A strange thing happened with my upstairs speakers recently. It made me think of a Porsche dealer I once met. He told me that Porsche motors run better when they're worked hard. If your Porsche feels flat and tired, he advised, find a lonely country road and thrash the thing through the gears for 10 or 15 minutes and it will be sweet again. Could it be the same for speakers?

My upstairs speakers are mainly used for the television, so they mostly handle the news, broadcast sports and Netflix. The volume control of the amplifier driving them has hardly ever been turned beyond a quarter of its travel. They've always sounded good, but suddenly they started sounding better.

This followed trying out Arcam's rBlink Bluetooth receiver with them. When it arrived for road test I plugged it in and cranked up music on the computer and digital portable, and the sound quality was way better than I was expecting. And when music sounds great one tends to turn it up. I had the volume almost to two-thirds. It was wall-shaking stuff. Such hard work must have been a rude shock for speakers used to a very gentle life.

After a few days we were watching television again and over a single movie I realised that the sound from these speakers had changed. It was richer, fuller, more rounded. There was extra depth. It was more exciting and involving.

So I went to the highest authority in the land, the editor of Australian Hi Fi magazine, Greg Borrowman, and asked him if running speakers hard can make them sound better or if I was just imagining it. He said that possibly the loud playing had loosened the suspension of the drivers, consisting of spiders and roll surrounds, so the cones moved more freely, thus improving responsiveness.

"This would tend to help with the bass," he said. "It's always a good idea to give your speakers a blast to free up the suspension at some time, but no one recommends it because of the potential for damage. So you need to be careful."

And because we enjoy a relationship based on mutual admiration and respect, he added at the end, "However in your case I suspect you were just imagining it".

Lots of people seem to be using a single sound system for both television and music these days, and with the sound quality of soundbars getting so good and apartments becoming smaller it's no wonder. If you're just such a person, then Onkyo has come up with a neat idea. The brand has unveiled both a 2.1 home theatre system, with a couple of compact speakers and separate subwoofer, and a soundbar and sub combo, and both accept a turntable.

The $1999 LS7200 soundbar, and the $1799 LS5200 2.1 stereo system both come with a separate amplifier, and both of them have a "phono" input, which means you can plug a turntable straight in without the need for a phono pre-amp.. It's a beautiful solution if you love your vinyl, but only have room for one sound system.

Both are dead easy to hook up with a single HDMI cable to the telly, and in both cases the subwoofer receives its signal wirelessly, so it can go anywhere in the room where a power point is handy. And both are AirPlay compatible. The 7200 soundbar is also Wi-Fi compatible while the 5200, available in black or white and aimed more at music lovers, works in with Spotify and Chromecast. It also has late-night and pure direct modes.