A fundamental choosing Hi-Fi

When you think about high-quality sound and want to assemble a Hi-Fi audio system, the first and perhaps the most important property that you should care about when choosing a system is its transparency.

When choosing speakers or an amplifier, the very first point that will help you decide whether to purchase a component is its transparency.

hifi guide :

I'm not talking about other properties and parameters of audio components - all this will be the second stage, if after listening to the first stage - the presence of transparency in the sound - you answer in the affirmative.

I don’t even take into account the term Hi-Fi, as well as Hi-End - today it is customary to throw around these terms in relation to products of very different price categories, even from 10,000 . It is worth treating this only as commercial terms that help in promoting products among inexperienced audio lovers.

Formally, the Hi-Fi standard includes the parameters of the DIN 45500 standard, which today is incredibly outdated and has discredited itself, because its compliance does not guarantee either good sound or the real naturalness of the perception of the recording.

For amplifiers :

Nonlinearity of the frequency response in the range of reproduced frequencies 40-16000 Hz - 1.5 dB at the linear input (2 dB with a corrector);

Nonlinear distortion coefficient in the reproduced frequency range 40-12500 Hz, no more than 1%.

Intermodulation distortion coefficient in the reproduced frequency band 250-8000 Hz (also outside this band when the sound pressure level decreases by 6 dB), no more than 3%;

The spread of channel parameters in the range of reproduced frequencies is no more than 3 dB;

Crosstalk - N/A.

For speaker systems :

Nonlinearity of the frequency response relative to the average sound pressure level in the range of reproduced frequencies 100-4000 Hz, dB - ± 4 dB (+4/-8 dB);

Nonlinear distortion coefficient at reproduced frequencies 250-1000 Hz (2000 Hz), no more than 3% (1%);

In other words, according to the Hi-Fi standard, even huge distortions of 1% meet this standard. Therefore, today sensible audio lovers do not take the Hi-Fi standard literally in terms of parameters that today everything from a telephone to a TV will comply with, but does not guarantee high-quality sound, and the abbreviation Hi-Fi has a sacred meaning - High Fidelity - high precision. Therefore, when using the term Hi-Fi, I also adhere to it as a class of equipment with truly high fidelity sound reproduction.

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Today it is already clear that those parameters that are accepted in audio do not describe the sound quality, therefore, there are many devices on the market with an unpleasant, hard, unnatural sound with a clear nature of unnaturalness, but with parameters superior to devices with formally worse parameters, but aurally much more natural .

The litmus test that allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff is the price - this is the only parameter that can show how close the device or acoustics is to the sacred meaning of Hi-Fi or Hi-End.

Hi-fi sound :

When choosing your setup, be guided by the transparency of the sound - if the sound is open, free, transparent, showing events in great detail, then this is a reason to consider the totality of the device’s advantages further.

If, when listening, you immediately feel a lack of transparency, the feeling of a blanket is not the point - you choose an acoustics, amplifier or source, and you understand that the “waddiness”, turbidity, dullness is caused by the component you are considering - at this stage from further studying the item of purchase worth refusing. The component clearly does not pass the first, significant point.

Hi-fi stereo :

Perhaps the sound will be simple, with less richness of timbres - this is normal on a low budget. Your task is to choose a device that will overcome the first barrier of “hi-fi” - transparency, and if the device or acoustics copes, produces a transparent sound in which everything is “visible”, you can already start looking for other advantages, which include the physicality of sound . Physicality, as a rule, is provided by devices based on MOSFET transistors, we are looking for a fascinating performance thanks to good microdynamics, when you feel the most beautiful modulations of sound, claws in events, etc. Look at the “distribution” of the sound from the speakers, look at the construction of the stage, but if the sound is not decoupled from the speakers, then such a system is unlikely to be capable of this. You evaluate the naturalness of timbres, sound, voices - female, male, etc.

But the most important milestone from which to start is the choice of a TRANSPARENT component, then you get a system with which you can already develop in the Hi-Fi stream. And at some point you will become bored with the sterility, the speed of microdynamic bursts and you will want even more tonal richness, velvet and honey, and then the Hi-End gates will open for you.