By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

In all my years of designing, building, and playing around with stereo systems, when it comes to performance the two constants have always been equipment choices and setup.

And setup trumps equipment choices. The best equipment poorly setup sounds worse than the best setup of poor equipment.

We have reviews and in-home trials to help us find the best equipment, yet the art of setup requires hands-on experience, knowledge, and skill—a problem in our age of virtual connectivity and pandemic lock-downs.

My modus operandi has always been that of a fixit person. See a problem, find a fix. The first CD players sounded dreadful. We figured out the culprit was its internal D to A converter. We invented a better version and launched the world’s first consumer audio digital to analog converter.

Where once an abundance of experienced setup experts eager to apply their skills and knowledge in customer’s homes haunted local stereo dealers, today we live in very different times.

Which is why I wrote The Audiophile’s Guide and spearheaded the creation of its companion music resource, The Audiophile Reference Music Tracks.

The idea of designing a setup system based on a written guide and a recorded reference disc has long been in my toolbox. It’s taken me 45 years to launch it.

Setting up a stereo system takes skill.

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