For many people on the planet, the way music is bought and distributed these days could never have been predicted. Just twenty years ago, most of the public was happy that LPs were starting to die out and welcomed the cassette tape with open arms. Not long after, compact discs rendered the tapes obsolete and were the de facto choice of music enthusiasts. LP record revivals notwithstanding, the CD has definitely changed the course of music for good. It eclipsed all other forms of music reproduction.

That is, until it was eclipsed by digital music files which are bought and shared on computers. Where can one buy a CD these days? Music stores are quickly becoming dinosaurs, with one after the other going out of business and closing their doors. The big cities of the world have all gotten a little stranger without the formerly ubiquitous CD store. The record labels have more or less died as well – yet, music is more accessible and more popular than ever.

For the real music lover, there is no shortage of enthusiasm for almost every facet of the recording industry. From learning how the sessions were done – and in what studio – to the instruments used, there are so many different ways to learn more about a recording and take it all in. The fascination with recorded sound is hard to dispute and at times it can be just as interesting as the artists themselves. How did it all come about? Looking over the history of recorded music is to take a remarkable trip through time.

The Original Maverick – the LP

Considering the astounding run of the long-playing record – still the medium of choice for most DJs – it is nearly impossible to overstate the LP’s importance to the world for the last 100-plus years. The original phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison (who else?) in the late 1870s and played a bulky cylinder which housed recordings. Once the system of playback was improved with the gramophone disc, the world began to flood with records. To imagine a world before recorded music is difficult to do these days, yet it is easy to imagine the demand which came for these receptacles of sound.

Many who are familiar with records will recognize the first form of mass-produced discs, the 78 rpm record. Rather bulky and somewhere in between a standard LP record and a 7” single, the 78 shellac reigned from the early days of the 20^th century until the 1950s. The invention of the microgroove extended the capacity for record lengths. Now, instead of having one session in order to produce 3 or 4 singles (of 2:30-3:30 minutes in length), the idea of a concept album emerged. Songs could be longer and they could all be tied together and packaged on a single disc. Naturally, the effects on music were astounding. Taking a quick look at jazz music from the period is the perfect illustration. Going from Charlie Parker’s brisk one-liners to John Coltrane’s long paragraphs in such a short time would have been impossible without the LP advances.

Tapes Arrive and Get Supplanted

With the imposing reign by the LP in mind, it’s difficult to see the need for the move to other mediums. However, the cassette tape had existed for decades before making its move in the late 1970s. Even though they are much less ubiquitous than LP records these days, cassette tapes dominated in the music industry for nearly two decades. The basic reasons can be easily understood. For one, the obsession with things getting smaller was popular in the 1960s and after. Cassette tapes were a perfect example of this phenomenon. Another big reason is mobility. Carrying a record player or driving along with a spinning disc is impossible. Tapes were set and could not skip once they were inserted in their players.

Perhaps even bigger than the mobility and size factors was the ability to record music on tapes. The piracy and sharing of today has its origins in that era. Whereas a record could not be copied – and therefore had to be purchased to be enjoyed – the tape could duplicate a record’s contents, as well as another tape. Even though tapes diminished in quality from the transfer, records quickly fell out of style.

That is, until the CD swiftly eliminated tapes from the collective unconscious. The quality of the material and the slim format were doubted by many at first, but the compact disc produced a remarkable sound never heard before in a mass-produced medium. All of the complaints heard about tapes were overcome by CDs. No more hiss, no more tangled film – in many ways, the CD was the Space Age equivalent of the record, with no needles and sticking if it was cared for properly.

Can a Computer Do That?

While the naysayers were out in full force for years as computers developed the technology to receive and play music, even the believers could not have imagined the way music is being bought and listened to these days. To imagine a world without dominant record labels was probably once a dream of exploited musicians; yet no one thought it could happen so quickly. The battles waged over sharing over the years came and went, with the listener ending up in control. Those who predicted the musicians would lose out were ultimately mistaken. Never has access to music been so simple, so universal. The names and songs of previously obscure musicians can travel around the world in seconds today. All you need to do is hook up your laptop to a hifi rack and you can listen to any number of your favourite bands from the comfort of your sitting room.

Spotify is the latest company to make an advance in the world of music circulated online. Eliminating the time usually spent waiting for a track to arrive on a computer, Spotify allows instant access from a catalogue of impressive proportions. Transporting music may no longer be necessary, as long as internet service can be guaranteed. The history of music is literally a click away. Edison may not have been able to visualize such a path from his old phonograph, but it’s doubtful he would be entirely surprised.

The modern home is a place full of advanced electronics equipment serving a vast universe of different purposes: some gadgets are there to help us stay in touch, others to help us stay entertained, and so on. When it comes to entertainment, these days everybody is excited about putting together a full performance, fully diversified home theater and surround sound system. These systems imply a lot of hardware and accessories that have the potential to turn your home living or TV room into a truly magnificent and imposing place; of course, to be able to accommodate all of this equipment it is important to have a place for them to be housed, and that means having a variety of home stereo system and entertainment equipment furniture.

A top notch home theater system means having a variety of audio and video equipment, and each different item will need to occupy its own distinct place within the room. A few of the consoles may be able to be fit together on a stand, however speakers will need to be distributed throughout the room to create the desired surround sound effect. Let’s take a look at each of these considerations on an individual basis.

The type of furniture for housing your varied equipment is alternatively known as Hi Fi racks or audio racks. The design and functionality of these items has come a long way over the years: back in the 70s and 80s, these racks were usually closed-in as though they were a regular old closet or cabinet; these days, however, racks of this sort are usually manufactured as open-air sets. That’s because your audio equipment needs to breathe—there must be a constant airflow over the equipment to keep it at the proper temperature, thereby assuring that it will not overheat and that the equipment’s lifespan will be extended as much as possible. Open-air sets, in this same vein, help prevent sudden shutdowns of your audio equipment, which happens when overheating occurs.

The design features of today’s audio or Hi Fi racks has evolved tremendously, and the favorite manufacturers on the market today have the latest in home design and furniture trends in mind when it comes time to develop a new line. Sleek designs with modern looking, minimalist curves and surfaces are the trend of the moment. Of course, design considerations have to yield to functionality: such racks must have very solid, very flat and level shelves to be able to fully optimize the audio equipment that will be housed within. The slightest gradient in the shelving or the presence of sub-standard, flimsy materials will completely compromise the audio performance of the equipment and decrease the value and appeal of your home theater system.

The top of the stand may or may not be equipped to rest a TV set. Some racks will include this option and may very well be quite wide to accommodate the latest developments in flat screen sets, which seem to get wider and wider without stop. Then again, many people opt for an independent TV stand. Features of such TV stands may include built-in cable canals or back-prop support frames or structures for tall or bulky TV sets that need more support than merely the flat surface beneath them.

Moving on, the next major consideration will be how and where to set up your speakers. Knowing what height and what arrangement to put your speakers in will largely determine the success of your home entertainment system, as many people associate the surround sound effect with the best in home entertainment. The best models of speaker stands will virtually entirely prevent the noise and vibrations coming from the speakers from being lost through friction, something which occurs when the stand is either not level, not isolated from the ground properly, or for a variety of other factors. Anybody that has turned their audio up to full blast knows that some incredibly violent friction and vibrations can be produced as a result, making a terrible racket that detracts from the pleasure of the music being heard or the movie being watched.

To overcome these problems, speaker stands need to be heavy duty. The heavier the material from which the stand is made, the better the chances of it not succumbing to such vibrations. Yet weight is not enough here—there also needs to be proper isolation of the stand from the floor. The best stands use rubber or polyurethane pads at the contact with the floor to deaden such friction, and furthermore similar materials are usually employed on the base plate where the speaker is to be mounted. Again, flatness is a crucial aspect that helps boost audio performance.

Finding the right height for your variety of speakers is also a really important aspect, and the speaker stands you buy should reflect the final arrangement. It was discovered back a few decades ago that speakers perform much better when they are not left on the floor; however, not every kind of speaker should be at the same height. Low frequency woofers and sub-woofers should be low down to the ground, whereas mid-range speakers should be more or less at head-height of the people sitting down watching a movie; finally, the high frequency tweeters should be just above this, only a few inches above ear-level or less. This variation of heights will add depth and complexity to your home audio and theater system, and will make everything you listen to sound that much more enjoyable. Hence, the speaker stands you invest in should either come at just the right height or, more likely, allow for a certain amount of height adjustment within a predetermined range. A few other features to keep in mind that will prove useful may include cable concealment and a generally pleasant appearance, though always remember that the sturdiness of the materials is the most important attribute.

There is more to the world of functional furniture for your audio and home theater systems, though if you start with this you are sure to be heading down the right path.

Modern home appliances and electronics equipment come in so many different forms that it can be incredibly easy to get lost in all the variety.  When it comes to putting together a first rate home theater and stereo system there’s no exception: a million and one different models and brands clutter the market, and buyers are left scratching their heads for a good long while before making what is in most cases a fairly arbitrary and random decision as to what to buy (well, some people surely do their research and make more informed decisions, but they are by no means the majority).  What a lot of such buyers don’t have in mind when they go ahead and buy the various hardware components that will make up their theater and audio systems is that they will need quality furniture to make everything function properly: to house their equipment neatly on the one hand and, more importantly, to ensure that the audio quality emitted by the equipment is no less than optimum.

Considering the fact that the average home stereo system today forms part of a broader home theater system that includes a lot of different gear, such furniture needs to be spacious and have the ability of adding on new extensions to accommodate future purchases.  Hence, keep an eye out for models that have the capacity to expand, with apertures that will serve for adding new shelf space and which can stack up and out.  This will mean being able to accommodate a variety of different items with varying heights inside, so if you change a given audio console out for another after a new purchase you won’t have to go and buy a new furniture item to house it.

For the housing of your main audio consoles, such as the pre amp, the audio sources, radio equipment, tuners, and so on, you will want a modern high performance audio rack (also known as a Hi Fi rack).  This is the item described above, which should ideally be able to be expanded and modified in a variety of ways.  In addition to this particular feature (definitely a priority), you will want to make sure that the rack is nice and sturdy—important not only because the equipment inside can be quite heavy, but furthermore because there should be minimal to zero possibility for the audio vibrations to affect the equipment’s functioning.  This idea is really taken to the extreme in some models of Hi Fi racks where each shelf is rendered completely independent of the rest through ball bearings and the inclusion of some variety of synthetic, high density material such as polyurethane at the contact points that further eliminates vibration interference.  These features collectively deaden and dampen vibrations, and they are absolutely fundamental to the proper functioning of your main audio hardware.

As the TV is the natural and necessary complement to any audio system, you will want to consider furniture for it as well.  Of course, if your TV is mounted on the wall there isn’t much to discuss here, and the audio racks mentioned above can neatly be tucked beneath such a wall-mount arrangement to create a tidy entertainment section of the home.  However, for those that don’t go the wall-mount path may want to look into investing in a TV stand that will furthermore likely be able to house some if not all of your audio equipment (depending on the size of the stand and the amount of equipment you have, of course).  There is a model of stand to meet whatever needs you may have and whatever model TV you may have: there are models that are nice and wide to accommodate big screens yet that don’t protrude far from the wall to match the dimensions of a flat screen set: then there are other models that are more apt for use with a normal tube TV.  The amount of shelves beneath varies greatly, with some offering enough space for all the other audio consoles as mentioned.  If this is the option you choose, you will again want to make sure that the shelves are very strong and resistant; this is especially true if your TV has built in speakers that will be used, as the vibrations emanating from the speakers will have the ability of providing vibration interference as mentioned above.

One of the easier and more affordable ways to improve the audio performance of your home system was discovered back in the ‘80s—simply elevating the speakers off the ground, that is.  This again implies the necessity of appropriate furniture in the form of speaker stands.  Such stands come in a variety of models and prices, and the best (also the more costly) are incredibly sturdy, again to eliminate vibration related problems that detract from audio quality.  The preferred materials for such stands are either steel or thick glass though a few other varieties may be found, some in plastics.  In addition to the strength of the stand shaft itself, the two crucial points to be optimized are at the top and bottom, where contact with the speaker itself and the floor occurs, respectively.  Good stands will come with appropriate rubber pads or similar isolation measures, however there are many accessories to be bought that can help you improve these problem areas on your speakers stands.

For example, there are accessories known as floor spikes that help deaden any vibrations being passed on from the speaker stand, and these floor spikes will differ depending on the kind of flooring you have installed in your home—carpeting will require a different kind than wood or laminate floors, so be sure you get your hands on the right item. 

Another very interesting product is high density filler for your speaker stands.  This is a generally synthetic product which you apply to your stands to load on mass, giving the stand more weight and reducing the chance of vibration issues, available in a variety of colors.