Pierre's Free Upgrade Advice

This page is an archive of free set-up advice and do-it-yourself upgrades assembled by our founder, designed to help listeners get significantly better sound from their audio gear with little-or-no-cost. Pierre refined this advice through thousands of hours of empirical listening tests at Mapleshade Studio.

How To Do Listening Tests

Increase the Accuracy of Your Listening Comparisons
and Reduce the Stress

The most important rule is to relax. Stress is the enemy of critical listening. Don't worry about 'getting it right'—just listen for which version makes you want to tap your foot more or feel the emotion of the musician. Keep tests short; your brain's auditory memory is surprisingly brief.

Always compare just one change at a time. If you change two things, you'll never know which one caused the improvement. Pick a 30-second snippet of music you know intimately and play it at the exact same volume for every comparison.

Small volume differences are often mistaken for quality improvements. Ensure your listening environment is quiet and that you are seated in your usual 'sweet spot' for every iteration of the test.

Tube Gear Upgrades

Getting The Most Out Of Tubes

Clean the tube pins and socket grippers with contact cleaner to reduce 'grunge' caused by oxidation over years of heat cycles.
Ensure proper ventilation; heat is the enemy of tube longevity and can cause passive components inside the chassis to drift in value.
Check your bias regularly (if your amp isn't auto-biasing); misaligned bias leads to flat, lifeless sound and premature tube failure.
Use tube dampeners or rings to reduce 'microphonics'—vibrations from the room that the tube glass picks up and feeds into the audio signal.
Experiment with 'Tube Rolling' only after you've optimized everything else; different brands of the same tube type can radically shift the tonal balance.

Turntable Upgrades

Making Good Turntables Much Better

Leveling the platter perfectly is the absolute first step for accurate tracking and minimizing bearing wear.
Use a digital scale to verify your tracking force; dial it to the high end of the manufacturer's recommended range for the most secure groove contact.
Clean your stylus after *every* side with a soft brush and high-quality cleaning fluid to prevent 'baked-on' gunk from damaging your records.
Keep your dust cover *off* or at least open while playing; the large plastic surface acts like an acoustic sail that catches room vibrations.
Isolation is critical; placing your turntable on a heavy wall-shelf or a dedicated maple platform will drastically lower the noise floor.

SPEAKER UPGRADES

Newfound Punch, Transparency and Detail

Ensure all driver mounting screws are snugly tightened (but not over-tightened) to stop micro-vibrations that blur imaging.
Check that your speaker terminals are tightly secured to your speaker cables; loose connections add measurable distortion.
If using 'Jumpers' instead of bi-wiring, ensure the gold-plated brass plates are replaced with high-quality wire jumpers for a massive increase in clarity.
Leveling your speakers perfectly using a bubble level ensures the two channels have identical timing and phase response.
Applying a small amount of damping material inside the port or behind the tweeter can sometimes tame aggressive room resonances.

FREE SUBWOOFER SET-UP UPGRADES

Get Vastly Cleaner Bass and Seamless Integration

Use the 'Subwoofer Crawl': Place the sub in your listening chair, play bass-heavy music, and crawl around the floor until you find where the bass sounds tightest—that's where your sub belongs.
Avoid corner placement if you want accuracy; corners provide the most 'boom' but the least 'definition' and 'punch'.
Set your crossover frequency as low as possible (often 40-60Hz) to ensure the sub only handles the deepest notes, preventing it from coloring your main speakers' midrange.
Phase adjustment is key; have a friend flip the 0/180 switch while you listen for which position produces the *most* bass at the crossover point.
Isolate your sub from the floor using heavy platforms or spikes to prevent the cabinet from vibrating your floorboards and creating boomy distortion.

Vibration Control Upgrades

Far Better Mountings Under (and Over) Components

Use 'Dead Weights' on top of your components (especially CD players and DACs) to help damp chassis resonances.
Never leave components sitting on their factory rubber feet; bypass them with hard wood blocks or metal spikes to drain internal vibrations to a base.
Maple is the musical champion for equipment platforms; its grain structure absorbs resonance without killing the life of the music.
Separate your power transformers from your sensitive signal-path boards by placing a heavy damping material directly over the transformer.
A heavy base under your speakers is essential to prevent them from vibrating your floor, which acts like a giant, boomy secondary diaphragm.

Free Computer Audio Upgrades

Making Computers, Laptops, Servers & iPods Sound Better

Always use Bit-Perfect output settings in your playback software to bypass the computer's internal mixer and digital volume controls.
Disable all unnecessary background tasks, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth while listening to reduce jitter-inducing CPU spikes.
If using a laptop, try listening with the power supply unplugged (running on battery) to eliminate AC line noise from the charging circuit.
Avoid using long USB cables; the shorter the digital connection, the less chance for timing errors and data loss.
Lift your external hard drives or servers onto soft vibration-damping material to prevent mechanical noise from entering the signal path.

Free Room/Speaker Placement Upgrades

Better Sound From Your Speakers With Better Room Set-Up

Pull your speakers out at least 3 feet from the front wall to drastically improve soundstage depth and clean up bass mud.
Experiment with 'Toe-In' by increments of 1/2 inch; aiming speakers directly at your ears provides more detail, while aiming them straight ahead widens the stage.
Try the 'Rule of Thirds': placing speakers 1/3 of the way into the room often provides the most balanced frequency response.
Remove your speaker grilles while listening; even the thinnest cloth adds measurable distortion and muffles the high-frequency air.
Make sure the distance between speakers is equal to the distance from each speaker to your listening chair for a perfect equilateral triangle.

Free AC Power Upgrades

Improving AC Noise, AC Cords and System Grounds

Route all AC power cords at least 6 inches away from any interconnects or speaker cables to prevent hum and noise floor elevation.
If an AC cord must cross a signal cable, make sure they cross at a 90-degree angle to minimize electromagnetic interference.
Clean all AC plug prongs and outlet contacts with high-purity alcohol or a specialized contact cleaner to reduce contact resistance.
Ensure all your components are plugged into the same wall outlet or a single high-quality power strip to avoid ground loops between chassis.
Unplug any unused appliances or chargers on the same circuit as your hi-fi; digital switching power supplies are notorious for dumping noise back into the line.

Free Cable Upgrades

Easy Ways To Improve Generic Wires and High End Cables

Keep all cables off the floor using non-conductive cable elevators to reduce static interaction with carpets.
Never coil excess cable length; instead, lay it out in a long 'U' shape or a zig-zag to avoid creating an inductor.
Gently wipe down the outer insulation of your cables with a damp cloth to remove dust and static buildup.
Periodic tightening of RCA outer shells and spade lug connectors ensures the most secure, low-distortion contact.
Separating left and right channel cables by a few inches can often improve stereo separation and soundstage width.