Turn on the equipment and then go for a long walk.  The equipment will take several weeks to reach it's operating temperature, and will not perform it's best until that has happened.  For more information on burn in and microphonics please visit www.aa.net.nz.

Select a favourite piece of music - something that you know well with plenty of high frequency material in it - vocals are good for this exercise.

Sitting in the listening position, turn the volume up until it is at a comfortable listening level, and have an assistant walk along the left hand wall with a soft mat or pillow at a height mid way between your ear height and the height of the speaker.

At the point where a mirror would show you a reflection of the tweeter, you may notice that the presence of the mat helps clear up the intelligibility of the sound. 

If so you may wish to place some absorptive material here - wall hanging, art, bookcase, potplant etc.  This is the location of your systems first order reflection - and is the cause of many audio quality issues. 

Repeat the process for the other wall and then the floor between you and the speaker. 

Repeat this process for the back wall - this is the source of slap echo. 

Treat your room for environmental noise - using a rattle test and be sure to lower the noise floor of your room as far as possible with acoustic treatments.  Mutant Acoustic is a great product for this type of treatment, it is available at www.aa.net.nz.

A Note on Hi-Fi Power Supply.  The pressure acting on your eardrum is actually derived from energy coming in off the street.  If your mains have noise on them, hums, buzzes, transients etc. these will turn up to some degree in your music.

The best treatment for this is clean power, ensure all your equipment is running off the same circuit, some multiboxes are made from poor grade metal that can introduce resistance to the circuit and in extreme cases you will hear a buzzing near the plug. 

The best solution is to have your electrician run a fresh 20amp cct from the switchboard to your equipment and install several 4 way powerpoints.  Get your sparky to check the performance of the earthing system and upgrade it if necessary.  Try a hi-grade power lead like those from Nordost, available in NZ from www.aa.net.nz.

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