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Home speaker systems: A beginners guide

Home speaker systems: A beginners guide

A lot of people tend to see something they like and buy it. However, much like almost everything, it’s important to know what you’re buying and if you’re getting what you paid for. Some speakers out there aren’t very cheap, for good reason. High-quality speakers come at a premium but is it worth it? If you’re someone who cares about the quality of your audio then it absolutely may be worth it for you to consider a few factors before committing to a speaker system.

For example, when purchasing a car, some people spend weeks and even months researching, testing driving, etc, to make sure that they’re investing in something worthwhile that will last them a long period of time, when it comes to speakers, those same people may walk into a store, see a demo of a set of speakers, purchase and walk out with them. So a lot of people may not consider their speakers to be as important as something like their car.

In reality, the right set of speakers, if properly taken care of, can last significantly longer than your car. The key to this is just like buying a car, do a little research, spend some time testing out different systems before committing to the purchase.

In this guide, we’ll give you the rundown of what you should look out for and what you should consider before buying a speaker system. After this read, you’ll be armed with the knowledge to find the perfect set of speakers.

If you’re already familiar with some of the terminology, such as the difference between a satellite and a monitor or a surround vs rear support, then feel free to skip those sections as they’re important to note if you’re not familiar with them.

Here’s a brief overview of what we’ll be covering:

  • What will you use them for?
  • The important specifications
  • In-home testing
  • FAQs for speakers

 

What will you use them for?

You don’t need concert-grade giant PA systems or 7.1 surround sound to get the best possible experience. It’s important to know what your listening habits are and what you’re going to be primarily using them for.

If your goal is to primarily use the speakers for music listening then one pair of speakers may be all you need. Which you can also pair or connect to your TV if you’re watching or streaming something.

Maybe you just like to enjoy some background music while working around the house and don’t see yourself sitting in your room appreciating the sound for an extended period of time. Then it’s possible a pair of bookshelf speakers may be the solution for you. Of course, if you’d like more base, you can always couple that with a small subwoofer to deliver that extra low-end you’re after.

However, if you’re more of an active listener, or simply want the option to be blown off from under your feet, then a pair of monitors (floor-standing speakers) may be the option for you. Floor standing speakers with multiple drivers (the speakers themselves) can produce absolutely outstanding and satisfying music experience, without taking up much space wherever you’re installing them at home.

Maybe your TV sounds a little bit ‘tinny’ and flat when you’re watching general TV or fire up Netflix and you’d like to give it that extra ‘oomph’ to improve your experience. A very good option is a soundbar or a soundbar with a wireless subwoofer in combination would be fantastic. There are several quality options and things to look out for, but we’ll get to that later in the guide.

Let’s say you’re a movie buff and you spend 90% of the time at home watching movies, we’d probably only recommend a surround sound system. However, you’ll have to start thinking about where all those speakers would be placed in your room, so let’s move on to the next section surveying your space.

 

Surveying your extra space

This is where you should start in your search for a speaker system. Consider and assess the space they’ll be used in. Let’s look at some of the most important factors when it comes to space for your new speaker system.

 

Room size

If you were to ask a professional on their advice for your speaker system, the first question they may ask is “How big is your room?” At first, this may seem like a sales tactic to sell you the biggest speaker they can that would fit your room, in reality, it’s to determine what effect the characteristics of your room will have on your speaker(s) sound. Room size isn’t the only thing to consider, you’ll also have to take notice of how ‘open’ your room is.

Small, closed rooms with walls on all sides may not be the best environment for a large speaker or system. First, they may take up too much space, secondly, the bass may ‘fill’ the room essentially resulting in the sound sounding “muddy”. Large open rooms will make small speakers sound very small and localized. Larger systems can make the sound seem lifelike, more immersive, and seamless, which are important to a home theatre system.

 

Speakers in or on furniture

Décor is important for a lot of people in their homes, so you may consider placing some speakers in your entertainment cabinet. If that’s the case, you’ll want to keep away from large bookshelf speakers or monitor speakers that can produce a ton of bass. All that bass will bounce around the cabinet causing the cabinet to vibrate, producing some unwanted external sounds that aren’t consistent with what you’re watching or listening to. You’ll want to find some bookshelf speakers that stop playing bass at around the 80Hz mark. So a ported subwoofer on your entertainment cabinet may be the worst possible place you can place it. So if you’re planning on finding a sub for that system, consider something you can tuck away easily.

 

Speakers in the corner

You may occasionally see some TVs with floor-standing speakers on either side of the TV that squares off a corner. This can come with some challenges as that arrangement has a way of canceling out bass, which is most likely a big reason you were looking at purchasing a speaker system like this. So if you want more bang for your buck, consider some bookshelf speakers with a separate subwoofer for the bass.

 

Walls and floors

This part can get tricky. Hard surfaces may be your worst enemy.  It doesn’t matter if you have the best possible speaker system or the lowest end you can find, if there’s a lot of large smooth surfaces that your sound will be reflecting off it will change the sound that you’re hearing from your speakers. Nothing too much to worry about,  do yourself a favor, go to the middle of your room where you plan on using the speakers, and clap as loud as you can (don’t hurt yourself though). If you hear an echo or some kind of ringing sound, then you may want to consider either changing the room you’re using the speakers in or try and fill the room with some more furniture, curtains, carpet, plants, anything that helps you break up those hard flat surfaces will help the sound quality that’s produced in that room.

 

There are a lot of factors and these are a few possible things to get the best possible sound out of your systems. The important thing is to take your time, think about what you’re going to use them for, the room you’re putting them in, and the possible placement of the speakers you’re purchasing. When you have a good idea of how many speakers and what type of speakers you need, it’s time to start researching, looking at specifications, and shopping.

 

Specifications

At some point, you’re likely to hear that it’s important to match your speakers with your receiver or amplifier (amp). There are two sides to this concept. First, you’ll want to make sure that from a technical standpoint, your amplifier is capable of driving your speakers effectively and safely. The other side is to consider how your receiver or amp sounds together with your speakers. So let’s start with that.

Speakers have a characteristic which is the effective resistance of an electric circuit, also known as impedance which is measured in ‘ohms’ (not the same ones you use for meditation). Think of the impedance as the resistance of the electric signal produced from the amp to your speakers. The amp needs to see some resistance to the power it sends, otherwise, it will keep supplying it power until your speaker is burnt out. Most popular receivers and amps drive an 8 Ohm load. 8 Ohm is your best bet as most speakers on the market have an 8-ohm rating. You may run into some trouble if you’re attempting to drive a low-impedance speaker, for example, 2-4 ohms, with an amplifier that doesn’t have the specifications to deliver that safely to your speakers. If you’re looking at some 4 Ohm speakers you’ll need some serious amplification to allow your speakers to run at healthy volumes without putting your speakers or amp at risk. If you’re looking at speakers that are rated at 6 ohms then you’ll need more power to those speakers if you’re looking to get loud volumes out of it. If you have a properly powered amp then you shouldn’t have any problems, however, if you happen to have multiple 6-ohm speakers then you may run into some issues once you start running them at higher volumes. At that point, your receiver or amp may start “clipping” causing damage to your equipment.

Things brings up the question of how much power your amp can produce. You may see some amps that can output 100 watts per channel. This sounds great on paper but you may be surprised to know that manufacturers would often use these marketing tactics to make their products' power rating look much better than it actually is, as a result, may make you end up working with less power than you wanted. If you already own an amp that sounds good with 8-ohm speakers before, then you shouldn’t have any problem with any other 8-ohm speakers, they’ll still sound fantastic with the same amp. However, again, if you’re considering a low-impedance speaker, you should take a closer look at how powerful your amp is. If you’re working with 8-ohm speakers then almost any amp you’re using will do seamlessly. Don’t stress too much about over-powering your speakers. It’s extremely rare that anyone damages their speakers due to the amp being too powerful. Most people’s ears will give up before the speakers do.

You may also want to consider the “sensitivity” which usually refers to how loud the speakers play per watt. Speakers with a lower sensitivity will require more power in order to get them to louder volumes. The opposite is true to high-sensitivity speakers. Consider a speaker with a sensitivity rating of 80dB to 88dB per-watt to be on the lower end of the spectrum and 89dB to 100dB per watt or more for the top end.

 

The testing

Checking out speakers at a store has its advantages, but at the same time, you won’t be able to duplicate what you hear at the store compared to when you install it at home, as the environment and space around where the speaker is installed, will be different. At the end of the day, you’ll want to listen to the speakers that are connected to your electronics while you’re relaxing on the couch or sitting at your desk, in your room. Due to the walls, furniture, speaker wires, the amp, the ceiling, etc., these will all change the sound significantly.

 

Give it a good knock

When testing an audio system it’s important to get a feel for what you’re going to be looking at and listening to. Some speakers may look expensive, shiny, and well-designed on the outside, but you need to find out what’s happening "under the hood".

When you’re looking at a speaker, give it a good knock with your knuckles. You’re looking for a speaker that should feel solid when you knock and not empty. A speaker with a thick cabinet is what you want. That means that the inside of the cabinet isn’t going to generate any resonances. This test will also let you know how solid the finish of the speakers are.

 

Pick your listening material

At electronic stores, you’ll find speaker systems connected to an iPod for example where you can select music from the device so that you can listen to the speakers. However, most digital music is compressed so the details and refinement are missing from the tracks, so they’re not the best option to test speakers. However, if you have the option of plugging in your own music device or phone, then pick a few songs you’re extremely familiar with. We suggest a song with strong bass, a quiet song, something with string instruments and finally, something that focuses on vocals, really, anything you listen to a lot and know how it should sound. Listen to them a few times on your old speakers so you know what to expect and then again on the new speakers. This way you can determine what sounds good to you.

When listening to these tracks, try to listen for things you may not have heard on your old speakers. Like the clarity of the instruments, you may notice some other beats or sounds that you hadn’t noticed before as an example, anything that will allow you to hear that it sounds different compared to your old system. This is usually a good indication of the speakers, the more sounds you can hear, the better the quality is.

On the other hand, sometimes it is what you don’t hear that makes a speaker great. Colorations of vocals and instruments, unnatural reproductions of high frequencies, overly bloated bass, muddy sound, flat highs, etc., as an example, these are all things you don’t want to hear from a good speaker.

 

Let the audio adjust to your ears

Some speakers will sound absolutely fantastic right out of the box, but over time it may become fatiguing for your ears. While you may find something that sounds extremely engaging at first, after some time you may want to turn them off. The only way to know this is if you’re spending some time with the speakers, which is another reason home-testing is important. It’s because of this phenomenon, some sound engineers suggest that you practice relaxing your ears and let the audio adjust to them. The idea is that you should ignore your initial impression of them and allow your ear to adjust to the new sounds you’re hearing. After some time, if you don’t like what you hear, then that speaker is not for you and it’s time to move on to something else.

Jumping back and forth between speakers doesn’t allow your mind to adjust what it’s listening to. You’ll always be comparing the sound you’re hearing now with the sound you had just heard, instead of trying to compare the sound to what’s natural and what’s realistic. This comparison will help you find what’s more suited to yourself, however, is not an effective way of deciding between two speakers you like.

 

Frequently asked questions

There are some questions that don’t really fit in the above categories so we wanted to elaborate on them. We hope at this point you’ve got all the answers you need to find a speaker system that’s suitable for you, after all, only you can determine what does and doesn’t sound good. Trust your own judgment.

 

Can I mix and match speaker brands?

You absolutely may, but it isn’t the best idea. Different speaker brands will all sound different when sounds move from one speaker to the other, if you were to use it in a surround sound scenario, you want the sound to be consistent across all the speakers. Just be aware, the more speakers you have that are the same, the better the overall sound would be. However, in most cases, a subwoofer doesn’t affect this.

 

Can I buy a subwoofer from a brand that differs from my speakers?

Yes, you can and it’s a very good idea in most cases. Not all speaker manufacturers are necessarily great with subwoofers and the inverse of that statement can also be true. We recommend checking out reviews of subwoofers that work with your speakers you’re considering purchasing. So if you were to go with Edifier as your speakers, check out their subwoofers, if they’re not up to your standard, look for a company that specializes in subs. The sub is a big part of home theatre systems and you shouldn’t go without one in most cases if you’re looking for that absolute sound experience.

 

Do I need two subwoofers?

The short answer, no. A Single sub can provide you with tons of bass and can manage on its own. In some cases though, it’s a good idea to have one for example, if you have any ‘dead spots’ in your room when it comes to the bass (for example the sub is on the right side of the room and the base doesn’t travel to the left). Having a two-sub system means they won’t have to work as hard and therefore that results in the sound often sound much cleaner. Although, in general, if you want that “big-bass” then definitely go with a two-sub system.

 

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