Can you put a price on sound quality? For true audiophiles in the San Francisco, California area, investing in a high-performance audio system isn’t about a dollar amount. It’s about listening to music in its purest form. The best way to achieve that goal is with a high-performance audio system. Professionally installed hi-fi audio represents the height of music enjoyment, and it all boils down to the three distinguishing characteristics outlined below.

The Sound

Without a doubt, the key differentiator between your run-of-the-mill audio solution and a high-performance system is sound quality. Whether you’re seeking a 2-channel listening room or a multi-room music system, you want to be able to enjoy music without static, echoes, or distortion. High-end audio companies have been pursuing ways to improve sound quality for decades. The formula for creating top-notch sound quality usually consists of a mixture of the following components:

• Materials: Sound reacts in different ways depending on the types of materials it touches. Speaker cones can be made with paper, aluminum, Kevlar, and diamonds, to name a few, and each type of material affects how the music sounds. More flexible materials usually result in sound distortion, while rigid materials keep the sound pure.
• Process: Mass-produced speakers offer a less expensive option, but this manufacturing process cannot guarantee you the quality level you need in a high-performance system. How the audio components are made and the amount of care put into quality control should be a deciding factor in which system you add to your home.
• File Format: The best audio equipment can’t make a lousy, compressed MP3 file sound great. MP3s became the standard for storing music online because the files are small, but that small file size comes at the price of quality. The good news, advances in uncompressed file formats like FLAC and DSD allow you to listen to songs at the same quality as the original master recording.

SEE ALSO: 5 Steps to Building a High-Performance Audio System

The Ease of Use

A common flaw among many audio brands is focusing all the attention on sound quality, thus neglecting the user experience. Complex technology doesn’t have to be difficult to operate. In fact, the best high-performance audio systems achieve strong sound quality and streamlined operation. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to start enjoying your music. For professionally installed audio systems, that means replacing all the standard remotes for each audio component with one central control system. Right from your smartphone, tablet, or computer, you can pull up all of your music and adjust your audio system, wherever you are.

The Reliability

What makes a brand great? More importantly, what keeps a brand great over the decades? The answer is reputation. High-end audio companies have standards to uphold, legacies formed over years of producing audio equipment that works flawlessly. The instance that they let these standards slip, their reputation as a luxury brand is destroyed.

Fortunately, luxury audio providers understand these high stakes, and their solution is to stick with what has worked for generations: using the highest quality materials and building each speaker with attention to the smallest detail. The result, products that you can rely on, products that will uphold the same quality of sound and user experience on day one as they will a decade from now.

Don’t take our word for it. To experience the different in audio quality firsthand, contact a local BRAVAS partner today.