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A COMMON SENSE GUIDE TO HI-FI
Many people do not comprehend the very obvious logic of how to
assemble a hi-fi system. This is easy to understand, given each
man- ufacturer's claims that the particular component that they
produce is THE most important in any system.
Speaker manufacturers far outnumber all other manufacturers com-
bined, so it is only natural that the hi-fi industry as a whole
places the most emphasis on speakers. This is a serious mistake.
A new loudspeaker can change the character of a hi-fi system. It is
unlikely, though, that it will offer any real improvement to a
system, unless the current speaker is already the weakest link in
the system (rarely the case!).
The place to start anything is at the beginning, and the beginn- ing
of a hi-fi system is the source. In a record playing system, the
source is the record and the hi-fi components occur in the following
hierarchy:
1) The Turntable
2) The Tonearm
3) The Cartridge
4) The Preamplifier
5) The Power Amplifier
6) The Loudspeakers
If you do a poor job of getting information off the record at the
beginning of the system, it is impossible for any component fur-
ther down the chain to improve upon that signal. It is not possible
for an amplifier to improve upon the signal that is put into it. It
is not even a matter of how good the amplifier is; it simply cannot
improve the signal that is fed into it. The same is true of
speakers - in fact, improving the speakers when there is a fault
earlier in the system will only serve to more clearly reveal the
fault.
The turntable is the platform for the arm and record and is the
component that assumes the primary responsibility for maintaining a
fixed relationship between the record and the cartridge body. It is
this relationship that is critical in recovering any signal from the
surface of the record (the cantilever has to move while the
cartridge body stands still with respect to the record surface, in
order to generate a signal). For this reason, the turntable is the
first, and most fundamental component in a hi-fi system. A very
good turntable, even with a budget tonearm and cartridge and a
budget amplifier and loudspeaker, will produce a very acceptable
level of performance. In other words, the performance advantage of
the turntable is fundemental to everything downstream.
Next in importance comes the arm, which is the interface between the
turntable and the cartridge. The capabilities of the tonearm are
more important in the hierarchy of a hi-fi system than the capabili-
ties of the cartridge. If the arm can't hold the cartridge still,
then the cartridge can't work. It makes much more sense to have a
very good arm with a budget cartridge than to buy a moderately good
tonearm with a very good cartridge.
The next component in the chain is the cartridge, and if the
turntable and arm have both been optimized, then the cartridge will
be the next limiting factor. It is important to realize, however,
that all high-quality cartridges will impose demands on the preamp-
lifier. If may be that a very wide bandwidth cartridge will satur-
ate the preamplifier or overload it with signals it cannot handle.
So, it is sometimes necessary to improve the preamp before, or at
the same time, that the cartridge is improved.
The preamplifier is next in the hierarchy, followed by the pow- er
amplifier. If these items are optimized, it becomes possible to use
a pair of budget loudspeakers at the end of such a system with
extremely good results. Indeed, it will be impossible to surpass
the result obtained with such a system than by using the best
available speakers with a lesser turntable or an inferior amplifier.
Only when all these components have been optimized does it make
sense to use the best speaker available. If you think about this
proposition for a moment, it is self-evident, logical, sensible, and
obviously correct. Unfortunately, hi-fi magazines have for many
years attributed most improvements to loudspeakers. They apparently
believe that because loudspeakers are big and produce the sound
(good or bad), they are the most important component in the system.
This is completely absurd. You have to examine the signal path and
the hierarchy of a hi-fi before a system can be rationally sel-
ected, upgraded, or built. A competent retailer will be prepared to
demonstrate every component in the chain and its relative
importance. It will be readily apparent in a fair, blind
demonstration that any departure from this hierarchy will produce an
inferior result.
For example, if you take a Heybrook (Linn or Sota, as well)
turntable with a Sumiko MMT tonearm and Talisman III-S cartridge
played through a budget amplifer driving a pair of budget loudspeak-
ers, the system will produce a sound which is fundamentally and ob-
viously superior to a Perreaux tri-amp system employing a Sumiko
"The Arm" and Monster Cable Alpha Two cartridge, but with an infer-
ior turntable as the source. Although the price disparity will be
in the region of 10 to 1, the cheaper system will out-perform the
system which is ten times more costly.
I hope that this brief discussion of the hierarchy of a hi-fi system
has provided some insight into the proper assembly of, or
improvement to, your hi-fi system. It is still critical however,
that any change that you plan to make in your system be carefully
evaluated by actually listening to the component in question. Any
competent dealer will have demonstration facilities which are suf-
ficiently good to clearly and quickly demonstrate the hierarchy of a
system and to allow the necessary comparisons to be made. Confusion
will only arise if the dealer's demonstration facilities are inade-
quate (for example, if he has more than one pair of speakers in the
room at one time), or if some other fundamental error is being made.
Your best safeguard against that is a basic understanding of the
hierarchy of a hi-fi system and system set-up Armed with this know-
ledge, you can quickly evaluate a dealer's understanding of the bas-
ics of hi-fi.
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The following names compose a monument to last forever in the electronic
highway: Patrizia Bravi Alessandra Bravi Glenda Frank Marcelle Dumont
Donna Reznik Valentina Bravi Britt Warner Jennifer Gruen
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