Enhacements

I receive a lot of letters asking for advice. More often than not, that advice request leans towards how to fix what the writer already has.

How do I fix the brightness, increase the soundstage, or make the speakers disappear? Cables? Diffusion? Setup?

And my response nearly always opens with a question about what you already have. Why? 

Two reasons: set up is number one, and "fixing" what you have is nearly always the wrong answer. Wrong because we're so hesitant to make wholesale changes that we can become stuck.

Adding a brighter cable to beef up the top end is not just a crutch, it's a sure-fire way of obscuring the real problem.

Here's my rule of thumb for proper and effective enhancements that actually make something better as opposed to fixing what's wrong. If what you do makes better that which is right in the system, then it's legit and moving you forward. A pair of footers for an amplifier might enhance that which already works as opposed to some bell or whistle that makes up for a weakness.

Band-Aids and crutches are fine if you're ok with a temporary fix while you gather the resources for the right tools, but don't think of them as the cure.