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SOUND ADVICE
System Purchase
We intend to provide some useful hints and tips
on extracting the best performance
from your purchased equipment. First of all you have to set a budget for
your system purchase be it Surround System or Hi-Fi. As a rule after that the
best thing to do is split up your amount into ratios. The best ratio is approx
as follows:- 30% - 40% on DVD/CD Player. You may think that this amount is on the high side but
it is not. Remember all you are going
to see or
hear is coming from here the primary source. If the primary source is
weak the amplifier will amplify its weaknesses but if it is good it
will amplify its
strengths. Same When
connected to TV if it’s a DVD Player. Next is the amplifier. 25% - 35% would
be spent on the secondary source. Amplifier should just amplify
the given signal without introducing any character or distortion of its own.
Therefore the next large amount should be spent on the amp.
After that we would say that 10% - 15% should be spent on suitable quality cables be
it video or audio cables.
Cables should just let the signal flow freely as possible as explained elsewhere in
the site (QED).
The final link is the speaker. Approx 15% - 25% should be spent here. If
all is well with electronics all the speaker has to
do is reproduce what is being transmitted to
it. If you have mediocre primary and secondary sources no speaker
be it cheap or exceptionally expensive is going to compensate for them. All they will do is reveal electronics strengths or
weaknesses so the least amount is dedicated to the final source. If there is a
possibility to buy better speakers go ahead, but
concentrate on sources first.
E.g
Budget - £m1000
DVD/CD Player £m300 - £m400
Amplifier/Surround Amp £m250 - £m350
Cables £m100 - £m150
Speakers £m150 - £m250
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System Positioning
After you have spent your hard earned cash on equipment it is
very important to
locate them suitably. We cannot stress enough the
importance of correct positioning of the system especially the speakers.
Speakers behave and sound differently in each and every position you put them
and in each and every room. The way
you hear them in the demo room
or shop does not necessarily mean you are going
to hear them the
same at home. So you have to
move, tweak, optimize till you find best Position.
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Electronics positioning
Electronics should be positioned if possible
away from vibrations. How to do that? Well good
quality electronics are already supplied with vibration dampening feet. If
not rubber feet or
isolation spikes should be
used. These should be
used if positioned on not so sturdy furniture. Ideally
electronics should be positioned on Isolation Tables. These are
expensive and not
readily available locally.
Electronics should not
be positioned in
line of fire of speakers front baffle or bass reflex for
the obvious reason (vibrations). Also they should be
positioned away from corners as it is here that bass concentrates itself.
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Speaker Positioning
Speaker positioning is a do or die of a system.
Positioned incorrectly an
exceptional system can
sound horrendous. Follow closely as possible manufacturers recommendations but here are some guidelines. If positioned close to
the back wall bass is
going to be deeper but may lose focus and boom. If
positioned too close to room corner and bass reflex is firing into corner you
will introduce more booming. The speaker toe in or angle contributes to
midrange and treble focus
plus soundstaging and listening hot
spot. Toed in
too much you will have a fixed hot spot position and limited
soundstaging and system may
sound bright. Toed out
too much you will lose soundstaging and system may sound dull. How much
speakers are far apart also
contributes to this factor. Ideally speakers should be
firing straight down to
the length of
the room. Bookshelf speakers should not be positioned on bookshelves
although they called that way. Stand or wall mounting is best. If you do have
to position on bookshelf make sure to
use rubber feet or
alternatively blu tack. Finally
trust your ears to find best position in the
given room. Room surroundings contribute much
to sound you hear. A room with no furnishings is going to sound loud but does
not necessarily mean better because
there are many reflections
bouncing off wall and
ceiling thus
introducing room amplifications /
distortions. Carpets, sofas, cushions, curtains, soffit ceiling, books all contribute to having
a better quality sound.
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Cables
Finally proper connections between each component is vital to ensure that you extract the full
potential from your system. The link should be all the way through the system to
guarantee this. Its useless to connect
a good quality interconnect between DVD/CD to Amp and then you
use flex wire for the speakers. On the other hand you can not improve a
bad system just by using high quality cables. They may only reveal more the shortcomings.
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Systems Compatibility
Many has been said and written about system
compatibility. As a rule people go for everything from the same brand. In
certain cases this works because units will be optimized for each other
but the whole Hi-Fi hobby thing is
mixing and matching in
search of that perfect sound. The
main issue lies when matching the Amp to the Speakers. A good deal of
manufacturers tend to
play around with power
ratings especially when it comes to Amps. The figure to
look for is generally the power rating into 8
Ohms because the majority of
speakers have got this
impedance value. If the speaker has an impedance value of 4 Ohms then power
output from amplifier into the speaker is going to double in
most cases. This depends
mainly on the quality of the
amps power supplies. So
a perfect match would be
having an amp with power rating of 100Watts into 8 Ohms firing into a speaker
with a power handling of 100Watts and an impedance value of
8 Ohms.If you have a speaker with a power handling of 100Watts but an
impedance of 4 Ohms the amp
will be firing approximately 175 – 200Watts into the speaker. This is not necessarily a
bad thing for several reasons I will try to explain. First of all there is speaker
sensitivity rating. This varies from 84db – 96db. For each 4db speaker will seem to be double the
loudness. So best is to partner bright
sounding equipment with lower sensitivity and
mild sounding equipment with higher sensitivity. Secondly
sometimes over powering a speaker is
much better than under powering, for the simple
reason that amp will not be stressed by a power hungry speaker therefore sounding relaxed thus not introducing any distortions in
sound. To put more into perspective this type of reasoning, compare with cars. A
3litre V8 is much more
comfortable doing 100mph than a
1.6litre 4 cylinder engine. An under powered amp will have a hard time keeping
up with the speaker thus clipping and introducing distortions. Over powering a
speaker although recommendable caution should be used when listening. It is
easily notable when speaker clips. Bass will lose thump and midrange will sound muffled. Treble clipping is difficult to hear
because ear can not hear high frequencies that well. As
usual best thing to do is trust your ears.
Bi-wiring & Bi-amping
Good quality speakers offer the opportunity to
Bi-wire or Bi-amp. This is essential if you wish to extract all the speakers
performance. The improvement in
control is instantly heard
with Bi-wiring and even more with
Bi-amping. What Bi-wiring and Bi-amping does is feed two different
signals to speaker drivers. One to
Midrange & Treble and
one to the Bass.
Bi-Wiring
The least expensive of the two is also quite
straightforward and easy to do. The only Added cost is
another length of
wire from amp
to speaker. Suitably equipped Speakers will have four
connections on the rear. + (Red) & - (Black) for Midrange & Treble (HF High Frequency) and Bass (LF Low Frequency). Now check what sort Of connections amplifier has. If it
has the possibility to connect two pairs of speakers then connect HF to
speakers A and LF to speakers
B or vice versa. Try
both and Judge which is
best. Normally speakers B will have less power output that’s why
I suggested to connect Bass to speakers B because bass requires less
power to drive. But if you have Bass light speakers its best to connect to
speakers A. If amp has only one connection all you have to do is connect
everything from one output so you will have two ends at amps side and four ends
on speaker side.
Bi-Amping
Bi-Amping
is much more expensive and
complicated. You need at
least another Stereo Amp or alternatively 2 or 4 Mono* Amps. If
using 2 Stereo Amps you
can connect first Amp to the HF connections of the speaker and the
second Stereo Amp to the LF of the
speaker.Alternatively you can use one Stereo Amp as the Pre-Amp* while using
the power just the same to connect a host
of Mono Amps in
different configurations. The maximum performance you can
get from your speaker is
as following. One Pre-Amp This is basically used as switching and
volume.Then 4 Mono Amps, 2 per
speaker. Control, power & headroom* are greatly improved with
this ultimate set-up.
*Mono Amp :- This amp has only one channel
*Pre-Amp :- This amp has got no power
output
*headroom :- This is the
speakers ability to fill the room with clean sound
Ed
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Although we do our utmost to keep
website up to date we reserve
the right to change prices &
specifications without notice.
