Defenition of Hi-Fi related terms:

Mono - Monaural, one channel of audio - for example the early gramophone & am radio are mono.

Stereo - two channels of audio - e.g. the Stereo Record, CD's and FM radio are stereo.

Multichannel - More than two channels - for example a Multichannel SACD recording.

Hi-Fi - the quality reproduction of music over the full range of the material with good dynamic range and flat frequency response.

CD player - Compact Disk -a plastic disk that stores music digitally - typically in stereo

DVD player - Digital Versatile Disk - music and picture storage, can have surround sound information encoded onto it.

SACD Player - Super Audio CD - High Bitrate Audio (Higher quality than CD).  Can be recorded on more than two channels

IPOD - Hard Drive or Solid State storage device, files can be AIFF or MP3's.   Can be connected at headphone or speaker level to the 'line in' of any amplifier.  Can also be connected via usb cable for offboard DA conversion by (for example) a media server.

IPOD Shuffle - smallest ipod - audio only - solid state storage, lightweight and good for jogging!

IPOD Nano - mid sized ipod -  audio only & pictures - solid state storage - up to 4 GB.

IPOD Video - largest ipod, audio, pictures and video - hard disk storage, up to 80 GB.

Record Player - used to play vinyl records which can be either mono or stereo.  The information is stored in an analogue format, with sideways and vertical motions of the needle track representing the recorded information.

Needle - (or cartridge) the pickup device that detects the motions of the track and converts this to electrical energy.

Tonearm - the device that supports the Needle over the record so the information can be extracted.

Phono Stage - The input section on an amplifier that is looking for the low voltages that are put out by a record player.  Now very uncommon on audio equipment, the phono stage can be simulated by a special phono preamplifier.

Preamplifier - (Preamp) the device that takes the incoming signal and permits the user to select sources and determine attenuation (volume control)

Attenuation - Volume controls do not turn the volume up, they 'decrease the applied attenuation'.   This is why on some amplifiers the numbers are negative - and get closer to 0 the more you increase the volume.  These numbers are the amount of attenuation in decibels that is being applied to the signal.

Decibels - A unit of measure of signal strength, they work on an exponential scale, so that a signal that is increased by 3dB is twice the volume, 6dB is four times the volume etc.

Amplifier -the device that amplifies the incoming signal from 'line level" (usually around 1 volt) to around 25v to drive the speakers.  The power of an amplifier is rated in Watts - the amount of voltage and current that the power supply can deliver.  A small amplifier may be 1-2 watts and a large amplifier may be over 3000 watts.

Line level - the signal level generated by the source equipment - usually around 1V

Speaker Level - the signal level generated by an amplifier - usually around 25V

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