Technical guides

Surround sound is now the standard for many home theater setups, but it isn’t always the best solution. After testing various configurations and calibrations, what’s clear is that a good stereo system—two well-positioned channels plus a decent subwoofer—offers an immersive sound experience that, for the vast majority of people, rarely falls short of multichannel systems.

When a speaker sounds distorted – harsh, raspy, “blown,” or crackling – it is almost always one of these seven causes, and the good news is that most of them mean neither a dead speaker nor an expense. The trick to getting it right isn’t guessing, it’s noticing when it distorts: whether it only happens

The short answer: replace a turntable stylus every 500 to 1,000 playing hours – not after a set number of years. Put in usable terms: if you play a record a day, that is roughly every two years; if you play one a week, five years or more is fine. And if you own a

If you own an entry-level or mid-range turntable and your amplifier has a standard phono input, the short answer is this: a moving magnet (MM) cartridge with an elliptical stylus. It works with any phono stage, it lets you replace just the stylus when it wears out, and it is the biggest sound upgrade you

There is no single equalizer setting that works for everything. What does exist is three rules and a starting point per genre: move few bands, never go past ±3 dB, and cut before you boost. That alone will improve your sound more than copying any preset off the internet. And there’s something worth knowing before

The sound quality of a vinyl record depends—more than many people realize—on the record player—also known as a turntable—that plays it. A poorly built turntable degrades sound quality and can accelerate vinyl wear. That’s why there are noticeable differences between inexpensive models and units designed with materials and technical solutions that minimize such interference. Lightweight

This is a common question among those setting up a sound system: Does the subwoofer’s location matter when it comes to perceiving where the bass is coming from? The standard explanation points to the THX standards for movie theaters in the early 1980s, which set a crossover frequency around 80 Hz. That figure became established

The growing presence of direct current (DC) in home electrical systems is taking its toll on high-fidelity (Hi-Fi) systems. What was once an almost trivial problem—minor distortions in the power supply—is now occurring more frequently and manifesting as background noise that does not originate from the speakers or the recording format, but rather from the

The belief that more data always equals better sound quality stems from a misinterpretation of the technology. In the realm of images, a higher number of pixels does add sharpness, but when it comes to audio, exceeding certain limits is not only unnecessary but counterproductive. Sampling rate and bit depth are the two factors that

Dolby Atmos and DTS:X were based on the same technical principle: no longer tying each sound to a fixed channel, but instead treating it as an object with metadata that indicates its position within a three-dimensional sound field. This approach makes it possible to place a car, a voice, or footsteps anywhere in the room—including

Living in a small apartment doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy high-quality surround sound—as long as you know how to make the most of the options available. For those of us living in tight spaces, it’s possible to have an audio system that creates a three-dimensional sound experience without resorting to complex setups or disturbing the

Simply put, lossless music refers to any digital music file that has not undergone a compression process that discards data. It should be noted that “lossless” is not a direct synonym for “high-resolution,” although much high-resolution audio is presented in this format. Nor is it necessarily equivalent to “CD quality,” although this term commonly refers