Changing speaker cables: In order to achieve the best performance, loudspeakers require careful positioning within the room they are used in. Changing speaker cables can affect the tonal characteristics of the speakers and it may be necessary to slightly alter the position of your speakers, particularly in relation to the rear wall.

If the newly fitted cable produces a slightly brighter tone with less bass than the cable you are replacing, try moving the speaker backwards towards the wall in five centimetre steps. When you reach the position where the bass response of the speaker is slightly too heavy, move the speaker forward in one centimetre steps.

If the speakers sound slightly bass heavy when the new cable is fitted, try moving the speakers forwards in the same manner as described above.

Cleaning plugs: In order to maintain the best performance from any system, it is a good idea to periodically clean the connections on your hi-fi or home cinema system. We would suggest switching the system off and cleaning each set of connections, including the pins on the mains plugs. There are many proprietary cleaners available and your local retailer will be happy to advise you on the best choice. We use Caig De-Oxit and find it to be extremely effective.

Replacing speaker links: If you are using single wire speaker cable with bi-wireable speakers, one of the simplest and surprisingly effective upgrades you can make is to replace the flat, gold-plated links that most speaker manufacturers supply to join the input terminals on the back of their speakers together. There are two ways of doing this. Either replace the links with short runs of the speaker cable you are using; simply cut the speaker cable to length, strip the ends so that it will fit in the holes in the binding posts. The other way to do this is to use a set of Chord's purpose made Signature Links. Either method can bring some pretty serious improvements to the treble performance as well as improving coherence.