This article is a repost of the three-part series originally published as Make Your System Sound Better Now.

Listening to music is one of the most important things in my life. I’ve embarked on a lifelong quest to find ways to better immerse myself in the music and, as faithfully as possible, capture the stories musicians tell their audience through their art. 

Reaching a higher level of performance and musical engagement from my system has been a steep learning curve and taken me to places I never thought possible. My personal journey to optimize my hi-fi equipment has been a phenomenal experience, one that I use to help others get the most out of their own gear.

So, how do you get the most musicality from your current stereo system and where do you start? This is my journey and your mileage may vary, but I do believe it may be an eye opener for you.

Many years ago, I was quite naïve about knowing how to get the best from my system, and relied completely on my stereo sales guys and their advice. However, after spending a lot of money on equipment and speaker upgrades, I still wasn’t completely satisfied with my sound. That’s when it occurred to me that surely there must be ways to get better performance from the equipment I already owned, rather than continually spending more money on new gear that failed to live up to my expectations. I wanted to get off the audio gear merry-go-round, and only upgrade because I wanted to, not because I had an incurable case of upgraditus.

In my many years of trials and errors with component upgrades and tweaks, I discovered many great improvements. My experience and knowledge have allowed me, and continue to allow me, to improve the sound of systems in other homes. So far, I’ve helped optimize stereos in 12 different countries in Europe and North America, where I visited over 110 different homes.

To achieve higher levels of playback performance and, ultimately, get me closer to the music, I took a multi-level approach. Some of the tweaks are free, some inexpensive and some moderately priced, but collectively, the techniques I’ll show you have significantly elevated the sound quality and musicality of my system, and others I’ve applied them to.

During my house calls at people’s homes, I bring along a tool kit of items to facilitate the sound-optimization process. This kit includes a laser distance measurer, a digital torque wrench (0.2-5 Nm range), a carpenter’s level, a tape measure, copper tape and other EMI shielding materials, IKEA Gunstigs, IsoAcoustics ISO-PUCK minis, an AC noise sniffer, EMI Trifield meter, a set of electronics drivers and bits for the torque wrench, as well as a set of mini electronics screwdrivers. A USB stick with some of my 24 bit reference music is also helpful, as well as a sound pressure meter. I also bring along audiophile grade Ethernet cables and audiophile digital switches, and some higher end power cords for demo purposes only. I don’t have anything to sell, I just want to demo what the audio equipment can do.

I always ask the owner to play some of their favourite reference music to hear what their system sounds like and get an idea of what potential steps to take next. I also ask what they like and dislike about their system and what they think would make their system sound better.

Speaker Setup and Positioning

Speaker positioning may sound like an obvious step, but it’s one that’s often neglected. Done correctly, it can not only dramatically transform the sound in your listening room, but make the music sound very good in adjacent rooms in the house.

The process involves moving around the speakers into their ideal position, or at least into the best position your room dimensions or significant other will allow. This process includes careful listening to reference tunes you’re extremely familiar with. I usually limit the number of tunes to 3 or 4 so I don’t get overwhelmed trying to process possible differences between tracks every time I make a change to a speaker’s set up. It’s usually helpful to invite a friend or two over, whose hearing you trust, to provide critical feedback.

For listening, I use (Scottish audio company) Linn’ s Tune Dem method, humming along to the music in my head. I follow the tune, the pace, the rhythm and timing, as well as the musical presentation. This involves playing 20-30 second snippets of the music, over and over, as you make adjustments to the positioning of the speakers. I don’t just listen to the music, I observe how it feels to me physically, to my body. When the music sounds and feels right, it is right.

Using a laser measure, I measure distance from front and side walls, as well as toe-in and distance to the listening position. I make sure the front left and right speakers are exactly the same distance from the front wall (behind the speakers), and, if the room allows it, the same distance from the side walls and toe-in angle. 

I set toe-in to give a good centre image, as well as a large soundstage that has depth, width, and height. That said, some speakers may not require toe-in.

It’s important that speakers be levelled so that they’re exactly vertical and on solid footing with no wobble on the spikes. Intuitively, it might not seem to make sense that levelling the speakers vertically can make much of a difference to sound quality, since the speakers disperse the sound in a similar fashion whether they are fully level or with a slight tilt. However, levelling the speakers definitely made a difference in my room and those of others I’ve visited—the music sounded slightly more solid and coherent.

After I place the speakers on solid footing, I use a carpenter’s level on top of the speaker cabinets to ensure the bubble in the level is centred from all angles. If not, I’ll adjust the spikes or footers accordingly.

If you’re using spikes on the bottom of the speakers in a carpeted room, it’s critical that the bottom of the speaker’s cabinet is not still resting on the carpet, as that can result in a presentation that will sound muddied or lifeless. You may wish to experiment by using a piece of marble on top of the carpet, under each speaker to rest the spikes on, or a thick bamboo or maple cutting board that is larger than the footprint of the speakers.

I personally don’t use spikes for my speakers. With my Linn Akubariks speakers, I replaced the spikes with IsoAcoustic Gaias, and the improvements in sound quality were astonishing. What surprised me most was that as the Gaias settled in with the weight of the Akubariks on them, the sound quality continued to improve over the next 12 hours. In fact, my Akubariks had taken on a whole new persona, adopting a sound signature I hadn’t experienced before. 

Something else that can have a profound effect on sound quality is the torque values of bolts holding the speaker drivers to the cabinets. I have found that the bolts loosen over time or during shipping from the factory. In my case, with my speakers, I learned from an online forum that the recommended torque setting is 0.85 Nm for the 3K super tweeter, tweeter, and upper mid array, but this can vary depending on personal preference. I own a Sealey digital torque wrench and adjusted the torque of my 3K tweeter-midrange array bolts according to the .85 Nm setting with remarkable results.

Your speaker drivers may require different torque settings for optimal performance. I suggest you ask your dealer or the manufacturer, or a hi-fi forum, for the recommended torque settings for your model of speakers. Or, you can experiment on your own and determine what sounds best to you. The results you can achieve from proper torque setting can be astonishing.

Cable Spaghetti

Cable spaghetti is the term used to describe the nest of cables and power cords behind the hi-fi cabinet. Cables touching each other can have an extremely negative effect on sound quality, especially when it comes to the electromagnetic interference (EMI) power cords transmit to signal cables, including Ethernet cables, RCA interconnects, HDMI cables, and speaker wire.

Behind my hi-fi cabinet was one of the worst cases of cable spaghetti I’d seen, with at least 30 cables lumped together. The good news is that reorganizing cables is a free fix and just requires us to spend some time behind the cabinet, separating the cables from each other, but especially the power cords from the signal cables. I have noticed, on virtually all occasions, that doing so brought significant gains in sound quality. Ethernet cables are especially sensitive to the corruptive effects of EMI generated by power cords, and so should be kept away from any power cord by a distance of at least eight to nine inches.

I have a TriField EMF (Electric and Magnetic Fields) meter that can measure the amount of electromagnetic interference from a power cord. It’s easy to measure an EMI field the whole length of a power cord with a TriField meter, which acts similar to a Geiger counter, but instead of measuring radiation, it measures EMI. I slowly sweep the power cord with the TriField meter, repeating this process with each power cord, to see, on the meter’s screen, the intensity of both the energy along the length of the cord and away from it. That way, I know how far to keep the signal cables and power cords apart.

In cases where it’s difficult or impossible to get proper separation between a power cord and signal cable, I wrap the signal cable near the power cord with copper tape, which is an effective shield against power cord-emitted EMI. I never wrap a power cord in copper tape because the tape is conductive and could cause electrocution if there’s damage to the power cord. I use copper tape only on low voltage signal cords such as Ethernet cables, HDMI cables, and RCAs.

Since I’ve found Ethernet cables to be most susceptible to EMI, those are the cables that I prioritize, although other signal cables will benefit from separation from each other and shielding. The improvements in sound quality can be substantial, with much clearer and transparent mids and highs, tighter, deeper bass, and a bigger, better-defined soundstage.

I built a simple wood lattice support fitted with horizontal copper-lined steel conduits to separate and channel the power cords and cables away from each other. Doing so provided obvious gains in sound quality, not to mention in visual appearance!

Mitigating Vibrations

Talk of tweaking a hi-fi system to get it to perform its best would not be complete without including the subject of vibrations. Reducing vibrations from entering your electronic components and speakers can dramatically improve performance. 

There are many products on the market that can mitigate vibrations in your sound system, some very effective and moderately priced. Some affordable options can work wonders for improving your system’s sound quality.

Household items I’ve found to be effective against vibrations, to varying degrees, include silicon pads, felt pads, cork, and rubber mats. The best I’ve tried is IKEA’s Gunstig waffle-shaped silicon mat, sold as a trivet in the kitchen section of IKEA for about $10.00 CA each.

I recommend cutting up a Gunstig mat into approximately 12 squares and placing a square under each of the feet of your components. In many cases, I’ve found that placing two or three squares under each feet resulted in further improvement to the sound.

Much more effective than a Gunstig mat, but much more expensive as well, are IsoAcoustic OREAs, IsoAcoustic Iso-Pucks or Iso-Puck Minis. I’ve tried IsoAcoustic products directly under components’ feet, but consistently found I got better results by placing them against the bottom panel of the chassis, assuming, of course, that the IsoAcoustic products are taller than the component’s feet. Overall, I’ve been very happy with IsoAcoustic accessories.

This year, I realized significant sonic gains by placing all my electronics on top of 8mm-thick, 16-layer Baltic birch aviation plywood shelves, under each of which I installed a set of IsoAcoustic OREAs or Iso-Pucks. Musical timing and detail were greatly enhanced by this setup. However, it’s difficult to source the Finland-made Baltic birch shelf, so I had to order it through a friend in Europe.

I’ve recently started replacing some of my IsoAcoustic Iso-Pucks under critical components with IsoAcoustic OREAs, to great effect.

I also experimented with placing Bamboo or Maple cutting boards underneath the IsoAcoustic Iso-Pucks sitting on top of my BDI hi-fi cabinet, with a Baltic birch aviation plywood shelf on top of the pucks. In my setup, the cutting boards have been beneficial under some components.

Having a well made hi-fi stand or cabinet can make a big difference in sound quality. I recommend those from Quadraspire, Salamander, and, specifically, the Naim Fraim.

Stillpoints offers effective but expensive options for vibration control, and, if money is no object, Silent Runnings sells stands designed by NASA engineers. Other excellent vibration control solutions include those from Townshend from England and String Suspension Concepts from Germany.

To improve the sound quality of speakers through vibration control, I’ve found a number of things that can help significantly.

For bookshelf speakers, you can improve their sound by placing them on top of a set of four IsoAcoustic Iso-Pucks, or on top of studio monitor stands from Yorkville or Primeacoustic.

For floorstanding speakers, IsoAcoustic Gaias have consistently worked better in my experience than traditional spikes. 

For subwoofers, I’ve found the most cost-effective way to mitigate vibrations and obtain tighter, deeper, more tuneful bass was to place them on Auralex SubDudes isolation platforms. 

There are other anti-vibration solutions, of course, but the aforementioned are the ones that have given me the best results so far. Obviously, experimentation and personal taste are key.

In my case, using the methods depicted above have brought a sensational new balance to my system’s sound, along with a newfound boogie factor. Bass is deep, musical, and detailed. Listening from an adjacent room or down the hallway, I hear virtually no extraneous bass bloom. The mids and highs are extremely detailed, with well separated instruments and voices that carry unprecedented emotional impact.

It’s a great payoff for all that time I spent, and continue to spend, tweaking my system to make it sound as good as it can. I hope some of these methods can be as helpful to you as they were to me.

Cleaning Up the Power Supply

One of the most critical factors for getting audio components to perform their best is to supply them with the cleanest possible power. The power you get from your electrical outlet is often polluted and noisy, constantly fluctuating, and full of micro spikes that act like continuous micro surges of the sine wave. In addition, electrical noise generated by some of the electronics in your system can pollute the power supply of other components in your playback chain.

This noise pollution will affect the music. It will muddy the mids and highs, generate ill-defined bass and a noisy background. Overall soundstage clarity and transparency, along with separation of instruments and voices, will also suffer as a result of polluted AC.

I’ve visited homes where the owner’s expensive hi-fi system was plugged into a $10 power strip. Even worse was that the TV, HD cable box, and other non-audio electrical devices were plugged into the same power strip. Noisy components plugged into the power strip will infect the whole system with noise, as none of the components are isolated from each other. 

Such a power setup will degrade sound quality. Along with causing a noisy sound floor, a lack of clarity and detail, a diminished soundstage, and muddy bass, bad AC will make your music sound harsh and fatiguing.

I separate my audio components from my video ones. The TV and HD cable box are plugged into a different outlet than the one serving my audio components, as the former are notoriously noisy. I recommend a high quality power strip, power conditioner, or waveform correction device to isolate the noise. I also make sure that my refrigerator, clothes dryer, and other appliances are not on the same electrical circuit as that used by my system.

Many hi-fi manufacturers today do a good job of mitigating the noise in their component’s power supply, but there’s usually room for improvement. There are a number of techniques and devices designed to clean up the power and provide a significantly purer music signal.

The first step I recommend is to replace the $1.50 duplex wall receptacle feeding your gear with a hospital or audiophile grade one. Better quality receptacles are made with pure copper internal electrical components and hold the components’ AC cord plugs more firmly to allow better electrical contact and flow.

I use an electrical ground circuit tester to ensure that the electrical outlet is properly grounded. If it is, the LED lights for grounding are lit on the test device. Proper grounding is essential for better sound quality.

As mentioned in an earlier instalment, it’s important to try to keep your power cords away from your Ethernet cables, RCA interconnects, HDMI cables, and speaker wire, or at least shield your signal cables at strategic areas so they don’t become infected by the EMI emitted by power cables.

The next step I take is to measure the amount of noise in the electrical circuit with an AC noise analyzer. Once I plug in the AC noise analyzer, I can actually hear radio stations and noise coming through the device’s built-in speaker. Untreated, that noise is entering your components.

Next, I set the AC noise analyzer’s dial setting to 100 on the digital readout. I plug the AC noise analyzer and one of my components into an extension cord plugged into the wall. This will give me a readout of any noise added by the component into the circuit. If the readout exceeds 100, I know that particular piece of electronics is a source of noise. If it’s below 100, that component is actually reducing the noise. This allows me to make decisions in how I want to plug my electronics to keep the noisy components out of the same electrical circuit as that of my more EMI-sensitive electronics, such as streamers, preamps, and components with DACs.

I also use the noise analyzer to see which duplex receptacles are noisiest, so that I can plug my gear into the quieter plugs.

I’ve bought and tried many power conditioners, including Shunyata’s excellent Denali V2. I no longer do. 

I now use a waveform correction device from Environmental Potentials (EP) called an EP-HPS. This non-current limiting device does an exceptional job of cleaning up the noise in the electrical circuit and isolating noise generated by components that can impact the other gear. The EP-HPS has three separate outlet zones, so I can choose to put a noisier component, as determined by my noise analyzer, in a different zone than one used by a quieter component. The company’s products also offer extremely effective surge protection, without compromising on sound quality.

I understand that EP will be introducing a new waveform correction device called a KIYORA, which has improvements over the HPS model. I already ordered mine.

I use a separate, smaller EP DigiPlug Stationary waveform correction device and an older Transparent power conditioner for my TV and HD cable box, to isolate their noise from my audio components’ electrical circuit. A side benefit of plugging my TV and HD cable box into their own power conditioner and waveform correction device is that it improves the picture and sound quality of my TV.

I’ve also tried out countless brands of audiophile power cords. When I try to figure out which component in an audio system will benefit most from a better power cord, I start with components that may be more vulnerable to noise, which deal in more delicate, low-voltage music signals, such as the preamp, streamer or any device with a DAC. The power cords that made the biggest difference in my system were the Clear Beyond model by Cardas, which I’ve been adding to my system as funds permit.

I have limited experience with audiophile fuses, but have found a nice improvement in sound quality with a Synergistic Research Purple fuse in my Silent Angel Forester F1 power supply, which powers my Bonn N8 and Forester F1 digital switches.

My journey in cleaning up the power supply has been a fascinating one. My system has realized incredible gains in sound quality, far beyond anything I could have imagined. 

EMI Shielding and Cable Separation

The effects of EMI on your music system cannot be underestimated. Keeping it away from sensitive components can pay musical dividends.

I try to establish a good physical distance between a signal cable and a power cord, but when it’s not possible due to space constraints, I’ll wrap the area outside of the signal cable closest to the power cord in copper tape. I’ll do this with Ethernet cables, HDMI cables, and RCA cables.

I ordered a number of shielding items on Amazon and from Mouser Electronics in Canada. These include copper foil sheets, copper foil tape, and non-conductive EMI shielding. The copper tape is 2” wide by 33’ long, and has a sticky side to stick to the cables. The EMI non-conductive shielding is made by Laird or 3M.

I also hired a metal shop to build custom 1mm thick copper enclosures to encase some of my more EMI-sensitive electronics, such as those of my Bonn N8 switches, Forester power supply, and DAC-equipped electronics.  The copper enclosures are designed to offer enough space around components to allow them proper cooling.

The Laird non-conductive EMI shielding can be used internally to shield noisy power supplies from high frequency noise generated by SMPS power supplies, or to shield noisy components on circuit boards. Many electronics, such as cell phones, already employ this type of internal shielding to mitigate EMI/RF signals.

Great care should be taken to ensure that any component fitted with EMI shielding still has adequate airflow internally. It’s always a good idea to have an electronics expert, such as your hi-fi dealer, install the EMI shielding to avoid mishaps. Also, please be aware that this type of shielding work may void your warranty. Is internal shielding, when properly applied, worth it? In my experience, absolutely.

Each of the strategies I’ve recommended so far in this series can help you get closer to the sonic potential of your system. Some tweaks and fine tuning methods will provide moderate gains, while others will provide stunning improvements. Taken collectively, these techniques will transform your system far beyond what you thought possible.

In my case, they brought me emotionally closer to the music. They made my system sound more immersive, more musical, more long-term satisfying, in a way I never thought it could. They’ve taken the digital edge out of streamed music and made it sound organic and lifelike. I think that if you could hear what these techniques can do for your system, you’d be just as amazed as I was.