Art Dudley Listening

The Top Nine Stupid Audiophile Tricks My attitude toward the Strangest Tweaks on Earth has long been motivated by a simple axiom: As long as insane amounts of money aren't involved, then surely there's no harm in trying. Yet even I have to admit that some efforts at improving sound are so patently dumb, so titanically ignorant of the way things actually work, that they wound the very concept of human intelligence: That's where the goddam harm is. Thus my list of the Top Nine Stupid Audiophile Tricks, in no particular order of imbecility:

1) Removing all of the sound-absorption material from inside a loudspeaker cabinet
2) Stuffing the inside of a turntable platter with modeling clay
3) Wetting the surface of an LP prior to playing
4) Cleaning LPs with sandpaper
5) Assigning record-cleaning duties solely to your stylus, and then . . .
6) Cleaning your stylus, apparently with sandpaper
7) Replacing all the oil capacitors in vintage electronics with contemporary styrene caps
8) Replacing all the styrene capacitors in contemporary electronics with vintage oil caps
9) Ear-candling