Jessica Monroe

Hooking up the wrong speaker type to the wrong output is one of the fastest ways to ruin expensive audio gear. I have seen it happen at house parties, in home studios, and even at small live gigs where someone assumed all speakers work the same way. They do not. The good news is that … Read more

You spot two sets of binding posts on the back of your tower speakers and immediately wonder: should you run one cable or two? The bi-wiring vs bi-amping debate has split audiophiles for decades, and the marketing copy on speaker boxes does not help. Bi-wiring uses two separate runs of speaker wire to connect a … Read more

Nothing kills the mood faster than a stereo system that suddenly goes quiet or starts pumping out weak, thin sound. If you are dealing with a thin bass light stereo system that has stopped performing the way it should, you already know how frustrating the troubleshooting process can get. The good news is that most … Read more

Setting your subwoofer crossover frequency correctly is the single biggest factor in getting tight, punchy bass that disappears into your main speakers. Get it wrong and you get either boomy, overlapping bass or a thin gap where the low end should be. I have spent years tuning systems ranging from budget bookshelf setups to full … Read more

If your bass sounds thick, muddy, or like a single note keeps overpowering everything else, you’re dealing with a problem most listeners blame on their speakers. In my experience testing rooms over the past several years, the actual culprit is almost always the room itself. Diagnosing boomy one-note bass and fixing it with placement is … Read more

Adding a subwoofer to your stereo or home theater system should fill the room with deep, tight bass. But when you fire up the system, the bass sounds thin, muddy, or oddly hollow. Most people blame the subwoofer itself when the real culprit is almost always phase misalignment. Learning how to set subwoofer phase using … Read more

Wet cleaning brings out the best sound from your vinyl, but what you do right after the bath determines whether your records end up pristine or packed with hidden problems. Learning how to dry records after wet cleaning without leaving residue is the step most collectors skip, and it is the reason many “clean” records … Read more

I learned the hard way that cleaning 78 RPM shellac records is nothing like caring for vinyl. A few years ago, I grabbed a record cleaner off the shelf, the kind made for modern LPs, and nearly wiped out a 1920s jazz 78. The alcohol in that product started dissolving the surface before I even … Read more

Sticker residue on a record jacket is one of those problems that looks tiny at first and turns into a multi-hour project by the end. I’ve been collecting vinyl for 14 years, and I’ve cleaned everything from a $5 thrift-store sleeve to a sealed first press of a Blue Note original, and the residue always … Read more

You bring home a stack of vinyl from an estate sale. The sleeves look clean, the labels are sharp, and the surfaces catch the light without obvious scratches. You drop the needle, and something sounds off. The highs are fuzzy. The vocals distort on certain syllables. The inner tracks sound worse than the outer ones. … Read more