Speakers are the bottom line of your audio system. No matter how professional the equipment you use, the quality of the speakers will give you the final quality of the sound.

But in finding the right speakers there is so much more to consider. In particular, be aware that what you hear in a demo-room may be a lot different from what you'll get at home.

Here are a few tips that might help:

• Compare to what you already know - When shopping for speakers, bring along a CD or DVD of your own. Old or corrupted material won't help you.
• Pay attention to any kind of sound distortion - Try to see if your CD or DVD sounds like you remember it. Also, pay attention if the voices sound strident and unnatural. Consonants "t" and "s" are most probable to sound harsh and distorted if the speakers don't work well.
• Louder is not always better - A loud sound may be impressive in a demo-room, where you spend about fifteen minutes, but not in your living room. In this case, maybe it's better to pay more attention to quality.
• See the resistance for which the power is quoted - Usually, speakers are rated in watts. But if the power is quoted for low resistances such as 2 ohms, the figures can be misleading. When quoted at higher resistances, the powers are more representative.
• Check how the driver's and amplifier's ranges match - The driver's range must be higher than the amplifier's range. For example for speakers of 20W to 200W, a 20W to 100W amp is appropriate, not a 20W to 250W amp.

Of course, there are a lot of things to keep in mind when buying loudspeakers. We previously spoke about designing and installing a home audio system or including a home theater system in a previous article.

Further, learn more about buying speakers for various destinations: home speakers, car speakers and marine speakers.