Music connects with your emotions. Just think for a moment about your favourite music: it’ll be full of songs, pieces and performances that ‘got to you’ in some way or another, taking you back to special, memorable moments in your life. Sometimes igniting your other senses too. A truly great hi-fi is all about making that connection even stronger and a great system will do that for you.
Homemation is all about delivering a better listening experience, and is a natural fit with Bowers & Wilkins as they believe that great sound means more enjoyment from your favourite music: it’s all about getting you closer to great sound experiences that really move you.
How do you build a hi-fi system?
- Create your budget.
- Consider where you want to listen as the size of the room must be taken into consideration.
- Go to a Homemation dealer to ‘audition’ the speakers and get advice from audiophiles and experts.
- Then ask yourself how you want to listen. Do you want to play CDs or LPs, or stream from your own library or online services?
- Invest about a third of your budget on your principal source – whether that’s a CD player, a music streamer or a record player – for the best possible sound. Aim to buy the best source component you can afford: the old computer programming maxim ‘garbage in, garbage out’ applies here, as sound quality lost at the source of your music can’t be recovered further down the hi-fi chain.
- The beauty of building a system from separate components, is that you can always add further music sources at a later date, as your needs (or the technology) changes.
- Set aside a third of your budget on amplification, as making that flexibility possible is the next key element in your system. It’s not just the driving force for your system, but also its control centre, so it’s worth considering whether the amplifier you choose has sufficient inputs to accommodate your present – and future – needs. It’s a bit like ensuring the computer you buy has enough ports to connect all the peripherals you might want to use with it.
- Pro Tip: many hi-fi amplifiers with a ‘mere’ 40 watts of output per channel, are easily capable of very substantial volume levels with most of the Bowers & Wilkins more affordable speakers. Larger designs require amplification more suited to the task. After all, an amplifier working well within its capabilities is always going to sound better than one struggling to drive a pair of speakers to the levels you require.
- That brings us back to loudspeakers, and the last third of your budget. You’ve more choice over design in this category than in any other, with loudspeakers available in a range of cabinet sizes, and aesthetics from conventional to radically modern. In general, larger speakers produce a bigger, deeper sound than their smaller siblings – not least because their larger drive units (or more of them) are better able to ‘shift air’, which after all is how sound is delivered. Remember that true, stand-mount speakers will only perform at their best when mounted on dedicated loudspeaker stands, which are an additional cost over and above the price of the speakers themselves, so this should be factored into your budget if necessary.
- With your budget decided and your key building blocks planned out, the next step is considering the ancillary components such as cables, supports and stands as these can make a difference. This is where an experienced dealer can most help.
In a nutshell: think about what you want to want to spend, how you want to play your music and where, then simply choose the system you like the best. Music is all about emotional connection, and the system able to make your spine tingle is absolutely the best one for your needs. Homemation helps you make music magical.
Visit: www.homemation.co.za/brands/bowers-wilkins
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