General Hi-Fi Audio Guides

Speakers for the evening, headphones when the room needs to fall quiet: one DAC can serve both without a daily reach behind the rack. Leaving both amplifiers connected is appealing, provided the DAC can drive everything attached to it. That includes the amplifier you have switched off. It may have stopped playing while its input

A new amplifier may leave your familiar cables entirely worth keeping. We would preserve what still suits the connection and make each further change for a reason you can name. An existing cable may remain the right choice, benefit from different termination or be unsuitable for the new installation. The amplifier's price cannot tell you

A longer DC power cable can free shelf space or make a rear-panel connection easier to reach. We consider that a worthwhile refinement when the whole connection remains suitable for the equipment it powers. That means looking beyond the plug to the component's input requirements, the voltage reaching it under load, the connectors and the

In a finished room, inherited speaker wiring deserves a closer look. Reusing it can keep the floor clear and spare another round of decoration, especially when it already reaches your preferred speaker positions. We would decide whether to reuse existing speaker wiring by looking at the whole connection behind the wall plates: the cable, where

A second turntable should be ready when a record or a listening mood calls for it. So should the other cartridge on a two-arm deck. Having to unplug leads and reconstruct settings each time makes that extra source feel unfinished. We would put an easy return to either cartridge at the centre of the system:

A modified used audio cable can be an inviting purchase: the construction you have wanted to explore, now fitted with fresh plugs or terminations that suit your system. We would give it a fair hearing. The cable you are buying is the one that exists today, including everything done between its original manufacture and the

A suspended turntable phono cable can fit its socket, reach the phono stage and leave the platter looking level while still pulling the floating assembly away from its intended behaviour. We want a new lead to preserve the turntable as a tuned assembly. That makes mechanical matching part of choosing the complete phono connection. An

A channel disappears during an evening of listening. Remove the interconnect, have it checked, and everything works. An intermittent audio connection can leave the owner and technician with apparently contradictory accounts: one heard a failure; the other found a working cable. Both observations can be accurate. We would begin with what was happening when the

Discover how power quality impacts digital audio. Our guide covers optimizing power for streamers, DACs & switches for a black background & max dynamics.

Discover how power quality impacts digital audio. Our guide covers optimizing power for streamers, DACs & switches for a black background & max dynamics.