10 CRUCIAL questions for FIRST-TIME hi-fi buyers

This episode is brought to you by Roon Roon 1.8 is a new immersive music experience featuring a new look, new intelligence, and new features designed for music fans. Click the link in the description box below for more information. We recently made a video for approximately a thousand euros. Hello. -Fi that I went out and bought and bought everything without hearing it. Now I wouldn't recommend you do that and explain why in that video, but buy your

first

hi-fi system or even your second hi-fi system. It can be very complicated and for newcomers, if that's you, I know it can be daunting, but before you get down to business, I think you need to ask yourself some

questions

about yourself, your life, your living environment, your tastes. and preferences, because this helps narrow down a very wide range of possibilities to a smaller field.

This set of 10

questions

that I'm about to give you, I hope, will help you develop a short list of gear that you might want to go out and listen to at your dealer or at your local hi-fi society or even at a friend's house or even buying on a home demo deal the

first

question you need to ask yourself this is a big question actually very very important how big is your room how big would you rate your room? Would you call it small? Would you call it medium? Would you call it big? I don't have any specific measurements to say anything less than this number of square meters is small, but my room here is 6 meters by 5 meters, so 30 square meters.

I would classify this as the lower end of the middle now this is important because it will determine what type of speaker you can accommodate acoustically in your room so for example I wouldn't put a huge six foot tall floor standing speaker in this room equally if I have a really small mini monitor might sound a little lost in this room too, but if you have a small room a small mini monitor might work and if you have a big room then maybe that big 2 meter monitor. The speaker might be good for you. Second question: to what extent do you see a hi-fi system as an appliance like a washing machine like a coffee maker like a laptop like a smartphone?

Because this might help you determine whether or not you prefer for an active speaker system where all the amplifiers and the dax are built into the speaker cabinet, there is an example behind me, the ls60 from kef, they have the speakers, the amplifiers and transmitter built in, you don't need anything external or anything additional, so If you see a hi-fi system as a device that you could use like a television, then you can probably very quickly eliminate many of the passive speakers that don't have built-in amplifiers and therefore therefore, external amplifiers. and you can focus on active speakers and powered speakers.

Supplemental question 2b here is: do you know the difference between powered and active speakers number three? Are you a loud listener or do you prefer to listen to music at lower volume levels? Ask yourself this because if you are a loud listener then you will want a speaker with electronics that allow you to play loudly without the speakers starting to distort equally if you are someone who really enjoys music a bit at lower volume levels. Like me, you really want a speaker that doesn't turn white when you lower the volume because many stands do this, not all, but many do and in general I think high sensitivity speakers like the zoo ones.

Clips like JBL's tend to appear in the song as if they bloom with a much lower sound on the volume dial, so you not only need to ask yourself what kind of listener you are in terms of volume, but then look for speakers that Also play around with those needs number four: do you prefer the look of a floor stand or do you prefer the look of a standing stand? Support brackets now come in all shapes and sizes. Yes, standards for the refreshment floor, but some people and some household members really don't. Like floor standards, they tend to think that there are so many speakers that they overwhelm the room even though the footprint on the floor may be the same as a man standing on a stand, but somehow some people tend to to prefer supports on supports, I am one of them.

Of those people generally, I would say that 70 percent of my kind of lean is toward stands and supports rather than floor standards, but not always, but I'm asking this question or I'm asking you to ask this question because aesthetics matter. . I like how it looks something really matters and especially the speakers because when you are sitting in front of them listening to music you will have to look at them and you probably won't move them too often because they are a little heavy or awkward to move so yes you need to have a speaker that you like because you will be looking at it all the

time

, also maybe when you are watching TV and maybe when music is not playing.

Number five is: would your downstairs neighbors object to you using a subwoofer? Now you might be thinking, well, I don't have downstairs neighbors. How lucky you are, therefore, you don't even have to worry too much about this, although you may have to worry. about if you have a next door neighbor, if you live in a semi-detached house or an apartment where someone lives next door, you might worry about the foundation bleeding through the wall, well just hit my plant there, no No I have neighbors below me, I mean I'm on the sixth floor of an apartment block but below me there are five floors of offices which is one of the reasons I chose to live here so any base bleeds at night .

It doesn't bother anyone, so if you're going to get a subwoofer, you need to think about your neighbors, not just the people above and behind you or next to you, but also the people below you. Question number six, do you know what an open baffle speaker is and also? Do you know why you might want one? Let me tell you why you might want one. Basically, an open baffle is a speaker without the box on the back, so it's just the front baffle with the drivers mounted and now you can see the drivers from the back.

One of the key advantages of these is that they have what's called a figure-eight dispersion pattern, so when you look at the dispersion pattern from above, the sound comes out from the front and then from the back, but it cancels out more. on the sides, so if you have a narrow room, almost like a hallway type room, you may want an open baffle speaker because it won't emit much sound to the sides and therefore you won't get as many reflections off the walls . the sides which then arrive late to your ear's listening position and sort of alter the sound a little bit because that's why your basic room alters its sound due to reflections not only from the walls but also from the ceiling and floor . so an open baffle speaker can help mitigate that problem in tight rooms, some

time

s number seven, to what extent are you a minimalist?

I'm very minimalist at heart, although my room is full of hi-fi equipment, it bothers me a little, it's actually kind. This makes me feel a little nervous sometimes, but I would prefer that if I wasn't doing this as a job, I would have a couple of speakers and a streaming amp, so basically three boxes or I would have some streaming speakers for a few boxes. as possible, there's no hifi rack, nothing like that, so if you're a minimalist, maybe you can look into streaming speakers or streaming amplifiers with a couple of passive speakers attached and that will help you narrow your focus a little bit. more than just browsing.

Internet blind question number eight is related to that, in the sense that you should ask yourself if you like to play with technology, because if you're an expert, you like to play with this and play with settings and different cables and different components, then you don't want a minimalist setup, you don't want a single streaming amplifier because it contains the transmitter, dac and amplifier, you don't want streaming speakers because they contain the transmitter, dac, amplifier and speaker drivers. I want to separate all of this into speakers, separate external amplifier, separate external DAC, separate external transmitter or a combination thereof so that you can swap these components in and out, because if you're a tinkerer, you might really enjoy doing that number nine.

Ask yourself if your sofa is mobile. Hifi people like to talk a lot about how you should move the speakers and test how they sound in the listening position, but moving them also applies to the listening position itself, so can you move your couch? back, can you move it forward because you may have to do that with certain speakers and, yes, in certain room configurations. So if you have a speaker that is very large, it can only go in one position because your living conditions dictate it, then you may need to have more. flexibility with your listening position number ten, a little spicy, would this someone in your house mind if you hung acoustic panels on the walls, a bit like I have them here.

I don't have anyone here to object, so I'm fine. but you may live with a family and have people, and there's no way you're going to put all that kind of ugly stuff on the walls, which will also determine what kind of equipment you buy, because if you can't correct the acoustic anomalies of the room with passive treatments like this, you may want to consider broadcast amplifiers that have built-in room correction software. They do slightly different jobs from each other, as these types of treatments tend to address high and mid frequencies. Range frequency room correction software can do that, but I think it's most effective with the bass, which is where you're going to have the biggest problems.

I still have bass issues in this room and I still love room correction software so for me when I'm looking for new gear room correction software that gear is of great interest to me and it might be for you if You have a problem room and let me tell you that everyone has a problem room in every body because it is integrated into the dimensions in which it is mathematically encoded. in the room, so this is probably also another really good question to ask, like can you put treatments in the room or would you like to address that in the software?

And this goes back to question one about the size of your room. So yes, there are ten questions you should ask yourself before you start searching for equipment to buy as your first or second hi-fi system. I'm not going to assume here that just because it's your first hi-fi system you're going to buy looking to save every penny because not everyone likes that some people may go straight and buy a very expensive pair of active streaming speakers or a system separate very expensive has nothing to do with money, actually this video has nothing to do with equipment, you just need to know yourself and your living conditions, who you are, what your inclinations are and how you see hi-fi , it's very, very important before you spend any money, in fact, before you go looking at any equipment anyway, if you like this video, consider hitting the like button below if you like my attitude towards hi-fi audio range, as it's not always gear-focused and behavioral psychology really comes into play more than many audiophiles like to admit or talk about.

If you like it, consider subscribing to this channel and, as always, thank you very much for watching.