Shoping Advise

Think about the last time you were truly moved by a piece of music – whether at a venue as acoustically grand as a concert hall, or as prosaic as the inside of your car on the way home from work – and ask yourself this: why did I react that way? What was it that gripped me?

So, how should you go about building a hi-fi speaker system? The first and most crucial element is deciding on a budget. That is essentially a personal issue but be aware that certain other factors should be considered when deciding how much you should spend and what you should spend it on. For example, your room has a fundamental impact on the type of system you should get.

With your budget decided, the next step is to book a series of demonstrations with a specialist hi-fi dealer. We'll cover that in more depth in our Buying Advice section, but the basic points are these: while judging a product on its brand name the quality of your dealer's demonstration or even on the strengths of its magazine reviews can be a useful way to narrow down your options, in the end, only you can decide whether the equipment is right for you.

We've already mentioned that a room's size can have a fundamental impact on the size and type of loudspeaker you should buy now we'll explain why.