Can I Not Use My Home Theater System For Stereo Listening Too?

by James Leahy

This is a fair question and quite frankly one that we get asked all the time. Well the answer is of course you can. Will it be a compromise.....? Yes, a big one. I know this is not the answer a lot of you would like to hear but it is the truth. Anybody that tells you different is bending the truth more than a little.     Maybe it is just me from being used to listening to my music on valve amplifiers night and day for years. But once you know the difference you are immediately aware when you are listening to an inferior system.

How much of a compromise depends on many factors, namely:

• Your room layout

• Equipment used

• Equipment placement

• Your budget

The two most important parts of your system are the quality of the amplifier/pre-amplifier and loudspeaker. Both are normally governed by considerations of cost and although the resulting sound quality is adequate for general entertainment it cannot produce the sense of being actually 'there'-at the live performance. It is amazing the level of 'bad' sound some of my customer's have become accustomed to when I visit them.

To be `there' you need really faithful sound reproduction. High Fidelity can only be achieved by the use of an amplifier and loudspeakers which have been designed without compromise, for this very purpose. Home theater equipment is a definite compromise in High Fidelity if ever there was one. More often than not people wish to 'kill two birds with one stone' so to speak and try to achieve both. What tends to happen most often is they end up achieving neither goal. This is the worst possible outcome imaginable. Needless to say you do not want to be the sap that has just shelled out thousands of dollars for a poor performing Home Theater system AND an under performing Hi-Fi system. Better to focus in ONE area and you will have 100% more change of success.