The term Hi-Fi has been around for a very long time – long enough that it feels like it should be old fashioned. But the necessity for real Hi-Fi sound remains really recent; it’s now generally pertinent to stereo audio, mobile iPods and home-based theatre systems – but don't forget the term is short for “high fidelity”.
Words develop and lose connection with their original meanings. Hence Hi-Fi came to mean a collection of devices – a disc player, an amplifier, some speakers – for playing music. This now reaches to a larger variety of option: more speaker types like subwoofers, tweeters and headphones, more technologies like MP3, CDs DVDs, surround sound, dolby, blue ray. And let’s face it, even the most modest iPods, modern disk player or radio produces “high fidelity” compared with those available 50 years back.
Back then, “high fidelity” indicated products capable of delivering a sound quality reproduction superior to that other products, which were, well, lower fidelity. Fidelity – speaking the truth, being trustworthy to the original. The famous old HMV logo of the dog sitting next to the phonograph graphically sent the message – that what he, the dog, heard was a faithful reproduction of the real deal.
Perhaps nearly all real Hi-Fi sound systems available via online or sold these days are indeed high fidelity, but some are much higher than others. The search for ever-higher fidelity goes on and each year sees further advancements with systems which are now unusually good. But then, anyone who has put on a fine quality set of headphones to listen to a musical performance recorded under modern high fidelity conditions can attest to something which is a bit of a Hi-Fi conundrum: specifically, the recording sounds better than any original – so it’s actually not giving you high fidelity. Far from it in fact.
How can this be so? Well, it reduces down to the incontrovertible fact that life, real life, is never going to be perfect, while, the wizardry of sound creation and reproduction gets better, in the general direction of its own definition of perfection.
You sit in a concert music hall, an exhibition hall, and listen to a performance. The sound relationships between, say, the first violins and the trumpets varies from position to position in the music hall, with only one ‘perfect ‘ spot. But then it isn't ideal for the balance between the violins and the tympani. Then there ambient noise – call it rumble or interference.
This real life musical experience is not necessarily something we wish to reproduce with great fidelity – it’s not quite good enough. We're not after a steadfast fax of real life, but some higher ideal.
Hence relax and enjoy: put on the headphones or the surround sound speakers and turn on the CD, iPod or MP3. Hi-fi kit and all the associated technology can deliver to you, and quite cheaply, an audio experience which can actually be called divine since it overreaches what you can experience in ‘real ‘ life.
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