You can do just three things and prevent 90% of equipment failures: provide proper ventilation, maintain the condition of wiring and protect against over voltage and line surges.

• Surge Protection:

This one is simple. If you are reading this it is safe to assume you own a computer. Every computer book, magazine and owners manual pounds you over the head with messages about how you have to use a high quality surge protector or your computer will eventually be destroyed by a line surge. This is absolutely correct . The same goes for stereo equipment. Not using surge protection on stereo equipment is just plain stupid. As the chances are that you do not use a surge protector on your stereo (or TV or VCR) you may now feel insulted. Good. Now go  out and buy a surge protector. You will save a lot of money someday. Trust us on this, we don't even sell surge protectors. Also note: so-called surge protectors sold at home centers for 4.99 are about as useful as the "CD lens cleaners" you see hanging on racks in discount stores.
 

• Wiring:

Frayed, cut and spliced speaker wire causes more output stage failures than can be counted. LOOK AT YOUR SPEAKER WIRING!!! If the ends of the leads are frayed , loose, have bare wire exposed, or look like a bad case of split ends your stereo WILL blow up. It is just a matter of time before something moves or a lead gets pulled on and you will have an expensive repair bill. Fuses and protection circuits usually protect speakers from being burnt by faulty output devices, but do not protect transistors and integrated circuits from being shorted. Using new, high quality speaker wire is the best way to ensure that you get the best sound and long life from your equipment. Although there is much debate (and hype) about the benefit of expensive and exotic speaker wires, even basic speaker wire of at least sixteen gauge with clean, tightly twisted strands or terminals will prevent burning out your equipment.

• Ventilation:

All audio equipment generates some heat. Receivers and power amplifiers are the largest heat sources and require ventilation. NEVER stack CD players, tuners, cassette decks, etc. on top of a power amp or receiver. The extra heat buildup will shorten the life of the components and cause soldering and printed circuit problems due to heat/cool cycle effects. The heat/cool effect takes place over a period of time as the leads to printed circuit components heat up during operation and cool down when the unit is shut down. The expansion and contraction of metal leads in solder connections causes the mechanical integrity of the connection to degrade, causing intermittent connections. Try to provide at least six inches of free air space above a receiver or power amp, at least 12-14in above tube equipment If your equipment is mounted in a cabinet or wall unit, try to provide ventilation,either through vent holes in the rear of the cabinet or, with high power (200W+or tube)units, by using a fan to provide cool air into the cabinet. Quiet fans designed for this purpose are available at most of the better audio dealers.

 

Basic Connection:

Connect all equipment with the power off. Never connect speakers while a receiver or amp is powered up.  Check speaker wires carefully as a single strand of the finest gauge wire will look like a direct short to your amp.  Start out with good quality cables and interconnects:

Speaker wires:

After years of futzing around with every kind of speaker cable made this is our basic idea; LESS REALLY IS MORE! . Time and time again I have seen that the simplest type of construction of speaker cable is the best. Ohms law really works and the basic requirements for speaker cable are low resistance and  high current carrying capability.  Get these right and add some care about magnetic induction and 90% of the problem is solved. I am always wary about cables that have any  black box at one or both ends of the cable A few times I have cut these " matching devices or stabilizers" open and have found just plain wire imbedded in epoxy. Point is : beware snake oil audio!.  I make my own wires and on request will do up a set. No big secret: I use high grade CLV-3 rated speaker wire of 16 or 12 gauge twisted pairs, tripled, or up to five separate pairs for runs over  15ft, interleave the conductor pairs and try to bi-wire on unusually long cable runs. I usually use ten feet as a minimum length for any speaker wire, it is my impression that cables under six feet do not sound as good as a longer cable. Feel free to disagree, but give it a listen first.

Of cables on the market I like Kimber cables best. Their entry level cables are fairly inexpensive and use the type of multi-conductor interwoven construction I prefer.

I do not find any advantage to any speaker cable set over 800.00. Over this price range  any advantage is so far down on the cost / return scale that I consider it a waste of time and money.

If you just want decent wire that works and will not blow up anything, Radio Shack 16 gauge Megacable or "Stereo Speaker Wire " at Home Depot will work well. I disagree with some writers who praise the virtue of solid gauge wire ( telephone, hook-up wire, or Romex).


Interconnects:

I really feel that very heavily shielded interconnects squeeze the life out of music. The interconnects I use at home and for my customers usually consist of (feel free to try out secret recipe!) three twisted pairs of stripped out cat 5e wires, one strand of each to ground, the other to signal hot.  Terminate to good quality RCA's and cover in nylon braid to protect and  to damp vibration. Dozens of my customers have really liked the result, and have had me make up replacements for all his interconnects. You will have to use good wiring practice (see below) if you use this type of interconnect to prevent hum.

Again, I like Kimber interconnects, for the same reasons as stated about their speaker cables.

I have come to believe that any cable with a bandwidth greater that 10 MHZ or so will work for digital signals just fine. At times I did think I heard a difference between digital cables, but could not confirm in any subjective manner. I have used very expensive digital cables in my reference system and have used standard video patch cords, but have found little difference between them.

I prefer Coax for all purely audio digital connections, but use Toslink for anything that touches satellite or cable TV, due to safety issues in case of lightning strikes ( glass = insulator, copper = conductor = common sense )


Good wiring practice:

Run all AC leads to a single outlet strip to prevent ground loops. Use a surge protector. The computer grade units by Belkin you can get at Home Depot for about 75.00 are OK to use.
Never parallel run speaker wires or low level connectors with AC lines, never bundle RCA and speaker wires together. If dissimilar lines come near to each other, cross at 90 deg angle.
Never coil up speaker wires into loops, you are just building a choke coil (inductor). You do not want this but it would take a long, long time to explain why, trust me on this one.

Spray every single connection with Caig Labs D5. This stuff really works, I use it on my equipment, and use only Caig products in my shop.  Do not use anything else,  especially never use WD-40, this will really louse up your gear!.

I have noticed countless times that both speaker wires and interconnects sound better if lifted off a floor and either suspended or lifted on blocks of wood, Dixie cups, anything but clumped on the floor. Others have commented on this and suspect pickup of vibration as a cause of this problem.

Vibration damping:

No skepticism here, this really works and is important. In my shop it is standard procedure to use a variety of damping materials when we upgrade and modify equipment.  All conductors carrying electromagnetic energy are capable of modulating signals when subject to mechanical vibration. Sometimes this is severe such as in preamp tubes, much less in output transistors for example.
Stone or heavy wood bases , vibration damping such as Dynamat,  and damping feet can all be important to better sound.
I usually use dense live rubber under power amps, stone base with small silicone feet for CD players and preamps. Big receivers usually work out well with stone or heavy wood with multiple silicone feet. My best speaker mount technique is using construction adhesive to bind heavy maple or oak  block to the bottom of floor standing speakers or speaker stands, and then bolting directly to a floor, cutting through carpet if necessary. Best results with at least six bolts/lag screws right over a stud or setting with bondo body filler to a slab floor.

I take a lot of time in setting up internal damping in a upgrade component  and  I well know how much labor it can take to kill resonance in some equipment. Some of the well known tweaks of discs, stones, goo and such are useless junk designed to remove money from the pockets of the more gullible among the audiophile public.

Tubes:

Any time we retube a set I usually use new production tubes from Sovtek/New Sensor, E-H , Svetlana /SED. and Tesla JJ.  I WILL USE CUSTOMER SUPPLIED TUBES BUT DO NOT GUARANTEE RESULTS WITH THEM.
I do not use "NOS" tubes unless the type is not available in new production. Quite often "NOS" tubes are really just used or discarded, and there are some far east companies that offer to make brand new "NOS" tubes with any branding desired on them.

90% of my tubes are purchased from www.tubestore.com. They are fast shippers, provide excellent customer service and all their products are genuine and reliable. They also rate and review every item they sell and provide a lot of tube and audio info on their website. I do have confidence that any NOS tube from them is indeed genuine NOS.

I always like to send a repaired set back with the output and driver tubes that are going to be used in the set. This just makes sense considering the chance of a customer having a bad tube and not being satisfied with a repair.

Preamp tubes last much longer than usually thought. I receive Fishers and Mcintosh preamps with 30 year old
Telefunken and Mullard tubes that perform and test as well as new. Lesser brands and many imports do not perform nearly as well. I will usually change out preamp tubes if they are mismatched or actually defective in some way.