(This is kind of a personal article about my relationship to recorded music. Reader beware!)

If you had told me 15 years ago that I could pay $20 a month and hear almost any music I wanted to in very good fidelity on both my home audio system here in Framingham, MA and my cell phone, I would have laughed and said "Really, what an incredible bargain.” 

Streaming music actually started around 2005 and has gotten progressively more popular as more services have been developed and the fidelity has gone from OK to really good--purportedly as good as a CD or better. You know, high-res or MQA or something of the like.

Natural Sound has served the Greater Boston area (and beyond!) for over 40 years as the “go-to” venue for the finest audio equipment.  Because not everyone is ready to purchase “the ultimate” the first time around, we instituted a unique home stereo system and speakers trade-up policy for our customers. 

The policy has been popular and has kept many customers “coming back for more.”  However, not everyone knows about it or fully understands it, so we thought we might attempt to give as clear an explanation as we could. 

By Lewis Dalven. Lewis is one of our audio specialists who has been in the business for over 46 years and knows a thing or two!

When properly calibrated and dialed in, many high quality AV receiver brands can deliver the envelopment and excitement of home theater surround sound.  But none of them make us want to listen to music the way a great stereo system can.  2-channel audio represents the more exacting challenge for music listening...it's up to the 2 speakers to create the soundstage image, with all the detail and dynamics present in the recording, without the potentially distracting influence of additional speakers' sound coming from multiple locations.