A month or so ago, I was really a bit fed up with my modest system (Nova, ATC SCM19, Core, ancient low spec LP12). Some of this was due to a deterioration in my hearing and now having near permanent, as opposed to sporadic, tinnitus which has the effect of turning complex treble parts in particular into a sort of echoey mush. But I still felt it was not as good as it should be or even had been. Equally there didn’t seem much point spending a fortune on go faster bits and pieces which would be more appropriate for high end Naim systems.
Having read loads of threads on here, I experimented with moving the speakers around. And with some quite minor changes, really significant improvements were made albeit with a slight loss in precision of the soundstage. But I lost a lot of the harshness I was experiencing and gained vastly increased bass - quantity and quality. A couple of other tweaks brought further improvements - especially Vibrapods under the Nova and the most expensive addition - a Titan Audio Styx with Helios cable (got a good deal on it).
And there it stood. Today I got fed up with the rat’s nest of cables and spent a couple of hours tidying them up and trying to keep the power cables well away from the ethernet and speaker cables. I’ve heard of dressing cables but always thought that was irrelevant to my system. But the change has been both unexpected and dramatic. Well, dramatic is probably a bit of an overstatement but very noticeable and for the better. A wider, cleaner soundstage, more thump to the bass.
The system now sounds better than it ever has before and I am more than happy with it again.
I’m really rather chuffed and with minimum expenditure.