Hints & Tips
To Getting The Absolute Best out of Your Hi Fi
(update bi-daily)
There are many different ways to getting the best sound sonically out of your newly purchased or existing hifi system. Weather you have an all in 1 system, a stereo component system consisting of a CD Player, Amplifier & Speakers or a full array of components which make up a Home Theater system there are methods to boost the performance often at no cost at all.
This section will provide you with some handy hints & tips to get the absolute best sound possible from your audio system.
# The Mini Hi-Fi Room 1st Tip of the Day! - Speaker Positioning to Smooth out Treble
If you have a hifi or home cinema system which sounds too bright or harsh this may be a simple effective tip to smooth out the treble sound without spending a dollar.
Most speakers except some really unique ones (or super nasty cheap ones) have 2 or more drivers. Whether for bookshelves speakers for floor standing speakers (satellite speaker positioning will be covered in coming articles). This usually means there is 1 or more larger cones which takes care of the mid/low sounds followed by another cone which is usually much smaller which looks after the high frequency sounds.
Assuming everything is set-up properly on your system such as tone settings on your amplifier, as well as speakers being equal distant apart from the listening area and the treble driver is at the listening ear height level try doing this. Raise your speaker from the rear either by slipping some coins underneath or some magazines so that the speaker & treble driver angles toward the floor slightly. This will generally produce a smoother treble and you will lose that hard edge you tend to hear when the treble driver is directly facing into your ears. Simple and it really really works. To take things one step further a trick would be to place heavy carpeting around your listening area and in particular the area in which the treble driver is facing. However this of course means you lose the aesthetics and the coolness of your listening area.
# The Mini Hi-Fi Room 2nd Tip of the Day! - C + C = C: Cutting & Cleaning for Clarity
To obtain absolute clarity at all times this is a tip which works amazing wonders. Cleaning!! Sounds very dubious you may think but keep your system dust free, and that means the amplifer, the CD or DVD player clean, the speakers clean and all components spotless and dust free. If in need use an ever so damp cloth. This goes the same for connections and terminals. Switch off your system and unplug and replug all electrical points and cables several times. In fact using a soft dry clean cloth give all interconnects a wipe over too.
Now onto the cables! If you are using copper cables this is a must! Copper oxidises which means over time (I recomend 6months) you must trim back and expose fresh cabling for your speakers and amp. Otherwise sound quality will deteiorate. If your lucky enough to use silver plated cables then oxidisation wont creep in as fast but I still recomend to trim back every 6 months.
Repeating this process every half year will bring audible differences in clarity to your hi fi system!!
# The Mini Hi-Fi Room Opinion 1: Whats Best? Bare Wire or Banana Plugs for your Speakers
Bare Wire termination or banana plugs for speakers? For absolute best audio performance in your system I recomend bare wire termination. ie. that is the speaker strands directly connected to the amplifier and directly connected to the speakers. Why? To keep away that nagging feeling that the terminals are contaminating the signal path. Bare wire allows 100% uninterupted purity between what comes out of your amplifier and into your speakers. Realistically the difference may be real or perceived, as I recently did a blind test on some really high end equipment with banana plugs with no perceived difference at all.
On the flip side banana plugs offers unparalleled protection against oxidisation and dust onto exposed speaker cable strands as well as convenience. Most quality speaker terminators are gold plated (gold is a great conducter for signals) so performance is usually very very high.
So in conclusion, my advice go for bare wire if you need that extra bit of assurance, or banana plugs if you have A) confidence & B) value convenience.
# The Mini Hi-Fi Room Tip 3: Warming Up Amplifiers & Warming Up CD Players
You may have heard of this one before!! Almost all electrical goods perform at their peak when warmed up. Now this certainly doesnt mean over heating which is bad of course but especially in the case of audio amplifiers this means switching it on for about 15 minutes before playing. Why? To be honest I dont know, Does it work? ....... absolutely 100% of the time yes! The biggest audioable difference is in the bass tautness mid range fluency and a more natural treble. The trick makes no difference really to CD players or Radios though. There are some who subscribe to the idea of never turning off your amplifier though. The argument is that by having an electrical current constantly through the internals of it will prolong the life of the machine as well as having the machine in constant peak condition. My thoughts are you wouldnt leave a car running! Why would you leave an Amp running? In today's eco environment its a little irresponsible so I wouldnt recomend it. In fact some of the hi fi gear we stock heats up big big time just by being turned on and not playing anything. So hot in fact that I'm reasonably sure if I didnt switch them off they will burn out in a matter of months.
