What are some easy and low-cost ways to improve your sound?
Here are some tweaks we have had good luck with.
NOTE: these ideas are similar to a friend giving you advice on which red wine to drink. You might thank him – or you might try his ideas and wonder, “What was he thinking?”
The following ideas are very general and very random. We hope they will be helpful.
If you want advice more tailored to your specific system you can always call or email us.
Feet
To be blunt, many high-end stereo components use cheap feet. Getting higher-quality feet can definitely change the way your music sounds.
Notice we said “change” – not necessarily “improve”. We have heard various kinds of feet that we did not like over the long term, some of which were affordable, and some of which were costly.
Brands that we have had the best results with include edenSound (USA), IsoAcoustics (Canada) and StarSound Technologies (USA). One inexpensive choice for everyday needs is a metal cone or “spike” from Dayton Audio called the DSS4, available at parts-express.com (we like the “black chrome” color). One client of ours had bookshelf speakers on either side of his TV, which buzzed when they played almost any level of bass. Supporting each speaker with 3 of the DSS4 cones eliminated the problem.
Change Speaker Toe-In
If you have your speakers toed in (pointing at your ears), it can be a nice and surprising improvement to face them more “straight ahead” and see what happens to your sound stage and imaging. This can also reduce treble harshness.
Speaker Vertical Angle
Sometimes, your tweeters will be pointed at slightly different places, from an “up and down” perspective. To check, get a laser level and put it on top of each speaker, pointing it at your listening position. Note where the laser hits the wall behind your head in terms of its vertical position. If that point is not the same for both speakers, use something under the speaker feet (quarters, paper, etc.) to tilt the speaker(s) until the laser hits the same point from an “up and down” perspective.
Adjust Speakers’ Distance from Back Wall
Another speaker position change that can have surprising results by energizing the sound in your room involves finding the “magic distance” from the rear wall. For this, you need a song with deep, steady, powerful bass (the song “Da Funk” by Daft Punk, beginning at 0:42 for example) to find the best distance from the rear wall. Step-by-step instructions for this:
- Throw the balance 100% to the left speaker.
- Begin with the left speaker 6 inches away from the rear wall, or whatever distance you feel is the absolute closest to the rear wall you would ever place your speakers (i.e., if you would never put them less than 9″ from the real wall, there’s no need to start at 6″).
- Begin playing the throbbing, bass-heavy music. You want nearly-constant, powerful, punchy low electric bass, with drums. Not a bass violin. Play it very loud. But not, “risk of damage” loud.
- Crouch down next to the left speaker. Notice the overall sound. You don’t need to run back to your listening chair.
- Move the speaker forward in 1/4″ steps (further and further away from the wall behind the speaker), and listen to the character of the music at each 1/4″-point. You only need to listen for a second or two at each point.
- If 1/4″ steps are too “audiophile crazy” for you, move the speaker in 1/2″ steps.
- At some distance from the back wall, the speaker’s sound will “pop” with more energy, in a good way. Bass, and almost everything else about the sound, will feel enhanced. As you continue forward, you will experience more of these “excitement” places. Mark each one, decide which is your favorite, and leave the left speaker there.
- Now position the right speaker the same distance from the rear wall. Return the balance to normal, sit in your listening chair and see how you like the sound.
This is a method popularized by Sumiko in the 1990s, so a big shout-out to them.
Reduce the Presence / Impact of Glass
Glass is not good for stereo sound. If you have any stereo components resting on a glass shelf, try to replace that shelf with another material. If you can’t, try to find a cork mat that you can put down to cover the glass.
If you have bare windows in your listening room, try to find thick and heavy drapes to hang in front of them. You may be startled by how much clarity is gained.
Improve “Stock” Tubes
You can achieve nice gains in sound quality by changing the tubes in your tube preamp, or in your power amp.
If your solid-state power amp has an input stage that uses a tube, upgrading to a better-sounding brand can provide very enjoyable improvements as well.
Improve Stock Fuses
This one is a little more controversial and may not result in big improvements for everyone. This also requires you to potentially get inside your preamp or amp, which can be very dangerous, exposing you to literally fatal voltages. So if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, skip this.
That being said, there are several brands of “audiophile fuses” that can make changes (and sometimes positive changes) in your sound quality.
Stereo System Position
This tweak may or may not be possible for you, If your room is long, and your speakers are against the “short wall”, your sound may improve noticeably by orienting your speakers against the “long wall”. This will likely require you to move the whole stereo. However, it may well be worth it. Having the music “firing down the length” of a room from a short wall can confuse imaging and clarity. Having the speakers on the long wall (so there is lots of space on the left and right sides of your stereo) helps to create a clear, believable soundstage.
Fresh Wire Ends
If you have a stereo system in your home where your speaker wire is bare at either end, and it’s been that way for a few years, get some wire cutters and cut off the ends, then strip to expose “fresh” wire. Clarity gains with this quick tweak can be surprising.
Batten Down the Hatches
Often, it helps to simply tighten the connectors that hold your speaker wire in place at both the amp and the speaker ends.
Clean RCA Jacks
If your system is sounding a bit muddy and you’ve had it for more than a few years, try this. First, be sure to turn off and unplug each component in your system. Then get a rag with some Deoxit or isopropyl alcohol and clean the RCA jacks on your source, preamp and power amp. To clean inside the female RCA jacks, use pipe cleaners that are wet with Deoxit or iso. alcohol, but be very gentle and careful. Don’t poke in more than a 1/2 inch. Again, be sure each component is turned off.
Don’t do this if your system sound quality is already on the bright side, because it will probably end up sounding even brighter.
Those who are truly committed may wish to also clean the male ends of their RCA cables. Unfortunately it’s not easy to clean XLR jacks in this way.
Try Removing Power Conditioners
This can reveal “new” levels of clarity, punch and dynamics, depending on the quality of your power conditioner. You may prefer the sound of your entire system without power conditioners, or you may find that the system sounds best with only certain components going through the power conditioner. Of course, plugging directly into your wall outlet will remove the surge protection benefits that many power conditioners provide, so if you eliminate a power conditioner, you many need to begin unplugging your components before storms (and when going on vacation).
DAC connection
If you use a DAC, try changing the method used for feeding it. You might be using a USB cable, a coaxial connection (looks just like an RCA cable), a Toslink/optical connector, or various other styles of connection. Whatever you have, see if another option sounds better. From our perspective, we find that Toslink/optical sometimes sounds better than other connection methods, which can be a surprising result for many users.
Turntable Mat
Try a better mat for your turntable – we have found that cork mats (for example, the ones with smaller cork circles in various places), provide an improvement in sound quality over typical felt mats. We have had good luck with products from HudsonHiFi.com and from HerbiesAudioLab.com, but there are many manufacturers with varying cost and quality. One “extreme” audiophile we know replaced his turntable mat with a solid copper “mat” and the sound quality improvement was very impressive. Of course, it cost a fortune.
Tweak the Room
Although treating the acoustics of your listening room is not a simple A-B-C process, it can yield more impressive results than anything listed here so far. In addition to the suggestion about glass in your room listed above, it can be helpful to reduce reflections off your side walls, ceiling, and even the floor. Getting into the details is beyond the scope of this blog post, but two of the primary tools used are dispersion (materials with various depths and textures that are designed to “confuse” unwanted sonic reflections) and absorption (materials designed to absorb unwanted frequencies, including bass traps). One step that can be described here is to stand in the corners of your listening room when you are playing full-volume music with bass content. If you experience excess “bass boom” in some or all corners, consider acquiring bass traps for these locations.
Speaker Stands
If you use smaller speakers, getting heavy speaker stands made of metal and filled with sand can deliver a very solid improvement.
We hope you found this helpful. Please note, we have no affiliation or connection with the companies mentioned in this post.
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