Never Settle for Lackluster, Superficial Sound in Your Home 

How do you gauge a great set of speakers? It’s easy to get lost in the technical jargon or the beautiful finishes, but high-end audio shouldn’t be about the numbers. The reason hi-fi shops offer demos is that a great speaker gives you goosebumps. And that won’t come down to which one has the biggest volume potential. It’s a personal connection you make with it once you listen. 

There are, though, a few qualities that help turn music from background noise to a focal point in your home. Ones that make the bass boom in a hip hop track, and the clave come out clear and perfectly timed in a salsa song. 

Below, we highlight some of our favorite high-end audio brands, the qualities that make them our go-tos, and the songs we like to test-drive at our showroom. 

Bowers & Wilkins: Transparency & Nuance 

The British company’s speakers are a standard in music studios worldwide. They stand out in part for not leaving a presence. That is to say, they don’t color the sound so the nuances of your favorite recordings come through fully. You hear exactly what the artist envisioned and all the different layers of a track’s production.

Aja by Steely Dan is a go-to track for us when showcasing these speakers. The B&W speakers let you travel through the complex layers of percussion and woodwinds that lie behind Donald Fagen’s vocals. We also like to play So What by Miles Davis to let people hear how real the trumpet feels in the room.

Linn: Timing Your Music Perfectly

The other thing that many of our clients don’t realize is that luxury audio goes beyond the speaker. You want to pair your speakers with high-end sources, such as Linn products. Especially when using digital outputs. Linn is best known for maintaining a track’s rhythmic integrity while removing digital glare. 

To highlight those things, we recommend going with a song with a really good rhythm section. Dreams by Fleetwood Mac is a great example. While Stevie Nicks’ ethereal vocals take center stage, it’s John McVie’s iconic bassline that gives the song a literal heartbeat. The audio is so crisp and perfectly timed that you won’t be able to help tapping your foot along. 

BlueSound: Artistry for the Digital Age 

A lot of music lovers think that digital music is devoid of artistry. That’s not the case; it’s just that a lot of streaming services and components compress music so much the quality gets lost. A lot of artists are now creating master-level recordings available via high-res services like Tidal and high-end wireless audio systems like Blusound. Bluesound lets you listen in 24-bit depth to get every detail to come through. 

A great song to sample on BlueSound is Giorgio by Moroder by Daft Punk. Considered one of the masterpieces in modern digital mixing, it combines 1970s analog interview recordings with the group’s trademark synthesizers. But it takes that Bluesound quality component to hear the subtle crackle of the vintage mic and the full groove of the digital synths. 

Luxury audio is an investment in the music you love. One that brings back fond memories of days past, and that connects you with family and friends, and culture. That’s a kind of magic that doesn’t live in specs but in a shared experience. We’ll work with you to find the speakers, sources, and separates that bring the soul back to your favorite music. To speak with our audio specialists, call or fill out our contact form.