DIY

I recently received a note from my friend Richard who cobbled together an isolation base for his BHK 300 power amplifiers from a butcher block and rubber inner tube. He's gobsmacked at the improvement in sound quality. I'll bet that's true. Vacuum tubes and capacitors produce fewer artifacts when isolated from vibrations. Personally, I use our own PowerBase platform, a premade device with similar intentions. But Do It Yourself (DIY) has been with us since hi-fi's earliest days. I can remember the very first high-end audio cables we made from masking tape and signal wire. The beauty of DIY is three fold: it's customized to your application, it's low cost, it's fun. With the understanding my friend Richard either has a dedicated man cave or a very tolerant significant other, the notion of cobbling together an inner tube and butcher block for significant audible improvement—at a very low cost—has an appeal to many of us that goes deep to our cores as hobbyists and tinkerers. I am too lazy any more to DIY stuff, preferring instead to grab something off the shelf, or design it properly. But I am always impressed at the ingenuity and creativity of DIY.