With a specialism in audio and TV, however, it means she’s managed to spend a lot of time watching films and listening to music in the name of “work”. While usually bigger and require their own power source, they often offer several additional digital or analogue audio inputs alongside a USB input for connecting to your computer. It’s a much more niche format, differing from PCM by offering a bit depth of just one, but much higher sampling rates – commonly DSD64 at 2.8MHz and DSD128 at 5.6MHz. DSD, or Direct Stream Digital, is an alternative to PCM and was originally conceived for Super Audio CD (SACDs) – a format championed by Sony and Philips in the late 1990s and into the noughties.

If neither do, you’ll need to connect a separate phono stage box between the speakers and turntable. That means the components can be optimised for precision rather than pure power handling, resulting in a potentially better integrated, more precise sound. These models are fed by an ‘active’ digital crossover that works at a much lower voltage than their passive cousins. These are commonly referred to as ‘powered’ and represent most of the more affordable amplified speakers, such as the Ruark Audio MR1 Mk2 on this list.

Best active speakers 2025: our experts pick the top pairs with integrated amplifiers

If you are considering upgrading your personal listening setup, note that the performance of good wired headphones with a DAC will invariably surpass that of wireless headphones. Or you can get a wireless DAC like the five-star iFi GO Blu, which can connect to a source (though not your headphones) via Bluetooth, taking one wire out of the equation. Suffice it to say, if you’re someone firmly settled in the DSD camp, it’s worth checking whether the DAC you’re considering supports it; most, but not all, do.

Where can you listen to DSD music?

• Here, or you can jump into the best active speakers, curated by our in-house experts with over 150 years of collective experience.
• This is where the original DSD signal has been converted to 24-bit/352kHz PCM and processed in that form throughout.
• 7Digital (UK/US) / zdigital (AU)With a strong catalogue offering hi-res music from all genres and a website that makes buying music easy, 7digital is an excellent all-rounder.
• DSD fans claim the format is as close to analogue as digital gets.

As noted in the previous section, on some TVs only one or two HDMIs have enough bandwidth to support all of the PS5’s graphics features. The Philips OLED809 and Panasonic MZ2000 are both five-star options. Philips and Panasonic have also been selling TVs featuring two PS5-friendly HDMI sockets since 2021. Surprisingly Sony – maker of the PS5 – was a little slower than its rivals to support the PS5, but it now does. We can get the ball rolling, though, with some sets we already know support all the latest gaming features. Tweaks and tips for making the most of Sony’s next-gen console

It was designed to be a simpler, more space-efficient way of storing digital music data than PCM. In CD this is represented by 16-bits of digital data, which gives us the ability to define 65,536 different signal levels. If you’re importing files to Apple Music for local playback, AAC will be the default option, but you can also choose AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP3 and WAV. Just make sure your devices are all compatible with your file format of choice. DSD (the somewhat niche format used for Super Audio CDs) is also hi-res, but it’s not as widely supported. AAC is used for Apple Music streaming (at 256kbps) and YouTube streaming.

Coaxial digital connection

However, that can sometimes introduce tonal inconsistencies that harm the overall presentation of the sound. But, if you want to improve TV audio, you need a separate speaker designed for that purpose. Manufacturers have tried, with varying success, to enhance the audio coming from their televisions. We’ll check all the features onboard including music playback with a variety of genres and allow for plenty of listening time as well as running them in before we begin reviewing.

Compressed vs uncompressed audio files

However, an increasing number of active speakers actually cover all three bases of a complete hi-fi system by also integrating wi-fi connectivity and providing access to the best music streaming services. Interestingly, immersive audio formats such as Sony 360 Reality Audio, Dolby Atmos Music and Apple spatial audio are also making headway in offering new and compelling (if not ‘hi-res’) music experiences, so they’re also worth exploring. With more support than ever before, hi-res audio is a viable choice for anyone interested in digital audio quality, whether part of your home audio system or, if you don’t mind going wired, when on the move. The vast majority these days support PCM files up to 192kHz or 384kHz, as well as DSD and often MQA, and have built-in access to streaming services for a best-of-both-worlds solution. Qualcomm claims to have found a way to transmit CD-quality (not hi-res) audio losslessly with its Snapdragon Sound aptX Lossless solution, which is now beginning to be supported by devices. Hi-res audio can be streamed wirelessly between phones and headphones/speakers supporting the latest Bluetooth codecs (such as aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and LDAC)…

The best budget soundbars we recommend in 2025

While hi-res download sites are far and few between these days, those audiophile music sites that are still around mostly sell DSD downloads. Just make sure your portable music player, music streamer and/or DAC are compatible with the format. DSD fans claim the format is as close to analogue as digital gets. DSD uses a single bit of information, and all this information tells us is whether the current sample of the analogue waveform is higher or lower than in the previous one. Importantly, DSD was also designed to be easy to convert to PCM files with sampling rates based on multiples of 44.1kHz.

Setting up your PS5

In contrast, ‘music’ modes will usually have a bass and treble-heavy EQ that can sound a little brash. In our experience, soundbars with cinematic modes often use ‘spatial’ processing that can introduce high-frequency artefacts. Some soundbars will come with pre-programmed modes for different types of content. The great thing about a soundbar is that it is generally straightforward to make adjustments and swap back if you change your mind. If your soundbar also has options to alter individual channel levels, don’t be timid with tweaking things to suit your taste/needs. You can find this option in the audio settings of TVs, Blu-ray players and streaming sticks.

All the audio file formats are explained here, but very briefly… For starters, they might not support all file formats and data rates. DSD playback has become far more common in digital equipment over recent years and that’s down to the greater availability of downloadable music files. The world of audio formats has always been a bit of a minefield, especially in recent decades where numerous companies have launched proprietary technologies specific to their hardware and software ecosystems. A niche digital music format for audiophiles explained

What is a DAC? And why do you need one anyway?

While wireless audio is likely our future, cables will almost certainly remain part of our audio and home cinema set-ups for years to come. The best way around this is to connect your PS5 directly to your TV, and then use your TV’s ARC/eARC HDMI jack to output digital sound from the TV to your audio equipment. This Video Output Info can be particularly useful if you’re trying to feed your PS5 through an intermediary audio device, such as a soundbar or an AV receiver, and on from that to your TV. We have state-of-the-art testing facilities in London and Reading, where our team of experienced, in-house reviewers test every bit of hi-fi and AV kit that passes through our door – including active speakers. Note that ARC/eARC allows your main TV remote to control the basic volume and power functions of your soundbar via HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) – optical does not. There are two common methods of connecting your TV to a pair of active speakers – via optical or HDMI ARC/eARC.

• A hi-res file can typically be tens of megabytes in size, and a few tracks can quickly eat up the storage on your device.
• His specialities include all things mobile, headphones and speakers that he can’t justifying spending money on.
• If it’s a straight choice between coaxial and optical, we’d go for the former.
• Now that phones, music players and laptops have far more storage space, we think you really should be looking to use better-than-CD-quality files.

What format does Apple Music use?

The sounds we hear on a day-to-day basis – traffic, instruments, that baby screaming on your otherwise peaceful commute – are transmitted in soundwaves, which travel through the air to our ears in a continuously varying analogue signal. Most everyday, multi-tasking digital products have DACs built-in, but the problem is that these DAC circuits are typically not efficient enough to accurately process the conversion and thus do justice to the original recording. Did you know that most of us make use of at least one digital-to-analogue converter (more handily known as a ‘DAC’) every single day? CD, by comparison, works at 16-bit/44.1kHz and fxpcm has a dynamic range of around 96dB. The resolution of DSD is broadly equivalent to that of 24-bit/88.2kHz PCM and it has a dynamic range of around 120dB. The latter is a little more varied, but there are generally two easy ways to access DSD music.

Unlike high-definition video, there’s no single universal standard for hi-res audio. Below we’ll take you through the ins and outs of hi-res audio – including how to get it and how the services compare – so you’ll have everything you need to get up and running. Now that Spotify has finally got on board, high-resolution audio is well and truly mainstream. Everything you need to know about high-resolution audio, including what it is and how to experience it

Its hardware and AirPlay 2 may not be the best advocate of hi-res audio, but its Music offering is big on quality. It serves up audio in up to 24-bit/44.1kHz in FLAC across “nearly every song” in Spotify’s catalogue. Now, however, Tidal’s hi-res streams are in the open FLAC format, making hi-res streaming on the service far more accessible.

(Jitter is best defined as digital timing errors. The precise timing of a digital music stream is vital to high performance, and if that isn’t done properly – usually because of poorly designed digital clock circuitry – performance suffers.) Record high-resolution audio, on the other hand, and you’ll take a step up to 24 bits, with a sample taken as often as 192,000 times per second, making for 24-bit/192kHz recordings. Each of these samples is measured to an accuracy of 16 bits, storing the results in a 16-digit binary format. The CD was born, kickstarting the digital audio revolution in the process. That’s why upgrading to a separate, external DAC – one whose only job is to carry out the conversion process – can be the simplest way to get the most out of digital music, whatever your setup. These are do-it-all devices that have plenty else to process, of course, so we can’t expect them to prioritise digital audio conversion and playback above all else.