Stereo Nuts Can Teach the Rest of Us About Sound Systems
I've been hanging out for awhile on audiophile forums and blogs. I've been thinking about stereos. I think I've picked up some important lessons about stereos and stereo equipment along the way.
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While I still can't make sense of terms like "fresh" and "full bodied" when it comes to stereo sound, here are a few things that I have learned:
If you hang out in enough audiophile Internet forums and read enough audiophile blogs, you'll eventually learn a few things that can help you set up your normal person stereo and enjoy your normal person music. Here are seven lessons we can all learn from those stereo nuts called audiophiles:
1. Lesson 1- Don't Be An Audiophile. Audiophiles are tortured souls. They tweak their systems endlessly and constantly re-arrange their lives, their finances, and their living spaces in pursuit of perfect sound reproduction. When they finally get their perfect system created, they find that sometimes imperfect commercial music recordings sound terrible.
2.. Lesson 2 - Music Genre Matters. Audiophiles enjoy music that will allow the full range of sound to come to their ears. Classical music and jazz are often the preferred genres of audiophiles because of the wide variety of instruments brought to bear in a composition. Those of us who relish other genres like pop, rock, and rap get more enjoyment from beat and rhythm. If my wife is dancing around the house, then our stereo is working properly.
3. Lesson 3 - Speaker Placement Is Important. Ideally, speakers should be placed at ear level. This generally means speaker stands. You don't want to block speakers with furniture and other obstructions. If you place speakers close to walls, you will deepen bass. If you move them away from walls, you'll diminish the bass. In most cases, you'll want to aim speakers so that the sound converges on the spot where you'll most likely be listening.
4. Lesson 4 - Room Furnishings Affect Sound. Hard furniture, hard floors, and hard walls will cause sound to be reflected. While soft furnishings, carpets, and tapestries, absorb sound. When placing speakers you want to strike a balance between sound reflecting and sound absorbing materials.
5. Lesson 5. Buy Quality. Audiophiles like to buy the highest quality stereo components they can in hopes of accurately reproducing music. If they can't get the highest quality new stereo system, they will seek out vintage stereo equipment with an excellent reputation for good sound or they will incrementally build a system by buying one high quality piece at a time.
6. Lesson 6. It's Not About Power. Audiophiles are not swayed by the power ratings of stereo receivers or amplifiers. For them, it is all about accurate sound reproduction. " Essentially," according to audiocognoscenti.com, "high-end audio tries to achieve the goal of reproducing the recorded music perfectly as it was meant to be heard." You don't necessarily need a powerful stereo and speaker system to accomplish the goal of accurate sound reproduction. On his Cheap Audiophile blog, Kent Smith shows that with efficient speakers, you don't need a lot of power to produce a borderline uncomfortable 100 decibals of sound.
7. Lesson 7. You Can Fix and Improve Stereo Speakers. Audiophiles aren't all impractical sissies. Many can roll up their sleeves and work on stereo equipment. For example, when the foam surrounding a speaker deteriorates, a serious audiophile might get a kit from a supplier like Parts Express and "re-foam" it. You can also add sound absorbing material to speaker cabinets or even build stereo speakers from a kit or from your own design. The internet is awash with instructions and how to videos about stereo speakers.
If you avoid becoming totally obsessed with stereo equipment, you can learn a lot of useful information from audiophiles and you'll end up with better sound from your own stereo and AV equipment. Fortunately, you don't have to give into the dark side and become a full-fledged "spend a hundred thousand on a listing room" audiophile to learn a few things about how to choose new stereo equipment and how to set up your home stereo.
1. Lesson 1- Don't Be An Audiophile. Audiophiles are tortured souls. They tweak their systems endlessly and constantly re-arrange their lives, their finances, and their living spaces in pursuit of perfect sound reproduction. When they finally get their perfect system created, they find that sometimes imperfect commercial music recordings sound terrible.
2.. Lesson 2 - Music Genre Matters. Audiophiles enjoy music that will allow the full range of sound to come to their ears. Classical music and jazz are often the preferred genres of audiophiles because of the wide variety of instruments brought to bear in a composition. Those of us who relish other genres like pop, rock, and rap get more enjoyment from beat and rhythm. If my wife is dancing around the house, then our stereo is working properly.
3. Lesson 3 - Speaker Placement Is Important. Ideally, speakers should be placed at ear level. This generally means speaker stands. You don't want to block speakers with furniture and other obstructions. If you place speakers close to walls, you will deepen bass. If you move them away from walls, you'll diminish the bass. In most cases, you'll want to aim speakers so that the sound converges on the spot where you'll most likely be listening.
4. Lesson 4 - Room Furnishings Affect Sound. Hard furniture, hard floors, and hard walls will cause sound to be reflected. While soft furnishings, carpets, and tapestries, absorb sound. When placing speakers you want to strike a balance between sound reflecting and sound absorbing materials.
5. Lesson 5. Buy Quality. Audiophiles like to buy the highest quality stereo components they can in hopes of accurately reproducing music. If they can't get the highest quality new stereo system, they will seek out vintage stereo equipment with an excellent reputation for good sound or they will incrementally build a system by buying one high quality piece at a time.
6. Lesson 6. It's Not About Power. Audiophiles are not swayed by the power ratings of stereo receivers or amplifiers. For them, it is all about accurate sound reproduction. " Essentially," according to audiocognoscenti.com, "high-end audio tries to achieve the goal of reproducing the recorded music perfectly as it was meant to be heard." You don't necessarily need a powerful stereo and speaker system to accomplish the goal of accurate sound reproduction. On his Cheap Audiophile blog, Kent Smith shows that with efficient speakers, you don't need a lot of power to produce a borderline uncomfortable 100 decibals of sound.
7. Lesson 7. You Can Fix and Improve Stereo Speakers. Audiophiles aren't all impractical sissies. Many can roll up their sleeves and work on stereo equipment. For example, when the foam surrounding a speaker deteriorates, a serious audiophile might get a kit from a supplier like Parts Express and "re-foam" it. You can also add sound absorbing material to speaker cabinets or even build stereo speakers from a kit or from your own design. The internet is awash with instructions and how to videos about stereo speakers.
If you avoid becoming totally obsessed with stereo equipment, you can learn a lot of useful information from audiophiles and you'll end up with better sound from your own stereo and AV equipment. Fortunately, you don't have to give into the dark side and become a full-fledged "spend a hundred thousand on a listing room" audiophile to learn a few things about how to choose new stereo equipment and how to set up your home stereo.
Sources:
Steven Stone, "Is Sound Quality Genre-Related?" Audiophilereview.com. July 31, 2013.
"Tips for Audiophile Beginners," www.audiocognoscenti.com
Kent Smith, "More Power Scotty!" www.cheapaudiophile.com, August 10, 2013.
"How to Optimize Speaker Performance." www.howstuffworks.com
Photo: By Frank Kovalchek from Anchorage, Alaska, USA [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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