Tips to Listen Before Choosing the Best Premium Speakers
                     Tips to Listen Before 
Choosing the Best Premium 
Speakers
  
Clarity
The easiest and most objective thing to listen for is 
clarity. One way to determine whether a speaker 
has excellent clarity is to play music you are very 
familiar with, a song or album where you know 
every note, beat and detail.
 Are you hearing those details cleanly and clearly? 
Better yet, are you noticing sounds or layers you 
have never heard before because the speakers 
are so revealing? 
These are the tell-tale signs of a speaker with 
great clarity. On the flipside, if the details sound 
muffled or muddy and the sound is not as 
expressive as you remember, it is not the best 
so unding speaker for you.  
Imaging & Soundstage
Speaker SystemThe second thing to listen for in a 
stereo or home theater speaker system is imaging and 
soundstage, or the ability to render a sense of place, 
distance and a three-dimensional soundfield.
Speakers should convince you there is sound coming 
from all around, not just from two boxes in front of you. 
The bass guitarist should be distinguishable from the 
lead singer and drummer in terms of location onstage 
when listening to live music.
Soundstage also refers to a speaker’s ability to create 
atmospheric sound. Even the background noises behind 
dialogue or action scenes are clearly perceptible and 
deepen the sense of immersion.
  
Neutrality & Refinement
Neutrality and refinement refer to a speaker’s 
ability to sound as close to the real thing as 
possible. Does a human voice sound exactly like a 
human voice, or more robotic?
 Does the pluck of a guitar string, the roar of an 
engine, or the soft vocals of a female vocalist 
come through accurately and faithful to how the 
original artist or producer intended? 
Since the majority of dialogue and instrumental 
content occurs in the mid-range frequencies, it’s 
especially important to focus your listening there, 
but don’t ignore bass and high frequencies for 
their ability to recreate the full impact and power in 
a convincing and realistic way.
  
Dynamic Range
A speaker’s ability to effortlessly rise to extreme 
musical and cinematic peaks or to render the 
quietest moments with detail and clarity is known 
as its dynamic range.
It’s not just a measure of how loud you can crank 
the speaker with minimal or no distortion, dynamic 
range is more nuanced than that.
The better question to ask is, how well does the 
speaker show the contrast between the loudest 
and quietest moments in your content? 
You want a speaker that can play as loud as you 
need it to, but that can also be subtle or delicate 
whe n the content demands it.