Forget speakers and amps – this is the best upgrade I’ve made to my hi-fi listening room in years

For any audiophile, sonic perfection is arguably the “end” destination we’re all working towards. Certainly, I have been making steps to try to reach it for many moons now.

My efforts range from plotting my “dream” system using whichever Temptation-level products are passing through our listening room each month, to sketching out (in my head) more realistic options that I can actually afford, whenever I have a spare moment.

Despite this, I have yet to come anywhere close to reaching what I would describe as perfection – and I know I’m not alone.

As we, and you, have all said many times before, hi-fi is getting better. Whether it’s incremental improvements or generational jumps, every year we see speakers, amplifiers, streamers and more improving.

Just look at last year’s What Hi-Fi? Awards, where we had more incumbent Product of the Year winners dethroned by newly launched rivals than at any ceremony in recent memory.

So even if you get a fleeting glance at audio nirvana, it will quite likely be a short one; in a few months, or – if you’re lucky – years, an even better-sounding product will no doubt appear. Hi-fi is an awesome hobby, but it’s also a Sisyphean task.

This year, though, I have had one major breakthrough that has helped me pause my never-ending quest for better sound. And, to my surprise, it had nothing to do with upgrading my hardware.

Regular readers will know that my monthly stipend means I can’t afford “premium” hi-fi. All the five-star, top-end review samples I experience stay in our shared listening rooms so we can use them as comparisons when reviewing new products.

I have been planning to level up my system and build a new rack around three of last year’s more affordable Award-winners – the Acoustic Energy AE300 Mk2, Arcam A5+ and Bluesound Node Icon. But it’s something far simpler than that that has made all the difference: a comfy chair.

Now hear me out. I know this sounds superficial, but it’s part of a wider move I made recently to improve my listening area. I’ve mentioned my tiny Victorian terraced house before in articles. It doesn’t have oodles of space. This limitation is a key reason I use a compact system, pairing the Technics SA-C600 with Q Acoustic 3030i standmount speakers.

Prior to the 2025 Christmas break, the dimensions of our lounge, where the system sits, coupled with our other furniture and my partner’s aversion to clutter, meant I didn’t have a permanent chair in the sweet spot – where you get the best sound. As we detail in our “how to build a hi-fi system” guide, this is a big problem if you want to do any serious listening.

So, whenever I wanted to listen to Mono’s Hymn to the Immortal Wind, or enjoy Coheed and Cambria’s Armoury Wars albums start to finish, I had to take one of the dining room chairs and awkwardly place it in the space to get the best results.

If I didn’t, my neurotic brain would distract me and focus on the fact that I wasn’t in the sweet spot, ruining the experience.

As a middle-aged gentleman who recently threw his back out lifting up an empty box while putting away our Christmas decorations, I found this setup less than optimal; lumbar support’s important, kids, and my back would make it at best four tracks in before telling me to move.

This, unfortunately, meant that, at least at home, I hadn’t indulged my hobby – properly listening to an album – as much as I used to.

So when we ditched our old, oversized dining-room table in favour of something smaller, and moved our giant sofa bed into our spare room, I jumped at the opportunity to fix this problem.

I invested in a proper comfy chair in the January sales and migrated the rack to a space in the lounge which allowed me to site my new throne permanently – and all without drawing the ire of my partner.

And, let me tell you, it has made all the difference.

Being able to sit comfortably has completely changed my listening habits. Now, instead of just putting some background music on while I cook in the adjacent kitchen or read on the sofa, I am sitting, fully enthralled in what I’m listening to.

I have even started pulling my vinyl back out, revisiting classics I’ve not touched in years: Queensrÿche’s’ Operation: Mindcrime; The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs; Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain.

The albums have all been dusted off and listened to from start to finish, reminding me why I got into hi-fi in the first place: I love music and want to hear it in the best way possible.

I would urge you, then, to think about the space you listen to your music in as much as the hardware you're listening on.

It sounds corny, but comfort and getting yourself directly in the sweet spot, make all the difference. You will find yourself actually listening to your music, not getting distracted on how to improve your setup. That, at least, has been the effect for me.

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