The Sound of Music

One of the most asked for guides has been on the audio world. Unfortunately, this is such a vast domain that covering most aspects would take up pretty much time. Here is the shore, concise and very precise guide to assembling your own audio system. Now, I take on the source and the amplification. Next time will be the big daddy component – the Definitive Loudspeaker buying guide.

The Big Myth

The big myth here is that you should always buy an integrated all-in-one music system. Nothing could be further away from the truth. It’s almost impossible for a single company to make every single component of the audio system perfectly.

Each component needs its own expertise, skill and proficiency. For instance, those who make a state of the art CD player may not be able to make the best loudspeakers. The all-in-one music-system has its own place when it comes to bedroom audio, space constraints or convenience but cannot suffice when the audio system you are planning to build has to be a soul stirring work of passion.

The good news is that it’s not as complicated as most people will have you believe. Break it into simple steps, keep to the basics, avoid the jargons, be aware of the gimmicks and trust your own judgment.

The Source

In a domain where we are all about to move to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD this is now getting to be very confusing decision. Still, the way to go right now is to choose a dedicated, stand-alone CD player. DVD players that also play CD’s may not be able to give you the same performance. Look for an easy interface, ability to play CD-R’s and a robust build. Play a CD on it and firmly tap around the player with two fingers. If it skips then it should be off your buy list. It should also be able to play scratched CD’s easily. If you are buying a high-end audiophile level CD player then look for DVD audio and/or SACD multi-channel capability and make sure it has an output to feed an external Digital-to-analog converter. It should have an S/P-DIF output, usually marked as ‘Digital Out’.

Most importantly listen to the source player by disabling all features and carry a CD with music you are familiar with.

The Boosters

A basic receiver is an all-in-one box component with an integrated preamp, tuner and preamp. These receivers have everything a basic amplifier has with an added processor to decode formats and sound encoding like Dolby Digital and DTS. They also have multi channel power amplifiers, DSP processing and plenty of Audio/Video inputs/outputs. You need to figure out whether your usage is purely for audio or combined with some video too.

Look at the rating of the power supply, the build quality, the sound, the bass management and match the impedance to your speakers. Be very careful when choosing this product as some receivers with wiz-bang feature lists and nice lights suffer from a common problem – terrible preamp/processor sections. Once gain, take some familiar source material with you and leave the final judgment to your ears.

Next time, we move to the world of Loudspeakers. This admittedly is where some complexity comes in. The Big Payoff is that the speaker is easily the most important piece of audio equipment you will ever buy. Get it right and the audio performance will take you to places you have never been before.