The audio glossary
High-end audio has a language of its own — some of it real engineering, some of it marketing. Here’s our plain-English take on the terms that actually matter when you’re choosing or setting up a system.
Acoustics
Amplification
- Amplifier Classes (A, A/B, D)
The circuit topology an amplifier uses to turn a small signal into a big one — the main trade-off is between efficiency and, historically, sound.
- Gain Structure
How signal level is managed across the chain — source, preamp and power amp — so the system plays loud enough without noise or clipping.
- Impedance
A speaker or headphone's resistance to the amplifier's signal, measured in ohms — it affects how much power the amp must deliver and whether the pairing works.
Headphones
Home Cinema
- Bass Management
The processor setting that redirects low frequencies from your speakers to the subwoofer, governed by a crossover frequency.
- Dolby Atmos
An object-based surround format that adds height channels, placing sounds in a three-dimensional space above and around the listener.
- Reference Level
The calibrated volume at which film soundtracks are mixed — hitting it cleanly is a real test of a cinema system's headroom.
Loudspeakers
- Sensitivity
How loud a speaker plays for a given input power, quoted in dB (e.g. 87dB/2.83V/1m) — higher sensitivity needs less amplifier power.
- Soundstage & Imaging
The illusion of a three-dimensional space and precisely located instruments produced by a well-set-up stereo or surround system.
- Standmount vs Floorstander
The two main loudspeaker formats — compact standmounts on dedicated stands, versus larger floorstanding towers — each with real trade-offs.
Sources & Digital
- Bit Depth & Sample Rate
The two numbers that define PCM digital audio — bit depth sets dynamic range, sample rate sets the highest frequency that can be captured.
- Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC)
The component that turns the digital audio stored on a file, CD or stream into the analogue signal your amplifier and speakers can actually play.
- Direct Stream Digital (DSD)
An alternative digital format (used by SACD) that encodes audio as a high-rate single-bit stream rather than multi-bit PCM.
- Master Quality Authenticated (MQA)
A proprietary, controversial encoding once promoted as delivering studio-master quality in a smaller file — now largely receding from streaming.
- Network Streamer
A component that pulls music from streaming services or your home network and feeds it to a DAC or amplifier, controlled from an app.
- Phono Stage
The specialised preamp that boosts and equalises a turntable's tiny signal — different for moving-magnet (MM) and moving-coil (MC) cartridges.