When using USB, it’s best to separate the power from the data. A USB splitter that has no power (red wire) but does have ground (black wire) on the data cable and the power only has the red and black wire for power. Connect that power cable to a clean source so it’s no longer taking it from the laptop / music server. That makes a big difference. Either a power bank or something like the Uptone LPS 1.2.
Also, as I’ve discovered recently. Room treatment.
After reading the thread on room treatment, I’ve experimented with that. I received some simple foam panels from EQ Acoustics and waiting on a the larger thicker bass traps. Placing the foam panels at 1st and 2nd reflection points made a big difference in tone and soundstage. The soundstage became significantly deeper and while remaining wide, it was became a lot clearer… more focused.
What I wasn’t expecting was a drop in brightness. It now sounds even fuller but not too heavy. The mids and highs are still there, just very focused. The effect on near field listening was more significant than I was expecting. I think a lot of the high end of the spectrum was reflecting back fast enough to alter both imaging and brightness and now I’m only hearing the sound from the speakers. There is a lot more texture to the music and details that I hadn’t heard before became evident. It’s ben fun over the last few days listening and finding new elements to old tracks.
Anyway, just a thought. You can get some wood and fabric panels that go really nicely in family rooms (art like) rather that the industrial foam look.
One last thing I noticed when playing with DC cables. They are quite prone to picking up noise so careful routing of them away from other wires may help.
Edit…
If you have DC cables that can be upgraded, try and make or get someone else to make them with Starquad cable. The magnetic field these create because of their configuration makes a big difference as well. The difference between stock DC cable with the Uptone LPS 1.2 and my star quad cable is very obvious. Canare 4S6 unshielded is very good but I’ve also got some Van Damme starquad shielded and unshelled coming out to me to play with.