Tweaks and Optimisation!

Tweaks and Optimisation!

Actually I'm a little uncomfortable with the word 'tweaks', as I prefer to use the word 'optimisation'. In that context I think it is a very important part of setting up any vinyl/ hi fi system 'in situ' in order to extract the best possible playback quality. The most important 'tweak' is my opinion anyway, is room acoustics. I believe the importance of optimised room acoustics is vastly undervalued and underestimated. If they spend large amounts of money improving room acoustics on live performance venues, shouldn't our beloved listening rooms deserve similar acoustic optimisation? I think, yes!

I can recall many listening experiences going back many years that have proven to me without the slightest shadow of a doubt how incredibly important good room acoustics are, and conversely how poor room acoustics can completely mess up an otherwise great system. Unless one exclusively listens via stereo headphones, acoustic optimisation affects every one of us who listen in any kind of 'room'. I am not an expert on acoustics but I've been unfortunate enough to have experienced some absolutely horrible room acoustics over the years! At all costs, avoid rooms with hard reflective walls and floors and certain dimensional profiles.

Sadly this residence is a great example of bad acoustics, having hard wood floors (not good for turntable mounting, as an aside) and similarly hard and highly reflective walls, causing effects all the way from completely destroying any semblance of a palpable stereo image to all sorts of frequency response aberrations! Thankfully in my main listening room two things have greatly improved the room acoustics, the eventual laying of thick carpet on the floor and the placing of the 'satellite' speakers on stands. Both of those changes improved things a lot compared to previously. My main listening room now mimics to a reasonable degree an 'anechoic' acoustic environment and perhaps just a little more 'lively', and I'm happy with it. My spare room system needs acoustic treatment, but by virtue of lots of general soft furnishings etc, the acoustics there are (just) acceptable. In my main room my subwoofer occasionally causes certain objects in the room to buzz and/ or rattle when excited by bass energy of a certain frequency. It has been difficult to completely solve that issue but a little acoustic 'damping' at various select locations has helped to a reasonable degree!

Back to actual 'component' tweaks, well as a technical person some tweaks are real and others, well......Mmmmmm. The human mind can be talked into believing anything, sometimes! I am a firm believer in 'loading' optimisation re phono cartridges and this has been a popular subject on the forums at VE and elsewhere in recent times. My M97xE's have been considerably improved by optimised electrical loading. Aficionado's of moving coil cartridges have been doing this sort of thing for many years! As for the many other possible tweaks, well once again some things can make a (positive) difference and some don't in my honest opinion! Re interconnects and speaker wires yes I prefer to use good quality interconnects not only for their defined capacitive qualities but also, although the effects are subtle, I do feel that well made interconnects do 'sound' better, but again don't go overboard with silliness! Sadly some do, but each to their own, I suppose!

Speaker cables are interesting. Yes 'resistive' losses can occur in cables but the cable/ terminal interface is possibly underestimated in importance in my opinion. I for one, have certainly seen and heard the value in keeping metallic contacts clean. In electronic terms, an oxidised piece of copper wire can go a little 'diodic' with one way and 'non linear' characteristics and resistive, causing subtle degradation of general audio quality. Although operating at much higher frequencies, these kinds of contact issues can cause havoc in radio systems and whilst less of a problem at audio frequencies I have still seen 'issues' develop. So this is one legitimate area to watch. The same sort of thing also applies to interconnect plugs and sockets as well. Sometimes turntables can be improved by the application of sound and vibration absorbent material as one of my turntables was, however in my case that was part of a solution to a bad vibration 'issue' as detailed in a earlier blog entry. Another important thing....a nice comfy chair positioned in that so called 'sweet spot'! More to come! Felix.