Hi Guys -
I applaud any and all effort aimed at helping newcomers to this hobby, and I wish you nothing but the best in this endeavor. But, I'm afraid that most of the questions I have seen suggested here are still at a relatively sophisticated level. Perhaps I have misunderstood who you are trying to help, but if you really want to help *beginners,* you need to begin with some truly basic questions, like these:
"How many Watts can my speakers hold?"
"How many Watts do they need?"
"Why are a lot of speakers so big? Do I need big speakers? Bose says I don't."
"I've got one speaker on the floor by the couch, and the other is up on top of my cabinet. Somebody said I should put them on stands and point them in the same direction - is that right?"
"What is an amplifier? Okay, what is a preamplifier? A receiver? An integrated amplifier?"
"What kind of wires do I need? Where do they go?"
"When I listen to a CD, I can only get the volume knob up to around 9 or 10 o'clock. When I listen to a radio station or the TV, I have to turn the knob up a lot farther to get the same volume. What's wrong?"
"I heard somebody say they still listened to LP records! Why would anybody do that?"
"I like to rock out when I'm partying, so I cranked my system way up and my speakers smoked! My receiver only puts out 40 Watts - how could that happen?"
"I got interested in having better sound, so I picked up a copy of Stereophile / The Absolute Sound / Hi-Fi News / fill in the blank and tried to read it, but I couldn't understand what they were talking about, and all the equipment was incredibly expensive! Isn't there someplace I can learn about this stuff that has some respect for my budget and won't treat me like a moron?"
These are basic questions, and they deserve basic answers - without any techno-babble, with little or no bias about brands or types of equipment, and with little or no mention of advanced esoterica like the sonic differences between copper and silver wire, etc. Let's try to help these folks over the basic hurdles before we bombard them with stories of cryogenically-treated AC cords that cost $2000+. Please.
Best regards,
Steve McCormack, designer
SMc Audio