About HiFi Select
HiFi Select exists to answer one question properly: what plugs into what, and with which cable?
Why HiFi Select exists
You may have bought a new turntable, amplifier, streamer or pair of speakers. Perhaps you are putting together a complete system, or adding one new component to something you already own. Either way, you eventually have to look at the sockets on the back and work out how everything connects.
That is often where the confusion begins.
A manual explains one component at a time. A review tells you how something sounds. A cable listing tells you what the cable is, but usually assumes you already know whether it is the one you need.
The information is there. It is simply scattered across several places, while your system needs one clear answer.
Getting that answer wrong can mean buying a cable you do not need, using the wrong input or missing a component such as a phono stage. The system may still play, but you are left wondering whether you have connected it properly.
What HiFi Select does
Add the components you own: turntable, amplifier, streamer, speakers, whatever is on the rack. The planner draws your system link by link.
For every link, it tells you which cable the connection needs, which sockets to use at each end and why that is the right cable rather than a more expensive one. Where a component is missing from the chain, it says so plainly instead of quietly leaving you in silence.
The recommendations are built on connector facts, not hunches. Component entries are compiled from manufacturer user manuals, published specifications, official product photographs and established connector standards. Each plan tells you where its information came from.
When a manufacturer’s own document does not settle a socket, we say that we do not know and ask you to look. We would rather leave a question open than sell you a guess.
Why I built it
I have been connecting hi-fi components for 40 years. It began with wiring up my own speakers as a child and went on to a working life spent studying how we hear, selling hi-fi and helping people get systems working properly.
Even with that experience, connecting a new piece of equipment can still mean moving between manuals, specifications and photographs to settle what should be a simple question.
That is where HiFi Select came from.
I wanted one place that looked at the complete system, rather than treating every component as a separate box. A place that could turn all those technical details into a practical connection plan and explain the reason behind it.
The long-term aim is simple: make setting up a hi-fi system less confusing. Fewer wrong cables bought, fewer inputs used by mistake and a clear reason behind every connection.
Once it is connected, you can stop tracing sockets and get back to listening.
Accuracy, and how to help
Equipment varies. There can be revisions, regional variants and later upgrades, so the back panel in front of you always wins over anything shown here. Our disclaimer and accuracy note explains how the information is prepared and what to check before connecting anything.
If something looks wrong, telling us is the fastest way to fix it for everybody. Use report an error and we will check it against the manufacturer’s documentation.
Talk to us
If you want to tell us about your system, what you are trying to build, or what we have got wrong about the records you play through it, write to welove@hifiselect.co.uk. There is a person on the other end of it.