Audio Separates Buying Tips

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Class Act: Amplifier Classes Explained
Daniel Kumin  |  Dec 22, 2016
From time to time, in these pages—err, screens—and elsewhere, you’ll see references to amplifier “class”: Class A, Class D, and so on. What’s it mean?
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Audio Separates Buying Tips
Decoding Amp Power Specs
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 25, 2007
You're a newbie to this audio game, and are just putting together your first home theater. Or perhaps you're making your first major upgrade. You're pouring over the spec sheets, looking for the best AV receiver for the cheapest price.
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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Buying TipsBlu-ray Player Buying TipsHDTV Buying TipsProjector Buying TipsSpeaker Buying TipsHome Movie Theaters
Designing Your System
Steve Faber  |  Aug 31, 2007
Choosing components that work for you.
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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Buying TipsBlu-ray Player Buying TipsHDTV Buying TipsProjector Buying TipsHome Movie Theaters
Elements of a Home Theater: All the Pieces You’ll Need to Bring it Together
Rob Sabin  |  Mar 27, 2013
Putting together a home theater can seem like a daunting task. So many pieces to think through and connect up! But if you care enough to do your homework and educate yourself, you’ll find it’s not as complicated as it looks. Here’s what goes into your typical viewing room.

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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Buying Tips
How Much Power Is Enough?
Mike Wood  |  Apr 09, 2002  |  First Published: Apr 10, 2002
Determining amplifier-power requirements for your home theater system.

Power output is often the biggest selling point for receivers and standalone amplifiers. Bells and whistles aside, you can often spend a lot less money for an amplifier or receiver that has a lot less power. While there are several factors that influence an amplifier's sound quality, we're not going to go into many of them in this article. We're going to focus on power. Ideally, an amplifier should be rated with low distortion, measured over the entire audible frequency range and with all channels driven. You should always listen to an amplifier before you purchase it. Whether you should test the 60-watt model or the 150-watt version depends on many factors, including your listening environment, the speakers you'll be using with it, and your listening habits.

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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Buying TipsAV Receiver SetupAV Receiver TechSpeaker Buying TipsSpeaker SetupSpeaker Tech
How to Choose a Home Theater for Movies or Music
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 25, 2011
Selecting audio components is one of the more daunting tasks that any serious home theater enthusiast faces. On the surface, it seems evident that if you just go out and buy the best components you can afford, they’ll sound great with both movies and music. And that’s generally true: A better system will more accurately reproduce the waveforms you feed it, irrespective of whether they come from a movie or music. But it’s often not that simple. While assembling a home theater system that’s equally spectacular with movies and music may be a laudable goal, unless you have unlimited funds, you’ll probably have compromises to make. At that point, you might want to steer the system’s performance strengths one way or the other with the right mix of speakers and electronics. But how do you go about matching these up?
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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Setup
How To Set Up a Power Amp
Kim Wilson, Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 06, 2012
So you've taken the leap and opted for separates, and now you're wondering how to set up the power amp properly with you're A/V preamp/processor. Relax, it's not difficult at all.
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Audio Separates Buying Tips
Preamp/Processor Shopping Tips
Kim Wilson  |  Oct 20, 2011
When it comes to the nerve center of a home theater, most consumers opt for an A/V receiver, which combines a preamp/processor (pre/pro) and multichannel power amp into one chassis. However, some enthusiasts choose to buy a separate pre/pro and power amp, believing that this results in superior sound quality, though it's generally a more-expensive way to go. If you want the best possible sound—and you have the budget—you're probably shopping for separates.
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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Buying TipsAV Receiver SetupAV Receiver Tech
Receivers vs. Separates
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 18, 2011
Are You Ready for the Heavy Artillery?

A friend who went to college in the late 1960s told me that everyone in his dorm fell into one of two absolutely opposing groups: those who blasted the Who’s Tommy and those who were mesmerized by the Beatles’ White Album. Or for the sticklers among you, the album nicknamed the White Album but officially known as The Beatles. I could entertain you with a few more sentences’ worth of metaphor, but you get the idea. You say tomato, I say tomahto.

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Audio Separates Buying Tips
Separates: Bring On the Heavy Artillery
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 11, 2013
Bigger is better. That’s probably the dominant argument in favor of buying a separate multichannel amplifier and surround processor instead of an A/V receiver. It’s also the wrong argument. There are three good reasons for you to choose separates: to scale up your system to a larger room, to power more-demanding speakers, or to achieve higher performance than you can get with an average AVR.
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Audio Separates Buying TipsAV Receiver Buying Tips
Shopping for Gear: Receivers vs. Separates
Wes Phillips  |  Apr 24, 2005  |  First Published: Apr 25, 2005
Ask the average guy in the street what makes a home theater a home theater and you're likely to hear one of two answers: "A honkin' big screen" or "Five (or six or seven) speakers." It would be hard to argue with either answer, because a great picture and sound coming from all around you are essential elements of the home theater experience.
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Audio Separates Buying Tips
To Separate or Not to Separate?
Chris Lewis  |  Sep 04, 2001  |  First Published: Sep 05, 2001
Pondering an age-old home theater question.

Simplicity, where have you gone? Let's be realistic for a moment: This little home theater hobby of ours, circa 2001, is usually confusing, occasionally mind-boggling, and flat-out intimidating to the uninitiated. Do we love it any less as a result? We certainly shouldn't. While we should always expect the equipment manufacturers and software providers to make things as simple as they can, the bottom line is that, in the A/V realm, confusion is often only a temporary state, brought about by increased opportunity, quality, and flexibility. These are confusing days because they are evolutionary (and occasionally revolutionary) ones. Granted, it may not be easy to get a grasp on several new soundtrack-processing formats, two entirely new audio formats, new video formats and technologies, and a radical overhaul of our television system—all at the same time. However, if you can't see some good in all of this (and if you don't find it all to be at least as exciting as it is perplexing), maybe you'd better find a new hobby.

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