Quick Fixes for Audio
Ailments
Even though many have stereo systems that normal human
beings would kill for, audiophiles still pore over hi-fi magazines and stare drooling into
audio store windows, dreaming of ways to make their sound just a little bit better. Most
of the dreams cost money, but there are ways to spruce up an audio system's performance
without replacing major parts of it or adding new components, and often these let us
postpone serious upgrading until a more financially convenient time.
Often where you place your equipment can have an effect on
how it performs, for instance, so some fiddling with new positions may yield immediate
sonic benefits. Your FM tuner or receiver, for instance, may be susceptible to
radio-frequency interference from your CD player; putting some distance between the two
often clears this up (if not, turn off the player when listening to FM).
Above all, speakers are sensitive to placement. In any
room, what you hear is a mixture of the direct sound from the speakers and a complex
"soup" of reflections from walls, ceiling, and floor. Most of these add a sense
of spaciousness, but the near-field reflections from surfaces close to the speakers can
combine with the direct sound to produce a new sonic character, and the combination can
often be pretty ragged. Shifting your speakers even a few inches can result in a dramatic
improvement.
By the same token, bass performance can be profoundly
affected by the positions of the speakers and the listener relative to each other and to
the room boundaries. Again, even slight adjustments can yield major audible gains.
If you haven't done it for a while, the audible improvement
that results from cleaning the heads in your cassette deck will be immediately obvious.
Heads can pick up oxide particles that eventually interfere with high-frequency
performance, so regular cleaning is a must. And although it won't actually improve sound,
periodic head demagnetization will prevent after-the-fact degradation of tapes you already
have.
Most of the minor things that go wrong with audio systems
happen between the components, so it only makes sense to lavish some attention on the
cables that join things together. If moving a patch cord causes crackles or intermittent
hum, replace it; cables are cheap. If the plugs are a bit loose, they can be crimped
slightly with pliers.
More insidious is the gradual increase in noise that can
occur because of oxide buildup either on plugs or the jacks they are connected to. It's
inevitable over time with aluminum, of which most connectors are made, but can often be
cured by unplugging and replugging the connections a few times. Better still, use some
fine sandpaper or contact cleaner on the jacks. The latter is also often useful for
ridding your controls of crackles and, in extreme cases, intermittent contact.
A long-term bit of prevention is to keep dust and dirt as
far away from your equipment as possible. Covering your components when they're not in
use, or keeping them in a cabinet that seals fairly tightly, won't yield immediately
audible gains, but will prevent gradual degradation caused by foreign material creeping
into switches, controls, moving turntable and cassette deck parts, and the like. It also
looks better.
The sort of radio signals most of us listen to -- FM -- are
notoriously hard to pull in: they're either so weak as to be lost in noise, or they bounce
around from building to building, causing multipath distortion. Often we're not aware of
the problems until they go away, so it's worthwhile to try out some alternatives even if
the reception seems okay. In many systems, the only antenna required is the T-shaped wire
dipole supplied with the system, but its effectiveness is dependent on orientation; try it
in different positions to increase signal level and lower multipath distortion.
If that doesn't help, a directional or powered indoor
antenna may provide a clean signal; otherwise a rooftop antenna might be the only answer.
Or you could ignore all of that and simply hook into your cable-TV company's FM service,
if it has one.
The sound your equipment produces is only as good as the
material it has to work with, so care should be taken to store your precious recordings in
a manner that will preserve them. Cassettes, for instance, should be kept away not only
from heat and cold, but also far from stray magnetic fields. Don't pile them on a speaker
or TV set, and make sure any cupboards they are in don't have magnetic closers. Keep tapes
in their boxes, and if they are not likely to be used again for some time, play them all
the way through and don't rewind them. That way, the tape will be packed smoothly, with no
protruding edges.
Compact discs can be stored for short periods in special
multi-compartment caddies or in changer magazines. For longer periods, however, they
should be in their jewel boxes, stored on edge, away from the usual extremes of
temperature.
Things that serve to disrupt sound quality may be subtle or
gross, but often the solutions are simple and inexpensive. The trick is to apply the
remedies before the problems become incurable.
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
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