1) Start with a good recording! When auditioning any equipment designed to recreate your favorite music, use demo material you are familiar with that is uncompressed and well recorded.

2) Recognize that speakers are the most important component in determining the overall quality of your music reproduction. We all hear differently and there is no perfect speaker. You can never go wrong picking the one that sounds best to you. The important aspects of speakers can be determined in three critical areas of performance.

Tonal Quality

Every speaker sounds a little bit different. When auditioning a pair of speakers listen for how well the speaker moves from the bass frequencies like drums all the way up to the high frequencies like cymbals. If it sounds smooth and the instruments sound real, it is a good speaker for you.

Soundstage

The one thing a good speaker does that a bad speaker can never do is recreate the performance environment. This is known as the soundstage, also referred to as imaging.

Warmth

The final criteria for determining good sound from speakers is called warmth. You should be able to hear lifelike realism in voices or acoustic instruments like piano. If the speaker sounds harsh or hard, it is probably not warm enough.

• If you are listening to an orchestra, can you hear the tympani near the back and to the right? If a four piece band, can you hear the vocalist near the front and more towards the middle, anchored between the speakers. This portion of the listening experience is referred to as depth.
• The next step is to listen to the width of the soundstage. Does the sound extend beyond the speakers to the left and right. The sound must stay smooth and connected in the middle while projecting instruments from the left and right of the stage. A good test is to audition with the speakers next to each other in the middle and slowly move them outward several inches at a time until you lose the center and they become disconnected. It will sound like two separate speakers instead of one connected soundstage. Move them back towards each other until you reconnect the soundstage and listen again.
• The final step in determining a speaker's ability to image or create a soundstage is to listen for height. Stand up and then sit down and see if you lose the high frequencies or if the bass becomes dull or muddy. The best type of music to determine height is orchestral as most orchestras are tiered and will help you hear sounds at different locations vertically.

Remember, good sound changes everything! Now grab your favorite CD, run down to your local store and practice some of your new found skills. I think you'll find yourself listening to and enjoying your music more than ever before.