The best way to evaluate any hi-fi or home entertainment purchase is through a live audition at a qualified retailer.  The optimum buying experience should engage all the senses; no amount of spec sheets or reviews can tell you how any piece really looks, feels or SOUNDS.  At Absolute Audio we've created a listening environment which gives you an excellent frame of reference for the experience you can expect in your home.

Despite the way a lot of hi-fi is marketed, we all intuitively know that no amount of technical specifications will ever move or inspire us.  Specifications have become the substitute language of hi-fi because we lack the vocabulary to express the highly subjective and personal experience that listening to music really is.  In the end all any of have to go by is what our ears tell us, but many people don't trust their ears and many hi-fi stores don't help.  

Singing along with the music is a technique that can work for anyone.  Highly trained ears are not needed to judge a hi-fi system.  We all come equipped with a sophisticated internal reference system and the only trick is learning to relax and judge with confidence what our ears are telling us.

Linn recommends listening and repeating the tune silently and trying to reproduce, simultaneously, inside your head, the actual sound made by the hi-fi system.  It's a deceptively easy way to hear if a system can bring lasting pleasure.  If a system is hard to sing along with even when you try actively to follow the tune, it will soon cause fatigue and a ultimately it will be used less and less.  

On the other hand, if you find that you can't wait to put on the next LP or CD, you've likely found a system that is "good enough" for you.  Once you've become accustomed to a quality sound, subtle differences among system components will become much easier to discern and your appreciation of music, both old and new, will increase.  In this way, listening to music becomes the ultimate interactive experience.