Three Universal Tweaks
IN SEARCH OF THE EXCEPTIONAL
BY ART DU DLEY
THIS ISSUE: Getting the best from your audio system at little cost.
Our small hobby contains many even smaller subgroups, some of them openly hostile to one another?itself a partial explanation for the whole small-hobby thing. I have been a card-carrying member of some of those groups, have lurked at the edges of others, and have ignored only a few?most notably that community of manufacturers who believe that the surest way to make a better piece of playback gear is to make it bigger and heavier and more expensive than anything else on the market: a group sadly notable for its influence over much of the reviewing community. Those exceptions aside, almost every approach to domestic playback gear has, at one time or another, had at least some appeal, and I?m lucky to have learned something from many of them.
Remarkably, some of what I?ve learned from those individual groups is applicable to all of the others: universal truths, so to speak. Much of that information can be distilled into bleeding chunks of hands-on advice on setting up, maintaining, and using a perfectionist-quality playback system. Here are three such tweaks?ones that I know, from experience, can benefit any good-quality hi-fi:
UNIVERSAL TWEAK NO.1:
PUT ALL OF YOUR SOURCE ELECTRONICS GEAR ON THE SAME PIECE OF FURNITURE, IDEALLY ON THE SAME SURFACE.
Some adherents to the Linn way of doing things will count this idea among the explanations1 for why Linn?s evergreen LP12 turntable works so well, and I believe they?re right: By fastening the platter bearing, platter, tonearm board, tonearm, and phono cartridge to a rigid subchassis, by choosing materials for those elements with care, and by resisting the knee-jerk temptation to apply physical damping to one or more of those elements, the savvy user who optimally assembles an LP12 ensures that whatever air- or structureborne vibrations affect one element affect all the others, to precisely the same extent, with no relative movement. That?s important, because when those elements move relative to one another, recorded information is lost or garbled, with musical timing and momentum seeming to suffer most.
Less appreciated is the fact that, whenever it is possible to do so, it pays to apply the same philosophy to the entire playback system: Placing one?s source components, preamplifier, and amplifier(s) on the same structure or surface ensures that they all perform in identical manner. Any vibration that affects one link in the chain will affect the others, thus preventing the miscues that can spoil the fragile illusion that takes place whenever electrically generated sound mimics music.
If your amplifier(s), or anything else in your system, won?t fit on the same rack or table or credenza as your turntable, your choices are three: trade in the offendingly large component for something of saner size; replace the supporting furniture with something similarly Brobdingnagian; or resign yourself to life with a physically unoptimized system. I believe you can guess the path that I would choose. (Hint: It?s the one of the three that might also provide financial gain.) You may also wish to consider an extreme version that I consider only slightly crazy: Some hobbyists report an enhancement of playback quality after placing beneath each speaker or stand a sheet of wood similar or identical to the sort used in their equipment rack, plywood being the likeliest choice.
But that in itself leads us to . . .
UNIVERSAL TWEAK NO.2:
REMOVE ALL SPIKED FEET FROM YOUR PLAYBACK SYSTEM AND SELL THEM FOR SCRAP.
Before the howling commences, I acknowledge that many users who are cursed with poured-concrete floors, ratty wall-to-wall carpeting, wavy planking, warped floorboards, or cupped or rotting floor joists may be forced to use spiked feet, the flaws of which are surely outweighed by the drawbacks of wobbling, toppling speaker enclosures.
And in fairness: Restricting a speaker?s ability to move is not the only purpose, real or theoretical, served by spiked feet. Spikes and cones are routinely described as ?mechanical diodes? and promoted for their ability to direct vibrational energy toward or away from pretty much anything, the classic example being that of high-tech cones that are engineered to drain energy, surely unwanted, from a loud-speaker into a floor. Within the past 20 or 25 years, we audiophiles have been conditioned to understand that said energy will travel only in whatever direction the point is pointing?just as we understand that our music travels in whatever direction the arrows on our interconnects and speaker cables point (and forget that it exists as an AC signal).
I admit: I have long been skeptical of the spike-as-mechanical-diode effect described above. And yet?John Atkinson?s own experiments in the 1980 and 1990s2 suggest that that effect is quite real. It seems that my skepticism?a product of the rhetorical question ?Since nails have been around since at least the Crucifixion, why did perfectionist audio not discover their usefulness until the 1980s, which was more or less the time we learned that treble, midrange, and bass notes prefer to respectively travel through treble, midrange, and bass wires???has been misplaced.
So I accept that energy can be persuaded, with the aid of spikes, to journey from a loudspeaker into a floor, or from an amplifier into a glass-and-steel rack, or from a tonearm into a tonearm board. But now I have a newer, simpler question: Why?
I mean: Since the dawn of what we now, regrettably, call high-end audio, numberless copywriters have hailed the abilities of this or that new product to couple or decouple or damp or stabilize or demagnetize or whatever else. And because those things are always being done to products that used to sound great but now sound fussy and edgy and airy and lacking in color and richness and substance, I can?t help wondering: ?Why? What makes you think that?s a good thing, let alone a necessary thing??
Yes, points and spikes and cones have an audible effect on the sound of a playback system. In my experience, there are few things that won?t affect the performance of a complex electronic or electromechanical device3? and any change in the interface between such a product and its surroundings will probably be audible, especially in the context of a very highresolution, wide-bandwidth system. Yet one must ask: Do those changes represent improvements in performance? or are they just changes?
And while I bow to no man or woman in my enthusiasm for speaker cabinets that remain motionless while their individual drive-units do all the vibrating, I believe the scenario cries out for a dose of common sense. It is, in my opinion, silly to worry about the minuscule degree to which unseen cabinet movements diminish or blur the excursions of treble and midrange drivers when, at the same time, those drivers are observably more vulnerable to intermodulation from the bass driver(s) bolted to the same baffle. What do spikes accomplish for such a loudspeaker? If anything, such mounting will free the bass driver to add even more energy to the outputs of the higher-frequency drivers.
But hey?don?t dump your spikes on account of some theory that purports to explain a phenomenon you can?t see. Get rid of them because your system is likely to sound better without them: less fussy, less hi-fi, more natural, and more like music. Ditch the spikes and, in their place, adhere to the feet of your stands or to the bottoms of your speaker enclosures a set of nice, thick, self-adhesive felt pads. The lossiness of the felt is usually sufficient to make up for any unevenness of your floor?or minute differences in the lengths of the legs of your stand or rack?and the pads will both protect fine wooden floors from medieval torments and make it far easier for you to adjust your speakers? positions. You can give up spiking and still be an audiophile. And if you find you preferred the sound of your system with a full complement of spikes . . . well, you can always reinstall them, easy-peasy, and the rest of us won?t think less of you for it.
UNIVERSAL TWEAK NO.3:
BUY A SINGLE, SIMPLE, DECENTQUALITY POWER STRIP, AND PLUG INTO IT EVERY PRODUCT IN YOUR SYSTEM.
If Universal Tweak No.1 has one foot in the Linnosphere, Tweak No.3 owes a debt of thanks to the folks at Naim Audio. From its beginnings, Naim has flown the flag for star-grounding, whereby an amplifier or preamplifier has within it one preeminent signalground point, to which all its component parts are tied directly, through connections of similar length and impedance and without shortcuts. The reason is simple: Although an ideal ground is a point of zero potential, unless care is taken, with multiple ground points, the voltage at one ground may be higher than the voltage at another? and the current that will consequently flow between the ground points exists as noise.
Early in their existence as a manufacturer of amplification separates, Naim took that concept a step deeper into Audioland and designated the ground point within an outboard preamplifier power supply as the central signal-ground point for a complete Naim-based system?hence the company?s famous insistence on driving the power amp with a signal picked up at that power supply instead of at the preamp itself.4 Similar attention has been given to the obviously related matter of mains grounding within a Naim system: In the late 1980s, some of Naim?s UK dealers began experimenting with a modification that earned the informal and unabashedly Ian Fleming?esque name Hydra. They gathered up the AC cords in an exemplary Naim-based LP-playing system?turntable power supply, preamplifier power supply, and power amp(s)?then cut off their plugs and connected all those cords to a single and presumably hefty AC plug.
Voil?: instant, system-wide, mains star ground.
The Hydra met with success among the UK faithful?but reportedly, for whatever reason, it didn?t sound so hot over here. Consequently, Naim?s then US distributor, Naim North America, began searching for the next best thing: a high-quality, non?current-limiting power strip with low electrical froufrou factor. In about 1995 they found such a thing in Wiremold?s L10320: a nine-outlet, 15-amp power strip that came complete with nothing: no switch, no light, no circuit-breaker, no metal-oxide varistor, no fuse. Naim NA actually began distributing Wiremold L10320s to their dealers, and Naim enthusiasts on this side of the Atlantic embraced them. So, too, did many of us who appreciate the musical and sonic hallmarks for which Naim is known, but who use electronics from other manufacturers.
Although it appears the Wiremold L10320 is no longer in production (Wiremold was acquired by the French manufacturer Legrand in 2000), some claim that stocks remain plentiful, and similarly simple products can be found?all for under $100, and most for considerably less. These products work! Put one at the heart of your system and you?ll hear subtle but real reductions of noise: Music will seem more present and colorful, and the silences between notes will seem less like something and more like nothing. I?m less certain about the benefits, often claimed by the faithful, of imposing on one?s components a particular order of plugin, typically giving pride of place?at the end of the strip nearest the strip?s own AC cable?to products presumed to draw the most current. I?ve experimented along those lines without reliably hearing a difference, but I nevertheless go along with the game, if only because it?s easy and free.
Stripped of all noise
Universal Tweak No.1 can cost as little as nothing, though I suppose there are hobbyists who, lacking a perfect piece of furniture on which to place their hi-fi gear, will feel compelled to buy something new. (I suggest plywood or hardwood?but never softwood, such as pine.) Universal Tweak No.2 might compel the audiophile to spend a few dollars on felt pads, though he or she might also show a profit on the scrap value of all those spikes. Universal Tweak No.3 will cost under $100.
Yet I?m reminded that there are people?not only here in the West, and certainly not only audio enthusiasts? whose nature it is to disregard products or procedures that cost too little. To those hobbyists I recommend, sincerely and without cynicism, a variation on Universal Tweak No.3 that requires a bit more money and delivers on its promise.
From AV Options?which sprang from the ashes of Naim North America and is the authorized US service center for all Naim Audio products? comes the SuperWiremold Deep-Cryo power strip ($399), which is precisely what its name describes: a Wiremold L10320 to which a few enhancements have been applied. According to Chris West of AVO, the SuperWiremold begins life as a stock L10320 strip, then is subjected to deep-cryogenic treatments at ?320?F??fundamentally for improved conductivity,? West says. ?The deep cryo is done here in the US. And it?s not just a matter of getting something to a deep temp: It?s doing it under very controlled circumstances. This process brings [the strip] back up in stages, taking 36 hours altogether.?
Additionally, the Wiremold?s AC cord is retrofitted with a Wattgate 5266i AC plug?both cable and plug also get the deep-cryo treatment?and its aluminum case is mounted on a plinth of solid, hand-finished maple that?s 16" long by 3.5" wide by 1.75" high, fitted with four silicone-rubber AcoustiFeet from Acousti Products. The wooden base, according to West, ?isolates the unit, gets it away from the floor, and damps it a little, too.?
The very first recording I listened to with the AV Options strip in place was a limited-edition (1982) MoFi UHQR LP of the Beatles? Sgt. Pepper?s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Capitol/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFQR 1-100): a mint copy of a virtually perfect stereo mastering of an ?berfamiliar landmark recording, elements of which suffer the dulling and compression effects of the Ping-Pong-ing of individual tracks. As I recently observed of another hardware upgrade, replacing my stock Wiremold L10320 with AVO?s SuperWiremold Deep-Cryo strip was very much on a par with going from incorrect to correct absolute polarity for a given recording: Blurring of which I hadn?t been consciously aware was lessened, voices and solo instruments stepped forward in the mix, and the sound as a whole seemed just a tad louder.
In the days since installing the AVO strip, I?ve heard it make the same refinements in other recordings: the changes are always subtle, but always unambiguously for the better, in terms of both musical qualities and sheer sound. Not bad for a $399 tweak that takes less than five minutes to install. Incidentally, the folks at AV Options point out that Wiremold?s original outlet spacing is geared more toward traditional North American AC plugs than the extra-large, hospital-grade plugs from Wattgate et al; in systems in which all the AC cords are terminated with the latter, the nine-outlet AVO strip can accommodate a maximum of five plugs.
IN SEARCH OF THE EXCEPTIONAL
BY ART DU DLEY
THIS ISSUE: Getting the best from your audio system at little cost.
Our small hobby contains many even smaller subgroups, some of them openly hostile to one another?itself a partial explanation for the whole small-hobby thing. I have been a card-carrying member of some of those groups, have lurked at the edges of others, and have ignored only a few?most notably that community of manufacturers who believe that the surest way to make a better piece of playback gear is to make it bigger and heavier and more expensive than anything else on the market: a group sadly notable for its influence over much of the reviewing community. Those exceptions aside, almost every approach to domestic playback gear has, at one time or another, had at least some appeal, and I?m lucky to have learned something from many of them.
Remarkably, some of what I?ve learned from those individual groups is applicable to all of the others: universal truths, so to speak. Much of that information can be distilled into bleeding chunks of hands-on advice on setting up, maintaining, and using a perfectionist-quality playback system. Here are three such tweaks?ones that I know, from experience, can benefit any good-quality hi-fi:
UNIVERSAL TWEAK NO.1:
PUT ALL OF YOUR SOURCE ELECTRONICS GEAR ON THE SAME PIECE OF FURNITURE, IDEALLY ON THE SAME SURFACE.
Some adherents to the Linn way of doing things will count this idea among the explanations1 for why Linn?s evergreen LP12 turntable works so well, and I believe they?re right: By fastening the platter bearing, platter, tonearm board, tonearm, and phono cartridge to a rigid subchassis, by choosing materials for those elements with care, and by resisting the knee-jerk temptation to apply physical damping to one or more of those elements, the savvy user who optimally assembles an LP12 ensures that whatever air- or structureborne vibrations affect one element affect all the others, to precisely the same extent, with no relative movement. That?s important, because when those elements move relative to one another, recorded information is lost or garbled, with musical timing and momentum seeming to suffer most.
Less appreciated is the fact that, whenever it is possible to do so, it pays to apply the same philosophy to the entire playback system: Placing one?s source components, preamplifier, and amplifier(s) on the same structure or surface ensures that they all perform in identical manner. Any vibration that affects one link in the chain will affect the others, thus preventing the miscues that can spoil the fragile illusion that takes place whenever electrically generated sound mimics music.
If your amplifier(s), or anything else in your system, won?t fit on the same rack or table or credenza as your turntable, your choices are three: trade in the offendingly large component for something of saner size; replace the supporting furniture with something similarly Brobdingnagian; or resign yourself to life with a physically unoptimized system. I believe you can guess the path that I would choose. (Hint: It?s the one of the three that might also provide financial gain.) You may also wish to consider an extreme version that I consider only slightly crazy: Some hobbyists report an enhancement of playback quality after placing beneath each speaker or stand a sheet of wood similar or identical to the sort used in their equipment rack, plywood being the likeliest choice.
But that in itself leads us to . . .
UNIVERSAL TWEAK NO.2:
REMOVE ALL SPIKED FEET FROM YOUR PLAYBACK SYSTEM AND SELL THEM FOR SCRAP.
Before the howling commences, I acknowledge that many users who are cursed with poured-concrete floors, ratty wall-to-wall carpeting, wavy planking, warped floorboards, or cupped or rotting floor joists may be forced to use spiked feet, the flaws of which are surely outweighed by the drawbacks of wobbling, toppling speaker enclosures.
And in fairness: Restricting a speaker?s ability to move is not the only purpose, real or theoretical, served by spiked feet. Spikes and cones are routinely described as ?mechanical diodes? and promoted for their ability to direct vibrational energy toward or away from pretty much anything, the classic example being that of high-tech cones that are engineered to drain energy, surely unwanted, from a loud-speaker into a floor. Within the past 20 or 25 years, we audiophiles have been conditioned to understand that said energy will travel only in whatever direction the point is pointing?just as we understand that our music travels in whatever direction the arrows on our interconnects and speaker cables point (and forget that it exists as an AC signal).
I admit: I have long been skeptical of the spike-as-mechanical-diode effect described above. And yet?John Atkinson?s own experiments in the 1980 and 1990s2 suggest that that effect is quite real. It seems that my skepticism?a product of the rhetorical question ?Since nails have been around since at least the Crucifixion, why did perfectionist audio not discover their usefulness until the 1980s, which was more or less the time we learned that treble, midrange, and bass notes prefer to respectively travel through treble, midrange, and bass wires???has been misplaced.
So I accept that energy can be persuaded, with the aid of spikes, to journey from a loudspeaker into a floor, or from an amplifier into a glass-and-steel rack, or from a tonearm into a tonearm board. But now I have a newer, simpler question: Why?
I mean: Since the dawn of what we now, regrettably, call high-end audio, numberless copywriters have hailed the abilities of this or that new product to couple or decouple or damp or stabilize or demagnetize or whatever else. And because those things are always being done to products that used to sound great but now sound fussy and edgy and airy and lacking in color and richness and substance, I can?t help wondering: ?Why? What makes you think that?s a good thing, let alone a necessary thing??
Yes, points and spikes and cones have an audible effect on the sound of a playback system. In my experience, there are few things that won?t affect the performance of a complex electronic or electromechanical device3? and any change in the interface between such a product and its surroundings will probably be audible, especially in the context of a very highresolution, wide-bandwidth system. Yet one must ask: Do those changes represent improvements in performance? or are they just changes?
And while I bow to no man or woman in my enthusiasm for speaker cabinets that remain motionless while their individual drive-units do all the vibrating, I believe the scenario cries out for a dose of common sense. It is, in my opinion, silly to worry about the minuscule degree to which unseen cabinet movements diminish or blur the excursions of treble and midrange drivers when, at the same time, those drivers are observably more vulnerable to intermodulation from the bass driver(s) bolted to the same baffle. What do spikes accomplish for such a loudspeaker? If anything, such mounting will free the bass driver to add even more energy to the outputs of the higher-frequency drivers.
But hey?don?t dump your spikes on account of some theory that purports to explain a phenomenon you can?t see. Get rid of them because your system is likely to sound better without them: less fussy, less hi-fi, more natural, and more like music. Ditch the spikes and, in their place, adhere to the feet of your stands or to the bottoms of your speaker enclosures a set of nice, thick, self-adhesive felt pads. The lossiness of the felt is usually sufficient to make up for any unevenness of your floor?or minute differences in the lengths of the legs of your stand or rack?and the pads will both protect fine wooden floors from medieval torments and make it far easier for you to adjust your speakers? positions. You can give up spiking and still be an audiophile. And if you find you preferred the sound of your system with a full complement of spikes . . . well, you can always reinstall them, easy-peasy, and the rest of us won?t think less of you for it.
UNIVERSAL TWEAK NO.3:
BUY A SINGLE, SIMPLE, DECENTQUALITY POWER STRIP, AND PLUG INTO IT EVERY PRODUCT IN YOUR SYSTEM.
If Universal Tweak No.1 has one foot in the Linnosphere, Tweak No.3 owes a debt of thanks to the folks at Naim Audio. From its beginnings, Naim has flown the flag for star-grounding, whereby an amplifier or preamplifier has within it one preeminent signalground point, to which all its component parts are tied directly, through connections of similar length and impedance and without shortcuts. The reason is simple: Although an ideal ground is a point of zero potential, unless care is taken, with multiple ground points, the voltage at one ground may be higher than the voltage at another? and the current that will consequently flow between the ground points exists as noise.
Early in their existence as a manufacturer of amplification separates, Naim took that concept a step deeper into Audioland and designated the ground point within an outboard preamplifier power supply as the central signal-ground point for a complete Naim-based system?hence the company?s famous insistence on driving the power amp with a signal picked up at that power supply instead of at the preamp itself.4 Similar attention has been given to the obviously related matter of mains grounding within a Naim system: In the late 1980s, some of Naim?s UK dealers began experimenting with a modification that earned the informal and unabashedly Ian Fleming?esque name Hydra. They gathered up the AC cords in an exemplary Naim-based LP-playing system?turntable power supply, preamplifier power supply, and power amp(s)?then cut off their plugs and connected all those cords to a single and presumably hefty AC plug.
Voil?: instant, system-wide, mains star ground.
The Hydra met with success among the UK faithful?but reportedly, for whatever reason, it didn?t sound so hot over here. Consequently, Naim?s then US distributor, Naim North America, began searching for the next best thing: a high-quality, non?current-limiting power strip with low electrical froufrou factor. In about 1995 they found such a thing in Wiremold?s L10320: a nine-outlet, 15-amp power strip that came complete with nothing: no switch, no light, no circuit-breaker, no metal-oxide varistor, no fuse. Naim NA actually began distributing Wiremold L10320s to their dealers, and Naim enthusiasts on this side of the Atlantic embraced them. So, too, did many of us who appreciate the musical and sonic hallmarks for which Naim is known, but who use electronics from other manufacturers.
Although it appears the Wiremold L10320 is no longer in production (Wiremold was acquired by the French manufacturer Legrand in 2000), some claim that stocks remain plentiful, and similarly simple products can be found?all for under $100, and most for considerably less. These products work! Put one at the heart of your system and you?ll hear subtle but real reductions of noise: Music will seem more present and colorful, and the silences between notes will seem less like something and more like nothing. I?m less certain about the benefits, often claimed by the faithful, of imposing on one?s components a particular order of plugin, typically giving pride of place?at the end of the strip nearest the strip?s own AC cable?to products presumed to draw the most current. I?ve experimented along those lines without reliably hearing a difference, but I nevertheless go along with the game, if only because it?s easy and free.
Stripped of all noise
Universal Tweak No.1 can cost as little as nothing, though I suppose there are hobbyists who, lacking a perfect piece of furniture on which to place their hi-fi gear, will feel compelled to buy something new. (I suggest plywood or hardwood?but never softwood, such as pine.) Universal Tweak No.2 might compel the audiophile to spend a few dollars on felt pads, though he or she might also show a profit on the scrap value of all those spikes. Universal Tweak No.3 will cost under $100.
Yet I?m reminded that there are people?not only here in the West, and certainly not only audio enthusiasts? whose nature it is to disregard products or procedures that cost too little. To those hobbyists I recommend, sincerely and without cynicism, a variation on Universal Tweak No.3 that requires a bit more money and delivers on its promise.
From AV Options?which sprang from the ashes of Naim North America and is the authorized US service center for all Naim Audio products? comes the SuperWiremold Deep-Cryo power strip ($399), which is precisely what its name describes: a Wiremold L10320 to which a few enhancements have been applied. According to Chris West of AVO, the SuperWiremold begins life as a stock L10320 strip, then is subjected to deep-cryogenic treatments at ?320?F??fundamentally for improved conductivity,? West says. ?The deep cryo is done here in the US. And it?s not just a matter of getting something to a deep temp: It?s doing it under very controlled circumstances. This process brings [the strip] back up in stages, taking 36 hours altogether.?
Additionally, the Wiremold?s AC cord is retrofitted with a Wattgate 5266i AC plug?both cable and plug also get the deep-cryo treatment?and its aluminum case is mounted on a plinth of solid, hand-finished maple that?s 16" long by 3.5" wide by 1.75" high, fitted with four silicone-rubber AcoustiFeet from Acousti Products. The wooden base, according to West, ?isolates the unit, gets it away from the floor, and damps it a little, too.?
The very first recording I listened to with the AV Options strip in place was a limited-edition (1982) MoFi UHQR LP of the Beatles? Sgt. Pepper?s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Capitol/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFQR 1-100): a mint copy of a virtually perfect stereo mastering of an ?berfamiliar landmark recording, elements of which suffer the dulling and compression effects of the Ping-Pong-ing of individual tracks. As I recently observed of another hardware upgrade, replacing my stock Wiremold L10320 with AVO?s SuperWiremold Deep-Cryo strip was very much on a par with going from incorrect to correct absolute polarity for a given recording: Blurring of which I hadn?t been consciously aware was lessened, voices and solo instruments stepped forward in the mix, and the sound as a whole seemed just a tad louder.
In the days since installing the AVO strip, I?ve heard it make the same refinements in other recordings: the changes are always subtle, but always unambiguously for the better, in terms of both musical qualities and sheer sound. Not bad for a $399 tweak that takes less than five minutes to install. Incidentally, the folks at AV Options point out that Wiremold?s original outlet spacing is geared more toward traditional North American AC plugs than the extra-large, hospital-grade plugs from Wattgate et al; in systems in which all the AC cords are terminated with the latter, the nine-outlet AVO strip can accommodate a maximum of five plugs.
