Why Upgrade?
Humans cannot hear radio frequencies- you don’t hear radio stations bleeding through. Your Hifi & video equipment picks up radio frequency pulses which are constantly emitted by WiFi, radio & TV broadcasts, RF radiation from itself and other electronics in the room and in the building, all brands and all models regardless of claimed factory shielding constantly reproduce and amplify RF pulses billions of times per second every second of every minute ever day of the year 24/7 365 days a year. This RUINS performance and manufacturers are not stopping it whatsoever. It takes specialized parts, specialized measurement equipment, multi layers of adhesive wrappings of various materials over all wires inside, and other materials applied to each of the parts and circuit traces as well because they are also antennas collecting RFI & EMI.
You aren’t getting a proper return on your investment using stock factory “For Profit Built” internally buck naked non-Upgrade Company non-RFI EMI RIDDED HiFi & Video.
There are no other products or mods on the market that solve the problem of airborne Radio Frequency collection+reproduction+amplification
It is the root cause of less then perfect electronic reproduction.
Stock = Very poor sound quality & average video compared to our SE Upgrade
No returns in over 14 years!

We’ve been here eleventy billion times before: the sound quality of a digital audio system doesn’t rely simply on the safe arrival of each and every bit but how accurately those bits are timed into the DAC chip. Any mis-timing is called jitter. Electrical noise – entering hi-fi components via the mains and via cables acting as antennae – can seriously disturb the timing accuracy of a DAC’s clock oscillators.
Not only. According to Garth Powell, Direct of Power/Engineering at AudioQuest, electrical noise will also make its way into the analogue section of a DAC to potentially mask the very low-level signal retrieval for which it was designed/purchased.
Powell’s extensive knowledge paints a worrying picture for those looking to extract the very maximum performance from their high-end audio hardware. A house in the woods isn’t a complete escape. It’s not all bad news. According to Powell, linear power supplies can be more effective than their switching counterparts in catching and killing some (but not all) electrical noise.
My 30-minute chat with this electrical noise expert goes a long way to explaining why we hear differences between network streamers, their external power supplies and interconnecting digital (and network) cables.
A problem with AC Power you may not have considered.
At my real job as an electrical engineer, I manage a cross-disciplinary engineering team for a large energy company. We make large, residential green energy management systems, a size that borders between most large homes and utility companies. A few months back, we released a new product to the 230VAC single-phase market (Australia, Europe, etc.) and recently introduced the same product to the 240VAC split phase market (USA, Canada, etc.). In addition to a slew of UL, IEC, IEEE, CSA, TUV, and other safety codes, we also had to meet FCC Class B emissions (which all your digital audio equipment must also meet) and also meet FCC Susceptibility requirements (which digital audio does not have to meet, unfortunately).
Since the two products are almost identical, I thought we could leverage what we learned for the 230VAC unit onto the 240VAC unit. Well, this is where the impact of grid power to our stereos comes into our interest.
The emissions requirement is of two parts, of which you may be familiar. One is radiated emission, which is the noise the product broadcasts into the air. The second part is conducted emissions, which is the noise the product injects onto the power lines and runs throughout your house and probably into your neighbors as well.
The 230VAC unit passed emissions, which I expected as we did a lot of design work to make it pass. The conducted part was a concern, since that injected noise is from the equipment our vendor produces, not something we designed in house. Well, when the certified testing house tested conducted emissions, it failed. A couple of weeks of debug later, at 2K$ per day, the problem was solved when I suggested they test with the grid connection running through 8 feet of steel conduit, since all installations have at least 8 feet of conduit.
Fast-forward six months to the 240VAC testing, which took place here in the USA. Surprisingly, the unit failed conducted emissions, even though we used the same 8 feet of steel conduit. Another week of debug, again at 2K$ per day, we stopped testing since it was clear a new design is needed to fix it. I designed a 50 Ampere Balanced LEMP Filter that had over 50-dBm isolation in the affected frequency range. Problem solved. So, why did 8 feet of conduit fix the problem one time and not the next? A good question.
I took the same 8 AWG THHN wire we used to connect the unit to the grid, ran it through the same 8 feet of 1 ½ inch steel conduit, and rented some high frequency test equipment. In the conduit we had two 8 AWG wires for Line 1 and Line 2, one 8 AWG wire for Neutral, and another 8 AWG for Earth ground. I ran a bandwidth test from Line 1 to Neutral and tied the conduit and Earth wire to earth, while the other Line wire floated. The test started at 60 Hz, which I referenced as 0 dBm and I ran the test all the way to 30 MHz. The generator produced 10Vrms, the level I checked at each step, and fed a 50-Ohm load. To my great surprise, I had a 2-dBm rise at 10 MHz where it began to roll off and was only 2 dBm down at 30 MHz, the limit of the test generator. In other words, that length of pipe and THHN wire had a bandwidth of +/- 1 dBm from 60 Hz to 30 MHz! Whoa! We are allowing a ton of injected noise into our systems!
To prove that, I grabbed the power supply from an analog stereo amplifier and fed the test signal through the cord, fuse, transformer, and measured the bandwidth on the secondary. In spite of a UL/CSA approved transformer, it was surprisingly transparent to the test signal. Throughout the test spectrum, it was never more than 6 dBm down and it peaked in a couple of areas, too.
Our homes usually don’t have grounded conduit, what most homes have is Romex wire. That stuff is transparent to radiated emissions and we live in a world of radiated emissions. Think cell phones, FM and AM radio, TV broadcasts, all the communication frequencies, plus who knows what we have for the dirty noise injected by electric motors. Think your fridge, your AC unit, your furnace, ceiling fans, light dimmers, electric vehicles (that is the reason they don’t usually come with an AM radio these days!), the list can go on for a long time.
For my stereo system here at the house, I built a smaller version of the LEMP filter, added additional suppression, along with 20,000 Amps of surge protection. I am also installing a dedicated earth ground as well. However, you don’t have to home brew – you can purchase equipment that meets the local safety codes and is LAB certified to meet multiple suppression standards. These units have strong filters in them to clean up line power. There are replacement AC line cords on the market that contain RF suppression. I don’t suggest you get a new mortgage just to buy AC noise suppression equipment or new line cords, but I do suggest you do something to kill those RF demons.
Look for equipment that has at least 30 dB of suppression from 100 KHz to 15 or 20 MHz. Thirty to forty dB is the range where most emission problems fade away, so that is a good starting point. Some equipment has lightening suppression as well; look for an IEEE spec stated in joules of energy, the more the better with a test pulse of 8/20 microseconds. Don’t be afraid to stack some of the equipment in series.
The lighting in your listening room can also matter a great deal. Stick with plain, old school incandescent bulbs; avoid the CFL’s, LED’s, neon’s, light dimmers, and other lights that require power supplies to run. Incandescent bulbs are very quiet, which is why they appear regularly in emission anechoic chambers. Although digital equipment is less sensitive than analog equipment, it is not immune to susceptibility. Vacuum tube equipment usually has an edge over solid state, too.
I hope what I wrote is of help to you in your quest for improved sound.
RobertSee the tan colored edge? It’s El cheapo bottom line PCB material and design unshielded as pictured found in Marantz, all models. It’s most of the reason why Marantz sounds fuzzy imprecise veiled etc weak sound vs the most expensive PCB type called glass epoxy multilayered which McIntosh uses, night vs day once parts in the boards and wiring to/from the boards attenuated, dissipated, dampened & shielded with our RFI EMI RIDDANCE.
Marantz Denon Anthem cheap unshielded circuitboards are not so apparent in stock gear because the parts and wiring are fully saturated with RFI EMI anyway so not a big difference for the extra expense of glass epoxy multilayer shielded & grounded curcuitboards. However, once the parts and wiring are RFI EMI RIDDED, the expensive glass epoxy multilayered & shielded & grounded curcuitboards found in McIntosh make a BIG difference over Marantz Anthem Denon etc note the tan colored edge on this Marantz PM14 integrated amp, cheapest quality as can be:
In the industry full of exaggerating sales people and magazine reviewers hungry for ever more free gear to sell for $$$, forgive me for saying it's hard to believe. How in the world do you get midfi and discontinued models etc to outperform the latest Class A rated Editors choice Top Pick Recommended Components praised models?
Our "SE Upgrade+RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology" provides proven 100% guaranteed "State the Art" electronic reproduction.
Remember just 1 WiFi router alone emits a constant 2.4 billion RF pulses every second. Turn on your smart phone or tablet WiFi and note how many WiFi router options appear: each option is a steady 2.4 billion RF pulses per second soaking into your gear and cables every millisecond dramatically robbing power supplies everywhere billions of times faster then the actual signal content pulses. However the airwaves all around us are constantly filled with trillions of RF pulses each and every millisecond, with a million or more per second produced by most modern digital devices in and of themselves from onboard RF generators and RF generating switching type power supplies.
We recommend starting your Upgrade Co journey with either power delivery or a source component. This is where it starts. Perhaps a Furutech NCF duplex wall outlet & Furutech 105D cover plate, fed by isolated ground shielded stranded Romex in the wall from the breaker panel itself. Then plug in an SE Upgraded+RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology fitted large capacity power storing device that stores a large amount of power in a magnetic field, a Richard Gray Power Company Model 400, 600, 1200 fitted with Furutech NCF outlets and a 20A Furutech NCF IEC inlet fed from the wall and exited by a TimePortal Cables RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology fitted Signature power cord feeding your power conditioner that’s been SE Upgraded+RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology fitted also with Furutech NCF plugs. Doing just this will elevate the system dramatically, far more so if TimePortal power cords feed each component as they contain far more RFI EMI RIDDING material then any stock power conditioner or other brand of power cord other then Stage lll.
Inside the equipment, all brands, all types, exist naked wiring and naked signal conductors which must be wrapped with our RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology which is a 4 part engineering breakthrough comprised of shielding, dissipation, attenuation, & dampening. RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology in and of itself elevates all brands and models to above stock State of the Art, Class A, Editors Choice cost is no object performance because RFI EMI collection distribution & amplification is the number 1 most widespread most pervasive obstacle to perfect fidelity, period. It is not the brand of parts nor circuit design. By reducing the number of RF & EM pulses outside the signal content, it is akin to freeing up readily available power supply by a factor of 100. Said another way, in all stock gear, due to its buck naked non attenuated factory mass produced condition, each make and model would need a minimum of a 100 times larger power supply to achieve the highly saturated at all times power delivery one of our RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology fitted models has. We’ve proven that midfi AV receivers that’ve received our SE upgrade and RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology far far outperform stock cost of no object seperates at the highest price levels when used within a system that has the same RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology installed in the power conditioning power cords and interconnects.
Remember that any electronic system is only as good as its noisiest link in the chain from power delivery to the loudspeakers, chipsets and parts must be shielded/attenuated/dissipated/dampened and all wiring must be wrapped with our RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology which is a 4 part engineering breakthrough comprised of various materials for shielding, dissipation, attenuation, & dampening.
Our RFI EMI RIDDANCE Technology in and of itself elevates all brands and models to above stock State of the Art, Class A, Editors Choice.
Your investment is 100% GUARANTEED ZERO risk to discover that you're missing out RFI EMI RIDDANCE TECHNOLOGY that makes everything else sound dull, flat, fuzzy & boring.
Try us out today!
A+ BBB rated & 30 Day In-System 100% Refund Period
Yours in music, David J. Schulte / President
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / 269.352.7609
The Upgrade Company LLC
we offer a full 30 day in-system trial period to find out for yourself, backed up by our 5 year parts & labor warranty.
If you could witness both the stock and Signature Edition upgraded versions of any make or model side by side, you'd immediately notice how the stock version sounds:
1 -Small hazy flat irritating grainy thin dull & very artificial sounding due to the unit spending 100 times more time and energy reproducing radio frequency and electromagnetic radiation instead of just the actual signal content.
2- Weak bass response, sucked out lower midrange making voices sound thin and artificial and forward. Power supplies are drained 100 times faster by the radio frequency and electromagnetic radiation collected by the circuitry & chipsets instead of just the music or video all by itself. Constant RFI & EMI back-fed contamination overheats chipsets and drains power supplies rapidly.
3- Fuzzy grainy mids and highs, highs that ring, irritating, peaked forward midrange presentation. Not pristine over a jet black background
4- Soundstage is small & shallow. Performers are not in your room nor does it feel like you are "in the movie" with action taking place all around you.
The stock "For Profit Built" unshielded version totally lacks the highly liquid live huge lush soundstage, jet black background, thunderous bass and overall ease and musicality of the upgraded version.
By now you should have an understanding of how RFI & EMI contamination is the leading cause of less then perfect signal reproduction and why stock equipment is so very compromised.
Even our SE upgraded AV Controllers will sound as good or better then the finest stereo only vaccum tube or solid state 2ch preamps on the market. This is because they lack the best parts & wiring throughout and mainly due to missing and/or ineffective RFI & EMI shielding. Further, our modern SE upgraded AV Controllers have Audyssey Room Correction, which corrects the peaks and dips in the frequency response of the room, using the supplied calibrated Audessey microphone during initial setup.
Audessey Room Correction is like buying a new very expensive set of loudspeakers, the improvement in both clarity and frequency response is huge.
All of our upgrades come with our world famous "14 Day In Home Trial" & "100% Buy Back Guarantee" Even when we upgrade your equipment. We'll either replace it with the same exact stock model and refund the upgrade fee or buy your used unit back including refunding your upgrade fee, if you're not 100% satisfied. To date, The Upgrade Company has never had to replace a unit with a stock version. Ever. Obviously we provide you what you'd expect.
We're A+ rated by the nationwide Better Business Bureau. We have received hundreds of client endorsements, with more new client testimonials arriving every month. Several courageous magazine reviewers have endorsed our upgrades as well.
There is no specification for transparency. There is no specification for soundstage depth, height or width. There is no specification for bass speed, heft, or slam or tightness. There is no specification for how clean and defined the midrange and high end is. There is no specification for musicality. There is no specification for forwardness, or digital "irritation". There is no specification for resolution. Some of the worlds best stock digital uses ca. 1988 Philips TDA1541S1 dac's with just 16 bits of mathematical resolution: Zanden and AMR high cost brands are both examples. Yet both of these brands are dramatically improved by high cost replacement parts and RFI & EMI shielding, just as Esoteric's $25,000pr D-01 VU 24 bit monoblock dac's & $25,000 P-01 VU transport are.
A testament to our claims being met is the sheer number of upgrades we have put into the systems of enthusiastic music lovers. To attempt to convince you or others of the merits of our upgrades we can claim many things, but nothing speaks louder than the appreciation our customers have. The only way you or anyone else will know if our upgrades elevate a component to State of the Art is to hear it with one's own ears in one's own system
In order to achieve a high performance level that truly satisfies you, your equipment requires the finest electronic parts, wiring, shielding and dampening installed. There is no other way to maintain the highest signal integrity. The top of the line models magazines tout STILL do not have top of the line parts, wiring and shielding installed through-out. A few high end parts here and there. Usually just a better case and remote. Buying new cables or speakers is fine, but it's still a fraction of what The Upgrade Company can provide you with an upgrade to one or more of your components, including your CD player, transport, DAC, Blu Ray Universal player, preamplifier, power amplifier, surround prepro, tuner, electronic crossover, or passive speaker crossover.
High-End audio manufacturers continue to get by giving consumers just 5-10 pieces of audiophile grade parts in a typical unit while stuffing roughly 100-300 "For Profit" low cost generic parts that do not belong in a high end stereo or high end video unit. The use of widespread generic dirt cheap parts is not only found in audio equipment sold at the Walmart and Best Buy type stores of the world, the fact is these same parts are also found inside your expensive supposedly "Latest & Greatest" purchase. We'll show you some of this to you over on our PHOTOS page. There is so much to show from all of the manufacturer's today. We could fill a book with explanations & photographic evidence of "For Profit Built" practices employed by all manufacturers today.
The typical audiophile model contains 50-300 dirt cheap .05-10 cent surface mount capacitors instead of proven high-performance (high cost) types that require a human to insert into the circuit board, align and hand solder. Instead, manufacturers greedy to profiteer rely on automated assembly devices to insert, align and solder the parts onto each circuit board. The only parts these machines accept are generic parts that are used in everything from remote controls to your laptop computer. The finest most expensive best measuring parts must be installed by hand by a human being. This takes at least 50 times longer then the automated assembly machines take, and therefore costs the manufacturer too much money. Manufacturers simply cannot afford to use the best parts and hand applied shielding.
Unshielded power supply delivery wiring and unshielded analog or digital signal conductors are the single largest cause of noise in all brands. Manufacturer's simply do not have the time it takes to install the shielding, even though they are indeed aware of the great benefits of shielding all power supply and signal conductors. Rarely a high end manufacturer will install a minor amount of shielding only in cost-is-no-object models, at best only 1 or 2 places in their most expensive models, again, due to time to manufacture constraints. For example, on the PHOTOS page you can see for yourself how Esoteric installed flimsy resonant non-adhesive aluminized mylar foil shielding (not the heavy adhesive lined silver shielding/dampening product we use) over some of the power supply wiring runs in their $25,000pr flagship D-01 Monoblock DAC's, but not in any of their lower priced models. One would presume that for $25,000 the manufacturer would install shielding over all of the wiring and conductors to drop signal to noise levels to the absolute best, correct? The S/N ratio, clarity, black background and overall resolution and musicality are all greatly improved with treatment to the rest of the unshielded wiring in the D-01 flagship dac's, before we even start to upgrade the "For Profit" generic parts the manufacturer installed.
For pennies on the dollar over supposed "State of the Art" new models that are built by large corporations,"For Profit", and then talked up by the major HiFi magazines around the world.
An entirely new level of performance is waiting for you....
Read more about The Upgrade Company
The Upgrade Company has reverse engineered the most expensive high end brands for decades. Even today, no matter how much we spend on the latest & greatest new model, performance and build quality are always lacking. The latest magazine "Class A" "Editors Choices" "Top Picks" sound dull, flat, hazy, grainy, one dimensional next to the same model that has been upgraded. This is not difficult to understand. Like so many audiophiles today, we too were once caught up in the "Merry-Go-Round" of buying and selling one model for another, never achieving the level of performance we were after, and knew technology could provide.weak bass, ill-defined mids and highs, simply not musical, simply not "live", simply not satisfying or you would not be reading this.
For top-of-the-line models to be profitable in the market place, reviewers have to promote them and talk them up. Basic economics, you do not establish profitability by selling 5 or 6 pieces per year. Nor are the magazines themselves profitable unless they earn well over fifteen thousand dollars month for advertising and their reviewers compensated somehow, typically in free or "loaned" gear for their high words of praise. The inner cover ad in a major high end audio publication is said to be a minimum $6000 a month, or free gear, and a review is generally not granted until at least several months of advertising have been paid for, or other arrangement has been made. No one works nor publishes a magazine for free.
We would not have a 100% Buy Back Guarantee and be A+ BBB rated if our upgrades were not satisfying clients day after day for many years now.
Our clients trust their own ears and eyes, backed up with our 100% Buy Back Guarantee and hundreds of client testimonials. Our clients are happy with our results and out of the Merry-Go-Round of constantly buying & selling one model for another, trying in vain to achieve a musically satisfying system.
Page information last updated: 06/05/2020
Disclaimer: We believe but do not guarantee that the information on this website is correct at the time of publication.
We wish to comment upon the photo below, whoever did this clearly has no idea how to shield and frankly gets an “F” in logic. By foil lining everything, he is actually CAUSING MASSIVE RF and EM wavelengths to become reflected back at the person sitting in the seat. Completely wrong and incorrect. The proper scientifically established approach would be for the person working in this cubicle to wear specially designed and sold shielding clothing thats been available for decades. Google “Less EMF” store. Clothing lined with or made out of silver or gold threads to shield the body and head, overcoat, t-shirt, gloves, scarf, hat and face shield. If he is really concerned about DNA mutation genetic damaged caused by RFI & EMI radiation, a face shield is available which is anodized with a thin layer of gold like astronaut and some air force pilot helmet lenses are. Again available at Less EMF.
RCA caps such as these INCREASE airborne RFI collection due to the sharp metal 360 degree edge which attracts RF like a magnet out of the airwaves. Total RF into the RCA jack is INCREASED. No wonder audiophiles never liked these.