Get More From Your Music Collection

One of the driving forces of our business is the love of music. Listening to your favorite tunes smooths out rough days and makes good days even better. An audio installer's job is to enhance the quality of the time you spend with your music collection.

The performance of the audio system is crucial to your emotional connection with the artist. As anyone who has listened to the clock radio in a typical hotel room knows, the music is there but it lacks almost any emotional stimulation. It doesn't get your toes tapping or the air guitar wailing.

In order to improve the sound (and emotional response) in larger homes, I recommend using a few more high-performance loudspeakers per square foot than typical. Additional speakers provide an even sound level throughout a room. As a result, no one is straining to hear at the bar, while the billiard players are overwhelmed. Everyone in the area gets the same high-quality results.

The details and nuances of music are more easily discerned when your ears are closer to the speakers. Details and nuances are what HiFi is all about.

A recent project comes to mind: a recreation room -- approximately 30' by 20' -- where three pairs of speakers were integrated. It incorporated a pair of smaller bookshelf models on either side of the fireplace with two sets of ceiling speakers over the pool table and the bar. As an icing-on-the-cake attempt at higher fidelity, we used thicker (12 gauge) speaker wire with each connection, "treated" with a contact cleaner/enhancer that I have used over the years. I have personally found in my own system that these wire and treatment "enhancements" make a small but noticeable improvement. Adding a more powerful amplifier (NAD) didn't hurt either.

While listening to the new Sirius satellite music service on the recreation room system, I found myself experimenting with different types of music. I typically lean towards jazz, which sounded very nice with smooth highs and deep bass considering the smaller (8") woofers used.

The sound seemed nicely balanced throughout the room. The installation even looked good without any "in your face" audio components to spoil the intentions of the interior design team.

After some surfing, I came across a channel called "Octane" which, to put it mildly, leans towards very hard rock. I'm not sure of the song, but the group was called Skindred and they were playing an interesting (??) mix of reggae and head-banging rock. This brought lead installer and rock fan Dan Gossel out of the equipment room for a listen. He requested an increase in volume. Okay, I can still rock, so I cranked it up a bit.

Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying the somewhat "jarring" musical experience. It turns out even heavier genres of music can be appreciated when you put some extra effort into the design and setup of an audio system. It may seem surprising, but I have come to understand what head banging is all about -- at least for short periods, anyway.

If you like music, whatever genre, I am sure you'll like what a quality installer can do: take your favorite music to new sonic heights. Rock on!