on my Denon 3910 otherwise the DSD signal gets converted to PCM to which bass management is applied. So if I set my speaker's to small, I am getting converted to PCM

Frank Z, I have Telarc's war of 1812 that comes with the warning label about being recored at a high level. Nice recording. I always though that by setting my speakers to large if I had smaller speakers that couldn't reproduce the low extension that I would simply lose that portion of the signal. You're saying I could actually blow my drivers?

Also, if you liked the cannons in the War of 1812 you might like the DVD Master and Commander. The cannon shots in that movie put Telarc's a to shame IMO.

Frank Z

Sure can, but you'd have to put some power into them as well. Why risk it?

If your speakers are designed to reproduce a specific frequency range. Feeding them a full range signal is not going to make them sound better, they'll sound worse. Let your sub handle the low range and let the smaller speakers do what they to best, mids and highs. You just might notice an improvement in detail and clarity from a lot of your favorite music. Chances are that your receiver, preamp, or cd/dvd player has some sort of bass management feature that will allow you to not only select the correct size but you might even be able to select the crossover points for the individual speakers as well.

So I guess another free tweak would be to become very familiar with the operation of each piece of equipment we own. I know that there are quite a few features that I wasn't aware of untill I really dug into my AVM-20 manual.

Don't just plug and play, spend some time reading as well.

Now where'd I put that stack of manuals.......

dkg999

Use some CAIG deoxit and a Q-Tip to clean the IEC connection on your components, both the plug on the power cord and the metal conductors on the component. Amazing how much oxidation you will clean off! And it seems to make some difference in SQ.

For sound deadening panels, use 1" to 1 1/2" foam blue board from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. Cover with your choice of fairly heavy fabric and use small nails to fasten to the drywall. Worked wonders behind my Maggie 1.6's.

To separate components for better airflow, buy wooden toy wheels from Hobby Lobby, usually the 2 1/2" by 3/4" thick ones. Paint with some black water based paint and use 1/16" sticky back foam from Walmart cut to size on both sides of the wheel. Works very nicely to get some additional air flow and when painted black with black foam, nicely hidden from view.

michael_w

What kind of foam is this blue board stuff?

ode

Polkitup2 wrote:

My point with SACD and DVD-A is to hear them as the engineer intended, you need five large speakers placed equal distance from your listening position. I know with my setup I also have to select source direct mode on my Denon 3910 otherwise the DSD signal gets converted to PCM to which bass management is applied. So if I set my speaker's to small, I am getting converted to PCM

I thought that small speakers are ones designed to be used with a subwoofer, they aren't able to reproduce anything below 200hz. Large speakers are ones designed to reproduce the entire range. It has nothing to do with the size of the speaker.

Frank Z

Ode,
You are correct.

Polkitup2

Ode,

I should have said "full range" instead of large. I was referring to the setting of large in my DVD player which implies a full range speaker.

Emlyn

ode wrote:

I thought that small speakers are ones designed to be used with a subwoofer, they aren't able to reproduce anything below 200hz. Large speakers are ones designed to reproduce the entire range. It has nothing to do with the size of the speaker.

Even a small speaker like the LSi7 has a -3dB point of 53Hz. Almost all home speakers (including the SDA-SRS) can't manage clean output below around 25-35Hz without exceeding the -3dB point. So, a large subwoofer is almost always necessary in home systems to get high SPL's from 80Hz down to 20 Hz.

Multichannel DVD-A and SACD are mastered in recording studios with sound systems such as Genelec active monitoring systems that have five full range active monitors (around 20Hz to 80kHz) and a subwoofer that is set to cut off around 19Hz. These systems are capable of easily producing 136dB SPL's and aren't anything like most home audio/home theater speaker systems.

Polkitup was correct that all speakers in a home environment need to be set as "large" to achieve the same effects as in the recording studio for multichannel music. This isn't usually possible in the home environment, but if one wants to get close to the experience as heard by the recording engineers in the studio on a multichannel DVD-A or SACD release of a recording one really does need to have big floorstanding speakers and adequate amplification for the job. It was too much of a hassle for me, so I've gone back to just two channel systems. That's a good tweak really--go back to two channel music, it costs less than multichannel.