4 affordable ways to upgrade your hi-fi system
Adjust placement and positioning Placing speakers close to any wall will reinforce their low-frequency output. This may sound an appealing idea but on most models, doing this spoils bass agility and precision. Most are designed to be at least 30cm clear of a rear wall and a minimum of a metre or so from any sidewalls. Pointing the speakers inwards towards the listening position will help firm up the stereo imaging, but go too far and the soundstage width will suffer. It’s not just speakers that benefit from careful placement. You want the rest of your kit placed away from your speakers in order to restrict any vibrations that tamper with the sound. And avoid positioning your system between the speakers. It might look tidier, but it’ll spoil the stereo imaging.
Maximise your power supply Ensure your mains plugs are clean (best done by treating the pins with a cleaning solution and ensuring they’e dry) and all the components are connected as close together as possible. This means not plugging in your preamp on one side of the room and your power amp on the other. This improves system grounding, which helps sound quality.
You can go even further and give your hi-fi a dedicated feed from your fuse box. This will bypass everything else – from your TV to the fridge – that’s plugged into the mains and adding noise to the signal. It probably isn’t worth doing for your micro system, but greater gains can be made the higher up the food chain you go.
Add a DAC Simply put, the burden of converting a digital signal into an analogue one will be taken on by a component specially designed to do the job. While it won’t make bad hi-fi sound great, your system’s performance can benefit when paired with a capable, separate DAC.
Upgrade your cabling When it comes to cables, all we can tell you is that the differences in performance between certain cables are clear to our ears. That isn’t to say spending more means a better sound. Those gains will be dependent on the capabilities of the rest of your kit, but the relationship between the various elements of your system can be as much to do with what’s connecting them as the aptitude of each component.