This article is on how to pick out the components you will need for a good two-channel (or stereo, HiFi) system. With both music streaming and the resurgence of vinyl coming at the same time, millions of people around the world are itching to put together a music system that is better than that trusted portable bluetooth speaker. Some may be getting into it for the first time, while others have fond memories of a system they might have had decades ago.
With all of the types of products to choose from today, starting from scratch can be a daunting and confusing task. But trust us, the end result will be well worth it as there is nothing like having a great-sounding music system in your home to discover new music with friends and family and play back your old favorites better than you ever heard!
We will go through some questions you should ask yourself as you get started. For the purposes of this article, we will be talking about general types of components rather than specific brands and models. And within each category, you will find a very wide range of prices. Stereo systems are like anything: diminishing returns set in when you go past a certain level, and that level varies greatly from individual to individual. Our best advice is to spend what you feel comfortable with as long as you can hear a difference as you keep spending more. We’ve observed in our almost 50 years of helping people put together great systems, what perfectly satisfies one person, may not even come close for another.
This article is not designed to help you pick out components within a specific category but is at a basic level to help you think about what type of components you want to look at for your stereo system. We’ve got plenty of other articles on our site that get into the component categories and how to choose for example the best turntable.
We will go over the questions first, then talk about the components you might consider based on how you answered these questions.
Ok, so question number one will be about how you get music to your system. You need to decide if you just want to go with music streaming and CDs, or step into or back into the world of vinyl, and if so, will it be vinyl only?
If you are thinking about vinyl, this is a deeper, more philosophical question to consider. For many vinyl lovers, the format is about hearing music in its pure analog form. But for others, it is more about owning the physical disc with all of its cool artwork and just having fun playing a record. Decades ago, before the advent of the CD and digital technology, everything was recorded in analog. When digital technology arrived, it swept over recording studios like wildfire. So, 99.9% of new albums since the late 80’s have all been recorded with digital equipment. If you want the closest sound for more current recordings, using a high-resolution streaming service will get you closer than vinyl.
If you have a nice collection of records from any time before and up to the early 80’s, you might want to think about going with a system that allows you to go all analog. Or if you love browsing antique malls, used record stores, or the internet for original analog recorded vinyl records, it can turn into a fun hobby. If you do want to get into vinyl, the answer to this will change the path you will want to take when looking at equipment.
For those of you who want to get into vinyl, we have another great resource in our turntable buyers guide. You will obviously need this component to play back vinyl and our guide goes over everything you need to know about turntables. Some of the things we talk about here will make more sense once you have gone over our guide.
The next question is, will this be a dedicated room for music only, or do you think that you would ever want to be able to improve your TV sound with this same gear or even go further and get into an immersive surround sound system?
So have you answered all those questions in your head? Let’s now dive into the different categories of gear and see which best suits your answers.
Powered speakers have taken the audio world by storm over the last few years. They offer a lot of advantages and can be had in all shapes, sizes, and prices. The idea is you get a pair of speakers for stereo sound that are fully self-contained. You can spread them apart to get that great separation a stereo system is all about and many of them sound pretty amazing. For someone just starting out, they are an easy way to get a decent to really good two-channel system. And you will usually be able to control everything, including volume from an app on your smartphone.
Many of them will fit the bill for almost all of the answers in our quiz except for those of you who want a pure analog path for your vinyl. If you answered yes to that question, skip to the next section.
Let's look at how they can help you with different types of music sources.
Bluetooth
There are several things to consider when choosing a set of powered speakers. Some will just have Bluetooth streaming, which is a super convenient way to get music into them. Remember though, even the latest so-called high-performance Bluetooth, AptX, is still limited in how good it can sound and it is not CD quality.
Airplay2
The higher-performing models will include Airplay2, as well as Bluetooth. Airplay2 is capable of higher resolution streaming than Bluetooth and is super simple to use
Best Quality
As you move up, you will find models that offer even better quality. Units with Chromecast offer higher resolution than even Airplay2, as the music is sent directly from the music servers to your powered speaker.
And for the very best, if you can find powered speakers with Tidal Connect or Qobuz built-in, those can offer up to 24bit/192khz music streaming. Or if the speaker is Roon Ready, this paid service offers the same very high resolution.
Now, bear in mind, that you will need some pretty good powered speakers for a casual listener to hear the differences between any of these, especially Airplay2 and up, but with a great set of powered speakers, set up properly, the serious listener will hear the improvements.
Many powered speakers will have a built-in phono preamp, or a set of auxiliary jacks where you could plug in a turntable that had a built-in phono preamp. Or should you have a turntable that does not have a phono preamp built-in, you could purchase an external phono preamp and connect it to the powered speakers.
Once you get beyond the most basic powered speakers, you’ll find this connection making it very simple to add a turntable to a good set of powered speakers. Now the only thing we will point out again, is this will not be a pure analog path as almost every powered speaker we know of uses digital processing. But for most people getting into a vinyl 2-channel system, this is a great way to go.
If you have a lot of old CDs, you will likely find the same music on most of the streaming services, making it easier to access. But if you have some obscure ones, just check for powered speakers with an AUX jack to connect up a CD player with. Bear in mind if you also want to do vinyl, most powered speakers only have one AUX, but a few do have both an AUX and phono input.
In order to get the sound from your TV into a set of powered speakers, you will want to find a pair that has either an optical audio input or an HDMI Arc input. And you will want to check your TV to make sure it has an optical out or HDMI Arc connection. Either of these will enable you to port TV sound over to your far better-powered speakers. This will not be full surround sound but should be miles ahead of the cheap speakers built into your TV.
HDMI Arc will let the TV remote take over the volume control for your powered speakers, which is super handy.
So, as you can see, powered speakers have a lot of advantages. Some models even have separate amplifiers built in for each of the speaker drivers and create sound that can rival or exceed many separates based audio systems.
If you would like to learn more about powered speakers, we have several different articles and videos on them, including breakdowns in different price ranges.
With audio separates, we basically take all of the parts you find in a powered set of speakers and put them in separate components. This approach gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of both choices and future upgrades. With powered speakers, when you have the itch to make things sound even better, you need to replace everything. With separate audio components, you can upgrade one piece at a time.
A lot of the same features we talked about with powered speakers will apply to audio separates as well. This category has a few levels we will go over.
This would be the most basic separates system for those of you interested in music streaming and vinyl playback. Here, we have the music streamer, a preamp, and power amplifier built into one box. You then simply connect up a pair of speakers, and you are good to go. Many of them come with a built-in phono preamp or an AUX input you could use with a turntable that had a built-in phono preamp or with a separate one. Most will also have either an optical or HDMI Arc input to improve your TV sound. And almost all of them will have more Bluetooth, usually including Airplay2, Chromecast, the “connects”, and a lot are Roon capable. Like powered speakers, this combination will usually give you full control of everything from your phone.
Just like powered speakers, there is a huge variety of these that range in price from a few hundred dollars to well above $10,000. Some of these are almost works of art externally too, they are made so well.
The pros with this approach is a minimal number of components, but just like powered speakers, if you want to improve things later, you would either upgrade the entire streaming amplifier or the speakers.
And if you want a pure analog signal path for your vinyl, there are very few that do this.
To help you nail down the best components here, we have a wealth of videos that cover this type of gear and the speakers you might pair up with it. When you get into this range, a consultation with one of our passionate audio experts is a good way to get started. There are hundreds of possible combinations and we can help you sort through the best.
This category is where things start to get really fun as you can mix and match to suit your taste. Here we will have an integrated amplifier that powers the speakers you choose. You will connect up to the integrated amplifier a separate streamer and/or a turntable and any other sources like a CD player or AM/FM tuner you might desire.
This approach lets you focus on what is most important to you. Many integrated amplifiers are pure analog, so if you want an amazing vinyl system with streaming music for entertaining, but not super high quality, you can choose an excellent turntable, integrated amp, and speakers, but then get a basic streamer. Or if you want both to be great, you can use a higher-performance streamer.
Most separate streamers will have Bluetooth, Airplay2, Chromecast, the connect systems, and many are Roon Ready.
In this class, you will also find much more powerful integrated amplifiers available if you want to drive a large set of speakers that need serious power to get going.
To improve TV sound, some will have optical, HDMI Arc, or both. But since a lot of these are made for people who want a dedicated stereo system, you will find about half of these do not have either one and are just pure analog. All is not lost though as many like this have a pretty cool feature that lets you combine a home theater system with a 2 channel audio system. This is called the home theater bypass feature and it's so cool, we did an entire video on it. It lets you keep the purity of your great two channel system in all analog, then use your main front speakers with a home theater receiver and as many other speakers as the receiver supports.
For those of you wanting something better with more flexibility or pure analog, this is a great way to go and the music lovers on our team would love to help you get started. The one con is this method typically does not give you control from your phone, especially if the integrated amp is all analog.
This category is the Mac Daddy. Here we take the integrated amplifier and break it out into two parts, the two-channel preamp, and a separate power amplifier.
Having the power amplifier be a separate piece of gear has a lot of audio advantages and you will find some extremely powerful amplifiers available.
For the preamp part, there are two choices. We are seeing a lot of combination preamp, music streamers come on the market. If you have a large pair of speakers that need a lot of power to get going and are into music streaming or CDs, this is a great way to go. It will give you the amazing power of separates with the ability to control everything from your phone including volume.
The other way is with a pure analog preamp that connects up to the power amp. You then add the sources you want which could be a separate streamer, turntable, CD player, AM/FM tuner or more. The pure analog preamps will not have a way to get TV sound into them, but most will have a home theater bypass.
Separate components also give you the most upgrade flexibility as you can upgrade any or all of them when you get the itch.
We could do a whole thesis article on all of the choices available in this category, but we just wanted to give you enough here so you know it does exist for those who want the very best.
As you can see, there are all kinds of possible ways to put together a 2 channel music system. We hope this basic guide has given you enough information to start thinking about the direction you might want to go so that when you reach out to our team, they can guide you to the best gear for your room and budget.
If you have further questions, contact our experts via chat, phone, or email. Or simply visit one of our world-class showrooms to experience speakers, projectors, TVs, and everything in between for yourself before you make a purchase!
If you’re planning your home theater or media room, check out our Home Theater Design page, where we have everything Home Theater related, including our FREE Home Theater Design Tool.
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