How far Do You Tweak?

Ignoring the aesthetics, that room, to me looks like a deluxe dungeon, I would rarely or never willingly go and listen to music in there.

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Wonder what a (live) string quartet would sound like in that room?

I focus on power supply, isolation and decent cables all of which i cam hear a difference. Have never considered cable risers etc

Same for me. Itā€™s sanitised.

I bet it will sound better in an open amphiater like this. My intuition.

That room doesnā€™t look inviting - not even pleasantly finished, while with level ceiling isnā€™t even an ideal shape. And indeed, for me a large window with a good view between the speakers would be desirable during the day. Of course many people live in places where there isnā€™t a good view during the day - in which case false windows with light close to natural daylight - or better still large screens giving a virtual view of anywhere in the world - mountains, tropical island, beautiful garden, stormy sea, a coral reef under water, all of which potentially could be live if sourced from webcams. Or even views out of this world such as from the Hubble Telescope. Actually, reflecting on it, the virtual window approach has considerable attraction compared t a real window overlooking my garden and hills beyond!

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Hifi sounds far better outdoors - though I think in a beautiful garden rather than an amphitheatre would both look better and avoid reflections. Room treatment is trying to remove the inevitable adverse effects of a room - no room at all removes them without compromise. I am speaking from having experienced the best sound Iā€™ve ever heard from a hifi system, a lesser one than the one I have today, which was with it playing in the open air in a garden (details in another thread somewhere on here). The amphitheatre approach is to give an audience somewhere to sit with a view, and reflection of unamplified instruments and voice to make them adequately audible to the entire audience.

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Mostly just ensure cable dressing is as good as I can achieve. Some limited room treatment (if that counts) has made some worthwhile improvements

I like that idea: Iā€™d have dark Finnish forests for Sibelius.
ā€œAncient, mysterious, brooding savage dreamsā€¦ā€
to quote the notes on Tapiola.

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It looks like a tweak is anything that isnā€™t a black box or something supplied with a black box. Tweaks are fun, sometimes cheap, and often upgrade every component. A good rack and a good power strip each brought me a mind-boggling upgrade. At a thousand dollars, I guess I get to call my adeptResponse power strip a ā€œmains blockā€.

I think others have suggested a bit more that to me seems to suggest along the lines that a tweak is anything that isnā€™t one of the system components (black boxes, speakers, interconnects etc) as selected, or recommended by the dealer, for optimal set up, or their initial installation and set up in the room to the userā€™s satisfaction.

If you take Naim as an example, at shows and in house, they pay obsessive attention to careful setup and cable dressing, but in terms of ā€œproductā€ tweaks do nothing. No cable lifts. No boxes of magic crystals. No ethernet regen. Not a sausage.

Though they never confirm nor deny, I suspect they do have industrial grade isolating transformers for both the factory as a whole and to separate the listening rooms from the workshop machinery.

I think Naim does a lot of tweaking before a product goes into production/sale. They surely know about most of the tweaky products and market trends out there and Iā€™m pretty sure a # of them find their way to Salisbury for testing & auditioning.

A small but telling example imo are the ā€˜simpleā€™ nickel plated banana sockets on the power amps with the matching plugs for the NACA5 that come with the amp. Or the nickel plated bananas on the factory terminated NACA5.
Market expectation would surely favour more shiny ā€˜audiophileā€™ looking terminals en plugs and Naim knows that too. But they still stick to what they think sounds best.

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I would add : ā€¦ā€¦what they think sounds best for the costs involved.
So I think some tweaking, or optimisation, with of course adding a cost, can improve the sound, even the Naim intended sound.

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Given that Naim products generally donā€™t appear to be built to a specific market cost, and given their stated dedication to achieving the sound they believe in, that limitation would only seem likely to apply to their lower grade products and demos thereof.

Agree with the Naim Fraim even if it bends the question rules slightly having had two Fraims for three months. I was really suprised at how much an improvement could be gained from a carefully set up of bits of wood, glass and metal cups etc. Not the cheapest upgrade looking at the parts invoved but for any doubters: go for it.

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Not necessarily. For instance the Fraim : they choosed glass shelves because it sounded the best for the cost. However they observed that steel or aluminium shelves would sound better, but the rack would cost much more.
Solstice turntable : the design of the phono and choice of cartridge is to be inside < 20 k euros budget. If not they would add an improved Superline / Supercap.

I think itā€™s important to clarify that the best sounding material tested was the special alloy plates - these were made perfectly flat (flatter even than glass) and were similar to the special interface plates used on the SL2 speakers. They were difficult to make in quantity and very, very expensive. The Pilkington glass eventually chosen was close though; close enough to be chosen as these were not only far easier to make but also much less expensive.

Youā€™d probably want to avoid steel shelves.

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Indeed, and this a where a one layer of tin foil can work as a shim under the CD555 foot on a very slightly uneven glass shelf. Now where is my duster when I need it :rofl: ATB Peter

I suspect the gap may be more to do with foot thickness tolerance than that amount of variability in glass flatnessā€¦. I do often wonder why manufacturers donā€™t use 3 feet instead of 4, for absolute stability.

(Tin or aluminium foil? I guess latter!)

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