Many audio systems in the market are classified as “Hi-Fi” Systems. Hi-Fi refers to High Fidelity – which is a measure of the degree of faithful reproduction of sound. Systems with high faithfulness are called Hi-Fi systems. In these systems, the output audio is an exact replica of the input audio.
There are certain requirements to be met by an audio system for it to be classified as a Hi-Fi system.Note that Hi-Fi systems are not ideal systems but a good approximation of ideal systems. These are given below with the corresponding requirements for ideal systems.
| High Fidelity(Hi-Fi) System | Ideal Fidelity System |
| Signal-to-noise ratio should be better than 50 db | Signal-to-noise ratio should be ideally infinite |
| Frequency response should be flat over 40-15000 Hz (within + or – 1 db) | Frequency response should be ideally flat between 16-20000 Hz; ie-there should be no frequency distortion. |
| Non-linear distortion should be < 1% | There should be no non-liner distortion. |
| Dynamic range of at least 80 db is required. | Ideal dynamic range is between 0-130 db |
| Stereophonic effect (adding a sense of direction to sound) should be provided. | There must be clear stereophonic effect. |
| Environmental conditions should be such as to reduce external noise. | Optimized environmental conditions for better listening and no external noise. |
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