ok guys, enough teasing! time for the latest
SNAKE OIL UPDATE! (SOU) 
many thanks to
@harkpabst and
@Fender for encouraging me to continue to spew nonsense!
i'm humbled. hopefully this doesn't disappoint... also a thanks to all those who are participating in the thread and keeping things relaxed. i might finally be able to see/hear beyond Black and White albums now and percieve some of the wonderful colours in life!!
(the B+W playlist is available at:
https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/20768317 please feel free to add any albums that have B+W covers to it.
)
all the "tweaks" will be
graded in out of 5.
Since the last SOU i've made the following modifications to my system:
- active speakers are now powered with: Audiophonics 24V/100W LPSU () + Titan Audio
Nyx power cable () + MCRU (No. 18 model - really beefy cable) figure-8 power cable for subwoofer ()
- all ICs have been "upgraded" () - returned the QED reference 40 subwoofer cable in lieu of the viablue NF-B cable with tellurium copper connectors + switched from Fisual pearl "medical-grade" plastic toslink>minitoslink cable to Oyaide DST-75R V2 coax (to connect WiiM Pro > ifi S/PDIF ipurifier)
- optimised my Atacama speaker stands by filling them with Atacama atabites. ()
- begun the process of treating anything that seems reasonable to me with fo.Q** special proprietary broad-spectrum damping materials developed with the support of JST
(Japan Science and Technology Agency)! (
) 
WARNING - extreme danger of snake-oil poisoning with these items. caution when procuring the products is essential, as imperfections in the cold storage chain can impact the performance and safety profile of the snake oil. Handling by untrained professinals is NOT advised!! I will not be held liable for any personal injuries sustained when handling or listening to the effects of these items - including but not limited to throwing your back out while busting a move to some Daft Punk. 
i started with my speaker>stand interaction. i've placed the fo.Q SB-2025 audio boards under my speakers on top of the stands (swapped out the Fluance high-density acoustic foam pads) and i've added the fo.Q CP-02 carbon fibre spacers underneath my PSUs (topping p50 LPS + audiophonics LPS).
- Placed the entire digital chain of the signal on an (as of yet) unreleased bamboo, carbon fibre + liquidmetal "independetly-suspended multi-platform hydraulic component mounting system" (ISMPHCMS
). (
) developed by Furutech in collaboration with Shunyata Research and Quantum Science Audio (QSA). 
they were giving these away at the bristol Hi-Fi show and i won one at the hot dog eating contest that QSA held on the sunday! 
apparently these will be released later on in 2024 alongside a bigger version that can accomodate chunky traditional separates. keep an eye out for them at Munich high-end. 
but be careful, this stuff is really RADIOACTIVE snake oil foo and it is not recommended AT ALL, outside of carefully monitored experiments. i think it looks pretty cool too 
some eye candy for you pervs:
that's the digital signal chain sitting on the
ISMPHCMS - WiiM pro sitting on the top platform
i know my cable management leaves much to be desired!!
(any suggestions? preferably i don't wanna involve something like blu-tac)
the WLAN repeater in bridge mode - sitting on top of a double layer EMI shield
"protecting" the digital chain below
speakers on top of the
fo.Q audio boards
the
Titan Audio NYX power cable
going into the
audiophonics LPS
Atabites - better than sand or lead imo. no fuss, no cleanup and hopefully non-toxic!
ok so now onto the
impressions:
The biggest difference overall was from 1. I would even say that this has been a bigger jump in SQ than when i switched from wifi in my WiiM pro to ethernet (via a
tp-link WLAN repeater in bridge mode) which was previously the biggest jump.
The sound is so much more textured and immediate... overall so much more enjoyable. I guess it's because the DAC/amp + crossover (in the active speakers) are all happier now with a cleaner sip of water from the LPS?!
I've noticed less fatigue/discomfort from listening at higher (than my average SPL levels). It's weird - the music is not as "annoying" to my ears over extended periods of listening... I rarely ever listen to music over 75 dB (peak) for longer than 20-30 minutes without a break, and this would usually come naturally sort of like when you've quenched your thirst... But recently it's been tempting to just keep listening to whatever is playing!
so i have to consiciously take breaks now!!
i’m now enjoying listening to overplayed songs that i’m very familiar with, too
i found myself listening to "
Duality" by Slipknot on repeat just because i was enjoying how amazing the drums sounded!
another thing that i noticed is that recordings seem to have an increased dynamic range - even those that are known to have been compressed in the loudness wars.
e.g. i can still feel the percussion in my chest when listening, but i can do this at lower overall volumes. a cool semi-objective A/B test to do when a new change is made to your system is checking the dB(min) vs dB(max) using your SPL meter when playing the same songs… it’s obv not 100% scientific, but you might be surprised at the results
there are other semi-objective benefits that i’ve noticed and pointed out in other posts - improved off-axis performance, more pinpoint soundstage and imaging - creating a “sphere” of music that feels more natural. along with the more subjective improvements like more life-like timbre and the increased “weight” of sounds in the room etc. i was listening to "
Lost Forever" by Tony Njoku and now some of the sounds from the piano feel like they're coming out of the walls/cieling! it's a very well recorded album and now i feel really like i'm in the studio when they were recording it. before it felt a bit "detached". similarly when listening to "
Birds" by Dominique Fils-Aimé, the double bass in the recording almost bursts out into the room and you "feel" its presence somehow...
Variation in performance of the system seems to have decreased as well. You know the way people say stuff always sounds better at night? Yeh well I was able to test this, and I'm happy to report that now my system pretty much sounds the same whenever I wake it up from sleep. Even when people are supposedly using microwaves etc during the day supposedly causing a reduction in the quality of AC you are getting from the mains outlet.
There is still slight "thinning and drying" of the sound at times during the day, but much less than before...
The second biggest difference was with 4 - the
fo.Q audio boards under my speakers especially. i noticed that sounds now have a more characteristic decay and harmonics that brings the overall effect closer to that of a live performance with real instruments... e.g. the decay of cymbal hits and rimshots is much more delineated and the timbre of instruments is much more pleasing. whatever you might say about the sonic qualities - the damping performance is truly phenomenal compared to the fluance high density foam.
even at loud volumes i cannot feel vibrations at the top of my stands AT ALL (the unfilled part - they are approx 75% full of the atabites). i'm gonna continue to experiment with this vibration damping stuff (the sekf adhesive strips + carbon fibre spacers etc), and i'll see what kind of interesting uses i can come up with.
the manufacturer recommends and people on other forums have tried these on capacitors within components + wrapping ICs and other cables in their system with sheets of the stuff. i'm thinking about swapping the fluance foam pad underneath my WiiM Pro for the
fo.Q CP-01 carbon fibre spacers and maybe sticking some of the self-adhesive strips on the gaskets of my woofers + sides of the ipurifier etc.
more subtle ones were 2 + 3. i returned the
QED sub cable because i didn't notice a difference in sound but i preffered the PRICE
of the
viablue cable. the rhodium-plated tellurium copper connecter also should (theoretically at least) improve the overall conductivity of the signal path.
i did enjoy using the fancy new
QED "Analoc
2" connectors cos you feel that you always get a reliable tight contact. but it wasn't enough to justify the price difference and the viablue cable is technically better in almost every single aspect - shielding, conductors etc. (except for flexibility/manouverability - it's much chunkier and the braided weave makes the bending radius even larger)
3 (atabites): i wanted them just to improve the stability of the stands and they did seem to reduce sibilance a slight touch - but it's subtle if there is a difference and keep in mind i only A/B'd this for a few days when i was using the fluance foam pads under my speakers so sonically i would say i'm uncertain they had a clear effect. but the added weight to my stands makes the whole setup feel more secure and high-end (haha how vain are we?)
i'm still evaluating the effect of 5 on my system so i will report back when i'm done with that...
+ i'm waiting on some ferrite cores and a new LAN cable to use between my WLAN repeater and the WiiM pro too in a common mode noise-rejection configuration... might be tempted to replace the generic cheapo USB cables in my system with supra/oehlbach ones like i advised
@wqhpop to get. but overall, i feel like i'm pretty close to extracting the most out of my system from a sound reproduction standpoint, and so most of my future tweaks will probably involve room acoustics or vibration damping.
in the mean time, feel free to share if there's any foo out there that i should be spending my money on instead of pulling the trigger on an
AIWA F-880 casette tape deck that i've been eyeing for a year now, and that keeps slowly increasing in price
** a lot of eagle-eyed readers and those trying to "read between the lines" etc will misunderstand my intentions behind introducing the community to this amazing
fo.Q brand. i'm not an employee (the company is actually defunct now as far as i can tell
) i'm also not
AT ALL trying to say "
fo.Q" to the moderators or the users on this forum.
just that i love this brand so much, it's now my favourite audio brand of all time even though i've only had the products a few weeks! probably says a lot more about my personality than anything else...
i guess you could say i'm fo.Q'ed up in more than one way!
BONUS FOO for every WiiM user - it's Grade AAA premium snake oil available for the extraordinary price of FREE!!
all jokes aside, a hi-fi company called audio engineers? must be garbage... right?
you can decide for yourself - but i find this to be the most complete burn-in audio available for free that i combine with others.
@steadyshot mentioned the excellent tara labs CASCADE CD which is also good. but for extra audiophoolery - you can use the ascending/descending sweeps in these burn in files to test for room modes/other glaring room acoustic issues by ear. + i like the sound of combining
white noise, pink noise, blue noise, purple noise and brown noise on the same disc!!
(pun intended)
(one of those is coming very soon, and i promise to anyone who cares it's gonna be a good one! 
Besides - chat GPT will be installed in your glasses/headphones/hearing aids in the future, so no need to worry about learning anything anymore haha 
most of the impressions are indeed my genuine opinions. And yes, the delivery is intentionally satirical because I want to convey a degree of self-awareness, even if I sound insane to myself!
