In the HiFi heyday of the 1970s and 1980s almost everyone had a stereo system in their living room or recreation room. A rack of components and a pair of rather large speakers were considered to be part of the furniture and often they were the dominant feature of the room. Back then we enjoyed well produced music on vinyl and tape and rarely was the quality of the equipment questioned. We simply used our systems to enjoy the music.
But now with so many new options for listening, the living room stereo has faded from popularity and, unfortunately, it has taken the quality of home audio with it.
If you've been listening to your music on ear buds, watching movies with your TV speakers or listening to silly little bluetooth speakers, setting up a proper home audio system will almost certainly take the experience to a whole new level. You will discover the simple joy of relaxing and letting realistic music flow over you and you'll discover the full impact of movie sound effects.
Very few people want to return to the squeaky little speakers, once they hear a good stereo setup.
The good news is that cheap audio is getting better and better audio is getting cheaper. So you can definitely put together a good system for a reasonable price.
Before you buy anything
Before diving in, you should be aware that although stereo equipment has improved with time, the marketplace has changed in ways that are not always helpful. Now, instead of visiting the stereo store and inspecting your purchase you find yourself shopping online, with all the perils that implies. If you've been curious or even begun your shopping experience, it probably took about 8 minutes before you ran into some pretty wild stuff.
The devotees
It is entirely possible to build a reasonable home audio setup without spending wheelbarrows full of money. But, that will not be the dominant message you will get from the audiophile community. They will ambitiously push you to spend ridiculous amounts of money on exotic equipment, dedicated listening rooms, acoustic treatments, magic cables and wildly expensive accessories. They will aggressively try to convince you that unless you do things their way your system will never be good enough.
This horrible situation began in the 1970s with the introduction of "Monster Cable". Their sales pitch was that fancy speaker wires would improve the sound of any system, giving you better bass, clearer highs, better presence and more detail. Many audiophiles took the bait and began seriously comparing wires and telling others how wonderful they were based solely on subjective listening impressions.
On the opposite side, a group that relies almost entirely on measurements has emerged. They've bought into the numbers game, spending big money to get better specifications, improvements they will never hear due to the limits of human hearing.
Oddly enough the quest for perfection leads both groups to buying the same products, for opposing reasons.
Sad to say, both sides of this silliness are wrong. The magic in the cables will make no more difference than stellar specifications. In my experience, the exotic stuff does not sound significantly better than more reasonably priced equipment and some of it is actually worse.
Exploiting the hobby
What was once a cooperating group of engineers, technicians and informed users, is now taken over by commercial interest. As the divisions deepened, an entire industry formed around the newfound market for exotic equipment and multiple companies soon showed up, hoping to cash in on one side or the other.
Most of what they sell gives you nothing in return. They peddle do-nothing products using pseudo-science and nonsense at very high prices, hoping to take huge profits from gullible enthusiasts.
As a result of this rampant consumerism, the dominant voice from the audiophile world is now that of the "Untrained Expert"; influencers and reviewers for whom the components of a stereo system are little more than opaque boxes filled with magic. The message is now sales-speak using code words like Soundstage, Detail, Depth, Speed and Prat. It's all intended to help these untrained experts sell products without understanding them or appearing to be a tout.
The rabbit hole
All this is a real problem because fussing over cables and equipment takes you away from musical enjoyment. Suddenly, you are no longer listening to your music, now you are listening to your stereo. You are no longer enjoying your music, now you are worrying about your system. You will always be nit picking, seeking perfection and missing the fun. It's a very destructive and expensive rabbit hole that you should never want to crawl into.
Your best bet is to outright ignore the audiophile hype and pressure, staying well away from either side of the argument.
Fortunately, there is a better way.
The rule of adequacy
Building a very nice system is a mix of common sense and careful selection. This is not hard to do. In fact, with the current state of audio technology it's actually harder to put together a bad system.
At the root of the decision making process is the concept of Adequacy: When is something good enough?
In physics the general analogy is that: "once you have a chain strong enough to tow your car, using a bigger chain does not make it any easier to tow." That is; so long as your chain doesn't break, you gain very little by going bigger.
In home audio, the equivalent is to notice that once you have a device that will accurately reproduce the audio signals, using a bigger or more expensive version will bring little or no improvement.
The line is drawn in the definition of High Fidelity itself. A device is considered to be "HiFi" when it can adequately reproduce music and movie sound at reasonable listening levels without significant distortion, colouration or loss.
Although there is no hard specification, any device that has a flat frequency response from 20hz to 20khz, produces less than 0.1% distortion before overload and has a dynamic range better than 85db is going to be more than adequate for home audio use.
While the numbers might not impress, the line they draw certainly does. The really cheap stuff fails the test by being poorly made, under-powered and prone to failure, the chain that breaks. But, virtually every medium priced piece of equipment currently available from reputable manufacturers more than meets the baseline requirements.
Of course, you are free to go beyond the adequacy threshold. Nothing stops you from building bigger or more expensive systems but you should be aware that beyond the line you are playing in the land of luxury and the further you go the less you get for your money. You can easily end up spending ten times as much for a tiny improvement.
Thus, the smart money is on the mid-price products from reputable manufacturers.
The truth
The rather obvious truth is that no reputable manufacturer of audio equipment is going to sabotage their own business by producing substandard products. Their products work just fine without the add-on cables and do-dads the audiophile community thrives on. They are not going to give you an under-rated power cord or knowingly design devices that are unstable. They would not last very long if they did.
Trying to second guess the engineers is usually a fools game. Almost always you can simply hook everything up and enjoy your new system for many worry free years.
Smart choices
The best bet before buying is to make a list of equipment you need to build your own setup. Working to a plan can save you a lot of headaches.
- Choose your electronics
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The electronic devices (amplifiers, pre-amplifiers, DACs etc) will be the most stable part of the system. Similar devices tend to sound far more alike than different, so you can choose by features first, then compare specifications and reviews. Having the needed controls, inputs and outputs is more important than a vague description of the sound or a sheet of specifications.
To fine tune your choices, I recommend: Audio Science Review
- Select speakers carefully
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Speakers are mechanical devices that need to move air and they can vary over a wide range. You really can't just go out and buy the cheapest speakers, plunk them down in the room and expect success. Plan to spend about a third of your budget on speakers. If at all possible you should arrange to audition them before purchase or at least make sure you have a return window so that you can try different speakers if you are not satisfied.
To compare speakers, try: Erin's Audio Corner
- Avoid snake oil
- Don't fuss over cables or extras. It is almost impossible to buy an RCA cable that won't carry line level signals. Balanced cables are almost never necessary for short runs. With digital cables (USB, HDMI, Ethernet, etc) as long as you hear the music or see the video, the cable is working correctly. For speaker wires, almost any home system will do just fine on 16ga copper lamp cord from the hardware store. For gadgets like reclockers, isolators and filters, don't waste your money trying to fix problems you don't actually have. Take your "cable money" and invest it in a better pair of speakers.
- Use all your resources
- With the disappearance of the "stereo store" you will almost certainly be shopping mainly online. Use the online vendor sites but also visit the manufacturer's websites as well. The manufacturer's sites often have far more detailed information that will help you narrow down your choices.
Now, from your list take out the "too cheap to be properly made" and "too expensive to be a bargain" stuff and what you have left should be a list of mid-priced equipment that will give a good result without busting your budget.
Summing up
The take-away is that tinkering with cables and gadgets makes a lousy hobby.
Treat your system as what it is; It's a purchase.
Apply common sense and you will likely be surprised how cheaply you can assemble a perfectly good system. My own system, for example, consists of a tiny-PC, DAC, amplifier, tower speakers and a 60 inch television set. Including the stand, it cost me just over $1,600 (cdn). Given that you most likely already have the TV, it could cost you a lot less.
The real hobby is your music and movies. It really is about the joy of listening, managing your collection and the hunt for new recordings.