To Tweak or Not to Tweak

that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous non-perfection,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them and
achieve the ultimate musicgasm?

Well, to take arms in our case does
not mean harikari but reading lots of
forum posts by people of questionable
pedigree, sending lots of money to
people you just know have a tinfoil hat
nearby just in case [not that there is
anything wrong with that], and trying
the tweaks out late at night when you
know you won't get seen 'doing it'.
The deep dark secret is that most
tweaks do do something. In fact, most
conservative technology probably
starts out in life as a tweak. You really
think that Roosevelt didn't at least
once or twice, before White Sands,
think Einstein probably kept some
extra tinfoil around the house?
The problem is, Is it a good tweak?
And although most tweaks will not
nuke your system, one has to consider
the short and long-term harmful
side-effects.
Every technology has harmful
side-effects. Most technologies in use
are used because the benefits were at
least at one time seen to outweigh the
side-effects. Sometimes we later
discover that the side-effects are just
too onerous. To avoid having to
endure these side-effects, often for
years, one has to pay attention
upfront, to seek out and discover the
harmful side-effects before a
commitment is made.
This means paying attention to
harmonics and tone, to compression
and micro-dynamics, to naturalness
and emotion. This means experiencing
disappointment after disappointment,
and shrinking bank accounts. But after
all that, it is still a heckuva lot of fun.

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