Why settle for mediocre store-bought "For Profit Built" performance when for just a little bit more, you can have an Upgrade Company "Signature Edition" upgraded model which performs like a cost-is-no-object model currently top rated by the magazines. This is an established fact, not a claim.
There is no specification or measurement set that has been devised anywhere in the world that can be taken to indicate wether or not a product will sound good. If there was a measurement for good sound, magazine reviewers would simply take and publish these measurements and rank the results in order of best to worst. The fact remains that Mid-fi measures the same as Hi-Fi. Hence the need for reviewers to opine on what sounds good.
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
Right out of the box, your new Upgrade Company "Signature Edition" upgrade competes or beats sh owroom models costing as much as 10 times or more.
For your convenience, The Upgrade Company provides a selection of brand new "A" stock "Signature Edition" upgraded models for Online Shopping
High end audio manufacturer's are "For Profit" enterprises. They are registered as such with the IRS. They are not charities, out to build the finest unit they possibly can. They're in business to turn a profit. No major hi-end audio or video manufacturer builds the finest extreme no-holds-barred unit they possibly can. Obviously. They need to turn a profit to stay in business and pay all those executives and owners and workers. It takes a small aftermarket specialty company like us, typically 8 hours to upgrade just one unit. Manufacturers unfortunately cannot afford to spend an extra 8 hours on each unit they manufacture. Even high cost companies like Ayre, Audio Research, Boulder, Mark Levinson, Krell, McIntosh and others leave a ton of room for further improvement. They could never keep up with production doing all the hand installed labor intensive shielding and hand installed high end parts the automated assembly machines do not handle. End cost to the consumer would rise substantially.
More then the generic low cost parts, the consistent & total lack of RFI/EMI shielding are the real culprits which have prevented digital sound reproduction from sounding like the finest analog recordings, and digitized video from looking like film. Our unique shielding approaches are what give The Upgade Company the competitive edge and repeat ability to take low cost models and upgrade them to surpass the performance of the most expensive magazine rated models, including Top Pick, Editors Choice, and Class A rated models.
We routinely achieve signal to noise ratio's in the neighborhood of 130db through our upgrades. Manufacturers do not.
Audio and video circuits are highly similar from brand to brand. Stock circuits, even those found in high priced models, are being populated with "For profit" generic electronic parts, zero shielding, zero dampening, cheap wiring, unshielded power supply wiring, unshielded digital signal conductors, unshielded analog conductors, they're full of noise and out of band energies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the huge benefit of upgrading.
The Upgrade Company has earned hundreds of client testimonials and magazine reviewers to back this up.
Every product and service we provide comes with our "14 Day In Home Trial" and "100% Buy Back Guarantee".
In order to issue one of our bound serialized State of the Art upgrade certificates and affiix our SE upgrade stickers to each upgraded unit, we must upgrade all circuits and power suppplies and conductors. Circuits, wiring and power supplies all affect one another, directly by being interconnected as well as through the air inside the unit with radio frequency and electromagnetic radiation. Circuits wiring and power supplies also affect one another through shared grounding, power sources and AC and DC wiring. Both EMI and RFI bands contaminate and ruin the delicate audio and video signals. The Upgrade Company is totally unique in it's approach to dealing with EMI and RFI radiation inside the unit. All other modifiers & manufacturers must leave off our proprietary RFI/EMI shielding parts, wire & conductor coverings. They're not allowed to duplicate our shielding work and innovations by law, not even in one unit. Swapping in high cost parts & wire alone has never achieved the same high results when extensive shielding is included on top of all the high end parts and wiring. The shielding is what produces the majority of measured and perceived improvement.
Upgrades Explained
Massive untapped potential resides in all brands
SEE PHOTOS
No other modification firm nor manufacturer is allowed to install our shielding into production models, modifications, updates or upgrades, by law.
In order to achieve a super high performance level, the latest models all require the finest electronic parts, wiring, shielding and dampening that technology affords but is missing due to cost & time needed to manufacture constraints. There really is no other way to reap all of the original performance the recording contains. 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, universal player, CD transport, DAC, Blu Ray player, preamplifier, power amplifier, surround pre pro, tuner, electronic crossover, or passive speaker crossover. Manufacturer's are in business to profit, they simply cannot afford to use expensive parts, wiring, shielding and dampening. It's too labor intensive and time consuming. Automated manufacturing is the norm today unfortunately.
There is no specification or measurement testing that has been devised anywhere in the world that can indicate wether or not a product will sound good. If there was a measurement for "good sound", magazine reviewers would simply take and publish these measurements and rank the results in order of best to worst. The fact remains that Mid-Fi measures the same as Hi-Fi. Hence the need for reviewers to opine on what sounds good. It's what drove Stereo Review magazine out of print years ago.
There is no specification or measurement correlated with transparency. There is no specification or measurement correlated with soundstage depth, height or width. There is no specification for bass speed, heft, or slam or tightness. There is no specification or measurement correlated with how clean and defined the midrange and high end is. There is no specification or measurement correlated with musicality. There is no specification or measurement correlated with forwardness, or digital "irritation". There is no specification or measurment correlated with perceived resolution. Some of the worlds best stock players and stand-alone dac's use 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.
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.
Mass produced & stock ultra-high end Hi Fi sounds dull, flat and boring: weak bass, ill-defined mids and highs, simply not musical, simply not "live", simply not satisfying or your would not be reading this. Performers and instruments sound reproduced and small, not like they're right in front of you. Video that looks mildly washed out, lacking in depth and immediacy, grainy in comparison to film or real life. Whites that glow. Blacks that blend together. Digital and analog audio and video signals, as well as power supplies, are all highly susceptible to radio-frequency and electromagnetic influences and interference which originates both within the component and from external sources including what travels in along connecting cabling and power cords, which always function like antenna's, collecting RFI and EMI right out of the airwaves. Metal wire and metal circuit board traces collect radio frequencies. All circuit board traces collect RFI and EMI wether they are analog, AC or DC power supply wiring, the power supplies themselves, digital circuits, analog circuits, video, control, etc. You wouldn't hang a piece of string or fish line as an antenna for AM, FM or digital domain tuner reception would you? Of course not. Only a wire or metallic antenna will collect radio frequencies out of the air. Every wire and circuit trace inside your components is doing the same thing, severely compromising the delicate audio and video signals, wether they originated in the analog or digital domain. A modern digitally based surround prepro has typically 5 clocks inside radiating RF energy into the circuitry through-out the unit. A standard CD player has 1 or 2 clocks, a universal player like the Oppo, 6 clocks. With all that RF energy radiated inside digital equipment including prepro's, CD/SACD players, DVD/Bluray players, transports, digital amplifiers, dac's etc, proper RF and EM shielding is of paramount importance. Transformers and power delivery wiring radiate out of band energy into delicate audio and video circuits, both analog and digital circuits, in the low frequency domain mainly through magnetic influences. The high frequency RF energy radiated outward from every digital clock in the circuit induces jitter and out of band energy in all nearby clocks and all circuits. For years the first digital alarm clocks had to be registered during manufacture with the Federal Communications Commission, because they broadcast their beat frequency out into the airwaves. All digital devices broadcast their beat frequency. The Upgrade Company's unique RFI and EMI treatment solutions result in the very lowest jitter and highest overall performance in the high end audio and video industry. No manufacturer or other modifier can match our results because.....
There is no consumer electronic manufacturer or aftermarket modifier installing the upgrades The Upgrade Company performs. By law.
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.
The RF & EM noise we shield out is created inside every model and brand regardless of cost or prestige: For example, there are typically 3-6 clocks radiating strong RF (radio frequency radiation and interference) and power transformers radiating EM (electromagnetic radiation and interference) inside all CD/SACD/DVD players, surround prepro's, computers, dac's & switching power amplifiers for example.
The typical Universal player from Oppo, Marantz, Denon, McIntosh, Krell etc contains as many as 6 clocks and 3 power transformers. One power transformer is typically a very noisy switching mode power supply type which radiates it's switching radio frequency strongly into the delicate audio and video signal circuitry nearby. The voltages many circuit chips operate at is 5 volts or less in most models, some are 15-18 on the high side in the analog output stage on some models. HDMI and coaxial digital circuits are powered by as little as 3 volts, with actual video and digital audio signals being conducted at 1 volt or less. Analog signals are also typically 1 volt or less. These are very delicate signals that are easily influenced by higher voltages in the vicinity. Airborne RF radiation put out by all clocks and radio & TV stations and anything digital in the room is always collected right out of the air by anything metallic: this includes all of the signal traces and the chips themselves. RF radiation is also collected by the power supply traces and voltage regulators themselves, again right out of the airwaves. This is measurable and found in every brand and model regardless of retail cost. There are many clocks mounted directly on all HDMI and SPDIF circuit boards regardless of cost or brand, which radiate high magnitude RF noise directly into adjacent analog, digital and power supply wiring and circuitry. It's really incredible how much the clock radiation degrades signal integrity, of both digital & analog audio and video performance. We shield this nasty RFI and EMI radiation out of the parts, wiring and circuit boards to the best that technology can accomplish. The improvements are absolutely tremendous.
As you can see it is a huge mistake to purchase stock unshielded "For Profit Built" high end audio & video.
Our RFI & EMI shielding is installed in addition to the very best hand selected and performance matched electronic parts.
Each electronic part and wire in the signal path can be thought of as an interconnect, and every part and wire in the power supply can be thought of as a power cord. Why not replace hundreds of these parts through our upgrades instead of a just one or more pairs of interconnects or power cords between your components at a high price? Buying better interconnects for $500.00 - $10,000 does not provide as good a return on your investment. Through upgrading, The Upgrade Company replaces essentially hundreds of interconnects and power cords, all for one low price, with 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
The level of improvement The Upgrade Company provides you is far greater then purchasing the most expensive cables or new models top rated by magazine reviewers.
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.
Manufacturers want you to believe that their highest priced models automatically equate to "State of the Art" performance. Magazine reviewers want you to believe their top recommended models are night and day better then the lower ranked recommended models, or models they failed to "review". This is simply not evident when listening. Reason being: both the low priced and high priced models from the same manufacturer nearly always contain the same supplier for the wiring, printed circuit board material and electronic parts! They buy in bulk. There's simply more of the same brands of parts in the more expensive component with a more expensive outer casework and remote. In both instances, the high priced and low priced models greatly benefit from upgrading to the highest end parts, shielding dampening and wiring.
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.
Every electronic part and wire in the signal path can be thought of as an interconnect, and every electronic part and wire in the power supply can be thought of as a power cord. Our upgrades essentially replace a high number of interconnects and power cords within your components. The effects are truly remarkable.
We would not have a 100% Buy Back Guarantee, hundreds of client testimonials and be A+ BBB rated if our upgrades were not satisfying clients day after day for many years now.
Who are you going to trust? A salesman? A magazine reviewer or your own ears & eyes backed up with a 100% Buy Back Guarantee?
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.
