The aim of building an audio system should be to get the best sound possible within the prevailing budget and space constraints.  The notion of ‘best sound’ is, of course, a subjective and personal one.  However there are two references that you should use to guide your quest for better quality sound:

• The sound of live music, particularly live, acoustic music performed in a space with good acoustics.  The human voice is particularly useful in this regard.
• The sound of high quality recordings played on good audio systems that have been well set up in appropriate listening environments.

Every audio system is a compromise which falls short of the ‘real thing’.  However with a clear mental image of the sound of live music you can develop a notion of what’s possible from an audio system,  of what’s important to you in sound, and of what compromises you’re prepared to accept.

In general there are three approaches to building an audio system:

• Building from scratch
• Adding new capabilities
• Incremental improvement

With the first approach there’s either no existing system or the existing system is being completely replaced.  The second applies when you’re generally satisfied with the sound, but want to add something new to your system, like vinyl playback or streaming of hi-rez audio.  In the final case you’re seeking to improve the sound of what currently exists.

The idea of incremental improvement is to add a component or to replace one or more existing components:

• To replace a failed or obsolete component.
• To address a specific deficiency, such as inadequate bass response or system resolution.
• To provide a general improvement in the sound.

The key to incremental improvement is having an idea about sound you’re looking for, and about which components to keep and which to change to produce the desired improvement.

Before embarking on the expense and effort of buying new components you should make sure that you’ve given your existing system a fair chance.  That means ensuring that it’s been optimally set up and that you’ve listened to it critically to assess its capabilities.  Optimal set up includes considerations of the quality of the power supply to your system, speaker placement, listening location, and the acoustic aspects of the listening room.  This typically requires a process of experimentation and trial and error.  However the resultant changes can produce quite substantial improvements.  Only when you’ve got your system well set up will you know what it’s truly capable of.

When you’ve decided that you want an improvement you need to decide which component(s) to replace and which new ones to get.  Each component contributes to your audio system’s sound.  You need to determine which are limiting the sound quality.  Here an understanding of your system, some experience and some guidance can help.  There are a number of views of how to go about this.

There’s the ‘source first’ philosophy espoused by Linn and others, which suggests that you should have the best source components possible within your budget.  The idea is that nothing later in the reproduction chain can recover what is lost in a poor quality source.  Based on this, if you already have a high quality source you can then build the system around this, improving the quality of the other components.  Otherwise the source becomes the target for replacement.

Another view is that the speakers have the greatest effect on the sound you hear, as they are transducers and because they interact with the acoustics of the listening room.  Therefore you should get speakers with the desired bandwidth, dynamic capability, resolution, imaging capability, etc. and which can produce a sound that you truly like and seek to enjoy for the long term.  Having made your choice your improvement path will involve selecting compatible components that can fully realise the potential of your speakers.

Another approach is to identify a key component in your system around which you want to build.  This should be the highest quality component in the system, so that its latent potential will be fully revealed as you add better components around it.

Whichever approach you adopt there’s need for some experimentation.  This may involve:

• Listening to other systems, especially systems priced within your budget and those which include the some of the same components or similar ones to those in your system.
• Listening to some of your components in other systems.  This will help you better understand the sound and quality of your components.  It will expose their potential and their weaknesses.
• Listening to other components in your system.  This would allow you to understand the contributions made by your existing components, identify candidate components for change-out, and help you choose what you might replace them with.

The opinions of other audiophiles and listeners are valuable in this process.  They can provide you with additional perspectives and experience to factor into your decisions.  However it is important to note that we all hear differently and have different preferences and prejudices, so that you and your own listening must be the final arbiter of your choices.

You must also remember that an audio system is a system.  Therefore, in addition to the quality of each individual component, the sound you get will depend how well everything works together.  This is the magical ‘synergy’ often mentioned in the audio literature.  It allows the system to sound better than the individual components suggest it should.

Finally, recognise that the development of your audio system will be a process, not an event.  In that process you will deepen your understanding of audio and your appreciation and enjoyment of music, which is the ultimate goal.

© Wayne Butcher