Articles

A subwoofer and a turntable sharing a room can turn a great pressing into mud. Here's how to place both so bass and vinyl actually get along.

Class D amps now deliver serious power for giant-killer money. Dave Okafor breaks down what you actually gain, and give up, versus solid-state and valve gear.

Ear tips shape IEM sound more than most upgrades costing real money. Here's how seal, bore size and tip material actually change what you hear.

Overhang, zenith angle and azimuth decide more about vinyl sound quality than the cartridge you buy. Here's the engineering, explained by a digital guy.

Before you spend a cent on acoustic panels, find your actual first reflection points with a mirror and a torch. Here's the method, and why it beats guessing.

Your streamer's output impedance and gain structure interact with speaker sensitivity more than most buying guides admit. Here's how to actually match them.

Where to put the first dollar in a home cinema build, and why most people spend it on the wrong box first. A spending order from twelve years of installs.

I've compared statement DACs costing more than a car against a good $2,000 unit. Here's where the extra money genuinely goes, and where it doesn't.

Most budget subs sound worse the harder you push them because of built-in limiter behaviour, not the driver. Here's how to find the real ceiling.

Why the watts-per-channel number on the box tells you almost nothing useful, and how to actually match an amplifier to a speaker without overspending.

Vinyl and a dedicated Atmos set-up can share a room, but rarely share a rack. Here's why, and what I'd actually do about it.

Suspended floors, speaker vibration and footfall do more damage to vinyl playback than plinth material. Here's how to actually isolate a turntable.

A cheap subwoofer in the right spot will beat an expensive one shoved in the wrong corner. Here's how to find that spot without buying anything.

Bits are bits, but the analogue stage after the DAC chip in your streamer still colours what your speakers do. Here's what actually matters.

Six-figure speakers, dead-flat frequency response, and a room that still sounds wrong. The fix is usually a diffusion problem, not an absorption one.

Watts on a spec sheet don't predict how a headphone amp will actually drive your cans. Here's the impedance and output-impedance story that does.

Same track, same app, different loudness in every room. Here's the actual engineering reason multiroom volume matching fails, and how to fix it properly.

MQA's collapse left a lot of confused shelves of "Masters" tier subscriptions. Here's what actually changed, and what to do about it.

Listening distance changes which speaker format actually works. Here's how near-field, mid-room and far-room seating should shape your standmount vs floorstander decision.

Before you chase another DAC or amp, sort the desk. Reflections, cable strain and monitor height quietly wreck more desktop headphone rigs than gear ever does.

Speaker cable gauge and length can measurably shift frequency response over long runs. Here's the maths, the thresholds that matter, and where to stop spending.

A 10-inch sub in two spots usually beats a 15-inch sub in one. Here's the room-mode maths behind why, and when a single big box still wins.

Toe-in angle changes your speakers' tonal balance and imaging more than most upgrades. Here's how to actually find the right angle for your room.

Open-back headphones leak sound both ways. Here's how much, when it genuinely matters in a share house or apartment, and when it's a non-issue.

ESS, AKM or a "flagship" chip name tells you almost nothing about how a DAC sounds. Here's what genuinely separates a good one from a dud, on any budget.

Modern streamers now carry crossover and room EQ duties that used to live in an AVR. Here's what that shift actually changes for your subwoofer.

A DAC engineer's take on why speaker matching starts upstream — how digital volume, output stage and streamer choice interact with standmounts and floorstanders.

Most multiroom systems are designed around speakers in rooms. Here's how to build a headphone zone into that same ecosystem without gutting the sound.

From air-bearing platters to outboard motor pods, what separates a reference turntable from a very good one, and why the gains get smaller as the price climbs.

Even reference loudspeakers can't out-engineer a bad room. Here's what serious acoustic treatment actually buys a statement system, and where the money should go first.

Your AVR's lip-sync slider only fixes part of the chain. Here's where audio delay actually comes from and how to measure it properly.

Past a certain point, extra dollars buy engineering headroom and craft, not more sound. Here's how to tell the difference in a statement system.

Gain and loading settings on a phono stage aren't optional extras. Here's what they actually do to your cartridge's signal, explained without the mysticism.

Stand height, mass and distance from walls change a standmount's measured bass and imaging more than most upgrades. Here's how to get it right.

A look at what genuinely changes when you push a headphone system into cost-no-object territory, and what you're really paying for once the sound has stopped improving.

A former record shop owner on the real spending order for a turntable system, and where extra dollars stop buying you anything.

The subwoofer crawl is a good starting point, not a finish line. Here's how I actually locate sub placement on real jobs, and when to trust the numbers instead.

Damping factor gets thrown around like a quality score. It isn't. Here's what the number actually measures and when it matters.

Headphones bypass room acoustics for the direct sound, but the room you sit in still shapes fatigue, focus and what you hear. Here's why.

DAC before or after the preamp, streamer or separate box: where the conversion happens in your chain affects noise, volume control and cable runs more than the chip inside it.

Four subwoofers aren't about loudness. Here's what a properly configured multi-sub array actually fixes that two subs, EQ or a bigger single box never will.

A speaker's sensitivity spec and an amp's watts-per-channel number look simple but rarely tell you what you think. Here's how to actually match them.

Multiroom systems are built around speakers in rooms. Here's how to get a proper headphone zone out of the same network, without losing resolution.

DSD, MQA, bit-perfect, hi-res PCM — Nell Shaw sorts which digital audio format claims genuinely change what you hear and which are marketing noise.

Corner bass traps are the default advice, but they don't fix every room mode. Here's how to actually find where your bass problems live before you buy foam.

Frequency response gets all the graphs, but clamping force and headband sag decide whether you'll actually wear a headphone past the twenty-minute mark.

What actually changes when you stream to headphones: service quality settings, exclusive mode, and the DAC steps that matter more than the app you use.

Splitting out what a DAC upgrade genuinely changes from what only acoustic treatment and correction software can fix, so you spend on the right layer first.

Choosing between standmounts and floorstanders isn't about budget or looks. It's a room-shape and listening-distance decision, and I've watched it wreck good systems.

Most Atmos height channels underperform because of placement, not gear. Here's how to actually get overhead sound working in a real room.

A measurement-led look at speaker cable and interconnect spending: what genuinely changes electrically, what doesn't, and where to stop.

Forget "sub crawl" folklore. Here's how to place a subwoofer using real in-room measurements, and why the corner is rarely the answer.

Crossover frequency and slope shape the sound more than most spec sheets admit. Here's what the numbers actually tell you about driver integration.

Thinking about splitting your AV receiver into a processor and separate amps? Here's the engineering case for and against, without the marketing fog.

Jitter gets blamed for everything from harsh treble to flat soundstages. Here's what clock sources actually do in an AV receiver and where the worry is misplaced.

A second subwoofer often solves bass problems that EQ can't touch. Here's why multiple subs smooth response across a room, not just at one seat.

Negative feedback gets blamed for "solid-state sound" more than any other design choice. Here's what it actually does, measured, and why the folklore doesn't hold up.

Blaming the NBN for dropouts and dumbed-down streams? I measured the actual bandwidth hi-res audio needs and it's rarely the wire that's the problem.

The chip inside your DAC gets all the marketing. The output stage that actually drives your headphones gets almost none. Here's what to check.

Ported subs and suspended timber floors don't always get along with a turntable. Here's how sealed vs ported bass actually behaves when vinyl is in the signal chain.