How to Judge Hi-Fi

Music can be enjoyed on a portable radio, especially if it is known and loved, but to broaden musical taste, reproduction quality must be good enough to convey the skill of the musicians and communicate the composer's message. It has to be good enough to seduce you into listening to music you never thought you could or would be able to enjoy. Just as we all had to learn to walk, speak, read and write, we have to learn to appreciate music to discover its many benefits.

For each individual, the decision about how good their system has to be is a personal one and because everyone has a sophisticated internal reference system, the best way to assess a hi-fi system is to listen and judge using your own personal standards.

Singing along with the music may seem over simplistic as a means of assessing a hi-fi system, but the music itself reveals far more to a listener than the scientific terminology of the hi-fi industry. Technical specifications will not tell you how a system sounds, so to make the best choice you have to listen and trust what your ears tell you.

Listen and repeat the tune silently and try to reproduce, simultaneously, inside your head, the actual sounds made by the hi-fi system. This is what we call the sing-along method used in a tune dem, and it can be used to judge any hi-fi component or system. The easier it is to perform silent repetition of the sounds you listen to and repeat, the better the reproduction quality.

Assessed this way, it's easy to hear if a system can bring lasting pleasure. For example, when you listen to live music, it often changes your mood: you relax, dream or want to dance and you need a hi-fi which will offer the same natural benefits at home. If a system is difficult for you to follow and hard to sing along with, even when you try actively to follow the tune, it will soon cause fatigue and as a consequence, it will be used less and less, not because your ears are at fault, but because the accuracy of sound it offers is not good enough.

Highly trained ears are not needed to judge a hi-fi system. People can sense the direction a melody is taking and a wrong note is obvious to anyone during a live concert, so customers need to relax and learn to judge with confidence by using the sing-along method.

When in doubt a few simple questions can also help:
1. Can you hear all the musicians playing all of the instruments all of the time?
2. Can you always follow the tune played by every instrument?

If you still experience difficulty in judging, turn up the sound level, then turn the music off abruptly and ask: 'Is it a relief when it's switched off?' If so, the system is probably not good enough for you.

These techniques can reveal even the most subtle differences and so help you judge or compare the true quality of hi-fi systems and components consistently and accurately.

The Value of "Single Speaker Demonstrations":
The presence of any unused loudspeakers in a demonstration room will corrupt the sound you are trying to assess, since these will vibrate to the sound and cause interference. This in turn degrades the performance of the system being demonstrated. This still applies, and indeed will be more important, in multi-speaker surround systems for example.

A single speaker demonstration occurs when a product or system is demonstrated without any other loudspeakers not connected to the system being present in the room. Only then is the true performance of the system revealed.

Choosing a hi-fi system can often be a daunting experience, even for the enthusiast.
At Jim Tate Stereo we won't bamboozle you with technical jargon. We will however put you at ease in our comfortable listening environment where our expert staff will demonstrate the benefits of owning a quality music system. We do this by choosing the best components and using them intelligently to build perfectly integrated systems, thus you can be assured that your chosen system will give you the best sound and value for money available.

More Information
This article explains our criteria when evaluating hi-fi equipment. It's all in the music!! - Listening to tune (PDF)
For more in depth information about how to judge Hi-Fi please view this PDF document - How to judge Hi-Fi (PDF)

Music

Looking for new music? Take a look at Linn Records. Well produced and recorded, Linn offers extremely high quality music on LP, CD and SACD. Jazz vocalist Claire Martin's latest album from Linn - Secret Love.