The term High Fidelity was used for a long time to describe natural sounding reproduction of music from sources like long playing records and high speed magnetic spool tapes. The components of a Hi Fi system that contributed to this distortion free and realistic reproduction were turntables, diamond needles, huge class A amplifiers and giant speaker systems.
Over time many changes have taken place in the above scenario. Now we take Hi Fi reproduction for granted in any system reproducing audio. The audio recordings, now mainly digital, come from FM and Satellite radio, CDs, DVDs, Portable Media Players using MP3 and other compressed audio formats, Dolby 5.1 multiple channel Movie tracks, Computer Synthesizers, Games, Podcasts and Streaming Audio and Video over the internet.
Digital audio can now be processed in various ways before rendering it through the speakers. You can remove noise, enhance frequency distribution to change the way it sounds, add surround sound, process multiple channels, adapt reproduction to room acoustics etc. Both dedicated and general purpose solutions are available to address these requirements.
With miniaturization of components, advances in amplifier and power supply design, digital signal processing techniques and software support to manage audio processing, High Fidelity has acquired a new meaning and is all set to attain new levels of user satisfaction.
