Ender
Administrator
"I want my 2 dollars" - the "paperboy"
Posts: 183
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Post by Ender on Aug 31, 2014 22:17:04 GMT -5
I thought I would start a good thread on cheap tweaks.
Many of us are Audiophiles on a very limited budget.
So what cheap tweaks have you done and how did they work out?
I have to say on the list of cheap tweaks I need to do are DIY acoustic panels as the biggest factor is the room.
For me the best cheap tweak was to tweak my speaker placement, cost me nothing. Secondly is to clean my ears before a serious listening session.
For upgrades that cost MONEY, the best one I made was to buy a BlackCat Veloce Coaxial cable for 75 bucks. Night and Day difference the second I added it into the system.
And lastly my BEST upgrade to date is to get my daughter into music so its a daddy daughter thing.... which hopefully may pay dividends later on to allow me to justify upgrades.
So whats your best budget upgrade?
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tonyb
Guns
The 5 Star General
Posts: 2,662
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Post by tonyb on Sept 1, 2014 9:55:18 GMT -5
Ol' DSKIP is a class act all around.
Some other cheapo tricks, placement and room treatments being on top, are vibrapods or anything to reduce vibrations, speaker spikes....if you don't have them spiked already. Dynamat... Swapping out those cheap brass connectors on the back of your speakers. Used cables....power/speaker/IC's/digital coax.
Others that require some coin is getting off using a receiver for 2 channel, or at least using a separate dac of good quality.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2014 0:06:27 GMT -5
The Great Polkholio recommended replacing the spikes. Mine have spikes (RTi8), but they aren't pointy enough to penetrate my carpet and padding. My fronts don't have built in subwoofers, just a tweeter and two midrange drivers, would I still benefit from better spikes even though my speakers don't have a low end? Yes.
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tonyb
Guns
The 5 Star General
Posts: 2,662
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Post by tonyb on Sept 3, 2014 5:13:41 GMT -5
Yes to both questions pal. Replace those brass jumpers, even if it's with spare speaker wire you have on hand. Good spikes need to penetrate carpeting to anchor the speaker to the floor, which anchors the bass. These small tweeks may not give you a huge noticeable improvement, but some none the less. Still cheaper is a square piece of granite or wood to put under the speaker if you don't want to invest in better spikes or if you rent and the landlord may not look favorably to spike holes in the carpet.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2014 23:08:25 GMT -5
So far, my fave cheap tweak came back when I was powering my RTiA7 towers with the HK 3490 receiver, the day I spent all of $36 for 16 feet of Canare 4S11 speaker cabling. It was the moment I installed that stuff onto the right speaker in bi-wire arrangement only for a side by side comparison to the 12 gauge zip cord I had been using up til that time. The improvements in sound quality were very very noticeable. That stuff stuck around with the amplification improvement. I've since upgraded to used Transparent Audio Musicwave bi-wire cables. I will say this though, the Canare was the real ear opener into the beginning of my belief that everything matters.
And oh yes, the mismatch in speaker cabling was short lived, the left speaker was rewired with the Canare cabling after approximately 5 hours of listening to the mismatch.
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tonyb
Guns
The 5 Star General
Posts: 2,662
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Post by tonyb on Sept 7, 2014 7:47:11 GMT -5
I dunno if I'd spend the money Herm, on better spikes. While Polk's supplied spikes aren't the best in the world, I don't think upgrading the spikes in your situation will give you much in the way of better sound. Your sub is handling the low end anyway, that I would be more tempted to spike than the speakers.
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