Modifying My HiFi

I have had rather skeptical attitude towards the "vibration control" - type of tweaks in audio, although I actually did many such modifications in my X-DAC project. However as much as I love the result from that project, I can't really tell how much the damping of the different parts helped in the end.

Now moving to the next component in chain is the Vincent SV-236 hybrid integrated. It has three 12AX7/ECC83 tubes in the pre-amp section. I thought that the next step of improving my system would be damping of the the SV-236 tubes.

After some googling & reading I decided to order PEEK HAL-O 9's from Herbie's Audio Lab. Installed the rings and then after quick listening I reported back to Steve (from Herbie's Audio Lab) that I could hear some "subtle improvement" in the sound. Now that I have had more time for listening I can say that the improvement from HAL-O 9's is not just subtle, but really substantial. There is a significant improvement in sound definition, which does make the sound a little bit less "airy" but more realistic.

# posted by Pekka Immonen @ 12:15 AM