The Oyaide Tonearm Cable: Everything matters. Really.
We're using this cable right now, and wow do we hear more music. It took me nearly a decade to come to terms with the simple concept that seemingly innocuous things, such as placing pennies under speaker spikes, or swapping out one cable for another one, can have such dramatic effects. Some you can explain by understanding a likely mechanism, and some ... you just don't know why, you just hear what. As an electrical engineer, my mind has to deal with quite a bit of cognitive dissonance once in awhile over this. And I just have to tell myself at that point that "as long as it sounds better, I shouldn't get too worried" when something that shouldn't make a difference, makes a difference. In fact, there is an ongoing debate, really heated sometimes, about various tweaks. Like American politicians discussing US policy - there is an awful lot of shouting, yelling, hurt feelings, and anger with no resolution. Thankfully your stereo doesn't end up shu...