+1 on acoustic room treatments. Not sure this is considered “expensive”, but not super cheap either.
I now have the following GIK products in the listening room:
Corner bass tri-traps with the two behind my Sanders electrostats having the “range limiter” feature to reflect some high frequencies. These are in the three corners of our open-plan living room.
242 series 1’x4’ (x4) ceiling-mounted “cloud” absorbers above listening spots.
2’ x 4’ absorber/diffusors (x2); one on front wall between speakers and one behind primary listening position on kitchen island.
I agree the P20 is more component than tweak but Baldy is using his for BHK 300 stands and stands can be considered a tweak! So they must be fantastic stands! I’m sure they look fantastic!
Acoustic treatment certainly doesn’t have to be expensive, but some of it is. I went with RealTraps and the total with shipping was more than many of my individual components (diffusion added a lot). I’m very happy with the results, but I wonder if the extra expenditure was necessary. Especially since GIK is kinda just down the road.
Canadian dollar and on Fall sale, still not cheap at somewhere north of $500 for 0.7m, but a way better value than most.
Contrary to the VPI cable which is reasonably priced/compatible (being made of the same wire as that in the JMW tonearms) but perhaps uninspiring, and the over-a-grand Audience I tried and sent back (not even at the VPI level at $3x), this sounds great right out of the box. Also interestingly - contrary to the construction of both the VPI and Audience, which are both very lightweight (which I get - phono, after all) these are quite heavy and Beef-y. . See why below.
From their site:
"With a unique multi-conductor Ohno Continuous Cast (OCC) silver construction, the cable delivers all musical frequencies with ease. Silver purity is 99.99998% (7N). OCC silver does not possess the brightness/glare often associated with conventional silver due to the elimination of crystal boundaries.
Cable Geometry: Individual Teflon insulated solid core 24/26/28/30 AWG OCC silver conductor bundles for each signal path. Each conductor bundle is then inserted in a silk tube. An external polyethylene tube provides structural support and a double carbon fiber and braided copper shield provides pro-tection against RFI and EMI noise.
Source/Destination Connectors: Furutech FP-126 Gold-Plated RCA plugs with an OCC copper center pin. A 303 Stainless Steel shell replaces the stock Furutech shell to help minimize the effects of vibration and improve cable strain-relief.
Covering: The cable is finished with Techflex expandable sleeving.
Other Details: The wire and connectors have been cryogenically treated. Mundorf Silver-Gold Supreme Solder is used for all solder connections."
Those are what I was using from my DSD to my SGCD and on to my M700s when I had components. They were very good. I only compared them to various AQ products. I never tried the iconoclast.
Probably the better $1,200 you will spend. I’m about to spend the same on my little office 3x4m. A mix of Baux from Sweden and some panels from muffle.co.uk (the name gives it away).
Do these count as a tweak? Will find out this weekend.
Has anyone considered these? They are fabulous amps, been around for years, 500w/8ohms as mono blocks for $3,400 and 200w/8ohms as a $1,700 stereo unit. Fully balanced etc.
I heard the Sasha DAW pre-Covid and they were perhaps the most engaging speaker I’ve ever heard. It took a while to sort of get it out of my head, although it lingers.
I also agree to how good these cables are, I started off with his Statement interconnects and speaker cables, and over time, with pro rated trade in, I upgraded to his Signature Silver interconnects and USB cable. I also use his Signature speaker cable which is OCC copper but made the biggest difference in sound. Compared to the cost of other cables out there, I thought these were a bargain for the quality of sound achieved. Plus Steve offers a 30 day trial period.