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Home Audio 101

What’s Important for Good Home Audio?

We’re going to make this simple. So we’ll start with the three facts you need to know to make your home theater or hi-fi system sound as good as it possibly can.

Fact # 1: The single most important audio component is the loudspeaker. End of discussion.

Fact # 2: If you put the best speakers in the world in the wrong place in your home, you won’t get the sound you want. Or the sound you’ve already paid for.

Fact # 3: All other audio considerations play a distant second to facts 1 & 2. OK, so what are the practical considerations you should be aware of when selecting speakers and then placing them in your home? Here are some answers.

Start With The Speakers

Admittedly, choosing a loudspeaker can be difficult. You might think that buying speakers at a retail location is better than buying on the web because at least you can hear the speakers in a dealer showroom. But that’s the problem. Listening “in a dealer showroom” can be deceptive because whatever speakers you choose there will absolutely, positively not sound the same when you get them home!

Because rooms affect a speaker’s sound as much as they do, the only place you can really audition a speaker is in your home with your music or movie soundtracks. And that is, we hasten to add, exactly what The Speaker Company offers you!

So, after reading the product descriptions and knowing what your needs are, make your decision. Rest assured that you’ll have the time you need to hear how appropriate your choice was.

What Makes A Speaker Good?

Speakers, whether for music or movies, should have certain qualities. Specifically, good speakers will faithfully reproduce the following attributes of an audio signal:

• The original tonal balance
  • Judge this by how natural an instrument or voice sounds. Use acoustic/unamplified music if at all possible. It’s really difficult to evaluate this quality with movie soundtracks or most rock recordings. They usually don’t resemble anything you might be familiar with in real life.
• Any spatial clues captured in the original recording
  • This is a subtle but important quality. When listening, ask yourself “Can I imagine these instruments or artists as they might be on a stage?” In other words, can you determine whether the guitarist is in front of the drummer, to the right or left of the vocalist, etc.
• Accurate transient reproduction
  • Transients are those “now you hear ‘em, now you don’t” sounds – a drumstick hitting a cymbal, for instance – that give music its sense of vitality and “liveness”. Can you distinguish those sounds distinctly or are they blurred or “soft”? Do they sound natural?
• All the dynamics of the original recording
  • By “dynamics,” we mean the difference between really loud passages and those whisper-quiet ones. When the brass section cuts in, do you hear the instruments as clearly as you do a solo classical guitar? Do things sound harsh when you turn up the volume? If the answer is “yes,” there’s a possibility that the speaker isn’t able to handle dynamics and is squashing – and thereby distorting – those peaks.