HiFi technology, which is an abbreviation of the word High Fidelity, which means high fidelity, aims to reproduce the sound you listen to in a way that is close to the original recording and performance. Basically, Hi-fi systems are the systems that can produce the sound closest to the real analog sound value, where the bass, mid and treble drivers are driven from separate layers and crossovers, and large woofers with 8 and 15 inch diameters are used. The main purpose of hifi players, hifi speakers and hi-fi headphones is to ensure that the music you listen to can be listened to comfortably in your home, as in a live concert, with minimum loss.

How to Install Hi-Fi System Setups?

In hi-fi systems, which basically allow the original sound recording to be listened to without interference, you need to know how to set up hi-fi system setups so that you can enjoy the taste you will get in a stage performance at home. The first thing to consider in hi-fi system setups is that the width of the environment where you will listen to the song or music is sufficient. The size of the system area in a hi-fi setup will directly affect the size and capacity of the hi-fi speaker you will use. Since hi-fi sound systems that you can design according to your personal tastes will offer you a perspective on life beyond listening to a song, setting up a comfortable and spacious listening room will increase the pleasure you will get from the sound quality.

Whether you have a system consisting of active speakers with an amplifier or a system with passive speakers and hifi amplifiers, the sound format of the music and song you will listen to is the second most important issue. Hifi systems gain meaning with high-resolution audio files such as FLAC and WAV that are recorded and stored in our hifi devices. Compressed audio formats such as MP3, which are traditionally used in online music platforms and music players, are seen as insufficient for hifi freaks, who we can translate as hifi enthusiasts in Turkish, because they produce a wider dynamic range and finer details compared to hifi audio formats. If you have chosen between high-quality amplifiers and hifi speaker models, the next step is to improve your hi-fi system with DACs, which are digital and analog converters. Since DAC will allow you to get a cleaner and more natural sound with a hifi system, it will offer you high sound quality with wide-ranging speakers, especially in hifi system setups prepared by paying attention to room acoustics.

What is High-Resolution Audio?

Nowadays, high resolution audio has become the standard in the audio industry. This standardization process has led to hi-fi audio devices that allow us to listen to high sound quality that exceeds the sound quality of traditional CDs becoming more accessible and high resolution audio being included in online music platforms. High resolution audio, also known as hi-res (high resolution) audio, requires recordings with higher resolution than CD quality, i.e. higher than 16bit/44.1kHz resolution. Of course, the math is not that easy; taking a recording in mp3 format or a 16bit/44.1kHz CD recording and resampling it to 24bit/192kHz does not classify this audio recording as Hi-Res Audio because the original recording was not made in this way.

If you are wondering if DVD audio recordings are Hi-Res, we can answer this question with yes. Since DVDs have a 16bit/48kHz sampling rate and Hi-Res audio recordings have a sampling frequency of 44.1kHz and multiples of 48kHz, Blu-Ray discs are included in Hi-Res recordings along with DVD-Audio. On online music platforms, sampling rates and bit depths go even higher. For example, FLAC, which is frequently used on online music platforms such as Tidal and Apple Music, has formats such as 24bit/96kHz FLAC and 24bit/192kHz FLAC song formats. Of course, Hi-Res music formats are not only FLAC, but also 32bit/384kHz DXD, DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 hifi formats with stereo and multichannel versions.

What is Sampling Rate?

Sampling rate or sampling ratio indicates how many times per second the analog signal is sampled during the digital audio conversion process. A high sampling frequency and ratio will contribute to the conversion from analog sound waves to digital sound, contributing to a high quality audio conversion.

The CD industry standard, which is commonly encountered in the audio industry, contains converted audio at 44.1 kHz/second. This means that the original analog audio recording is sampled 44,100 times, while high-resolution audio contains 96 kHz or 192 kHz sampling, providing a more accurate and complete reproduction of the original analog signal.

What is Bit Depth?

The sampling rate, which determines how many times per second the waveform of an analog sound is captured, versus the bit depth, which determines the accuracy of its measurements, reveals the damage that will occur to the quality of the sound in digital reproduction. In a sound file with a low bit rate or bit depth, important information will be lost in terms of digital reproduction.

We have examined above that an average CD contains a sampling rate of 44.1kHz/second, the audio information sampled 44,100 times contains the same number of samples per second of music and is encoded with 16-bit resolution. High-resolution audio formats contain over 16 million possible values ​​per music sample, 256 times more fidelity than CD with 24-bit resolution.

What is Hi-Res Audio Certification?

Hi-Res Audio Certification, that is, high-resolution audio certification, is a certification process approved by the Japanese Audio Association (JAS) and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), designed for high-quality musical performance and original sound reproduction. The Hi-Res Audio standard includes that the dynamic response range for the input and output and signal processing of the audio device must have at least 24 bits of data processing width and, accordingly, a sampling frequency of 96 kHz.

Differences Between Lossy Audio and Lossless Audio

Lossy Compression

Online music platforms Spotify and Apple Music generally offer us CD quality sound, but they also make a significant reduction. These platforms compress CD quality from 1,400 kbps to 256 kbps without any loss of quality, and in theory, they eliminate information beyond our hearing capacity with compression techniques and codecs. This situation, which is a frequently discussed topic by the hi-fi and audiophile communities, is called lossy sound or lossy compression.

Lossless Compression

Lossless and uncompressed resolution audio, which requires higher data transfer rates than CD and digital music platforms, 4,600
It is among the popular audio compression methods of recent times with its data transfer of kbps. In comparison to other online music platforms such as Tidal and HDtracks, services that promise high-resolution audio offer high-resolution audio with suitable file sizes without removing information with the lossless compression method and codecs it uses.

Where are Hi-Fi Systems Used?

For Hi-Fi music listeners, listening to music or watching movies with their systems is only a matter of time and fast consumption.
It is not among the activities. Instead, hifi songs and content for hifi enthusiasts called hifi freaks require a certain lifestyle, so the areas of hifi use also change accordingly. The large space requirement of hifi speakers and hifi setups brings the comfort that these systems can only have a listening room, such as villas and residences, and the pleasure of the hifi lifestyle increases in structures such as mansions and houses.

Of course, if you are a hifi enthusiast and want to achieve this listening pleasure with entry-level hifi speakers, hifi home theater
systems and applications may also be an option for you. These systems, which do not require a special listening room, can offer you pleasures in your living room that you cannot reach with popular speakers and amplifiers on the market. If you want to buy a hi-fi system but spend most of your time in mobile vehicles such as caravans and yachts, there may be hi-fi devices for you among hi-fi systems.