Turn up the sound until you can hear the music comfortably, on both the

What about room sound?

Curtains, rugs, and couches absorb sound. Concrete walls and floors make sound bounce back and thus reflect sound, although they can be harsh sounding. If your room has a nice balance between being absorptive and reflective, then your speakers will sound better. Too much furniture absorbs too many frequencies. Cement walls echo too much. So you need to compromise, and have a room that is well “tuned,” or “balanced.”

Then you need good amplifiers with the same power on every speaker, and good speakers. Speakers are mostly directional, so the chairs have to be in the “sweet spot,” where all the frequencies come together. The incredible sound from DXD surround makes it worthwhile, if you want to feel like you’re in the original hall. But is an expensive stereo better than headphones?

- $70 headphones and a good $140 DAC will sound as good, if only one person is listening. Can two people listen on headphones at the same time?

- Yes. You can buy a “splitter,” which splits the signal to two different sets of headphones. Some headphone amps and DACs come with two jacks for two sets of headphones.

Can I hear high resolution on my mobile phone?

Apple phones can play “FLAC completely lossless,” “ALAC uncompressed lossless,” and “AIFF lossy” codecs. But this requires fast bandwidth transmission speeds. Apple Music transmits at 256 kbps (thousand bytes per second), so that any cell phone can play Apple’s streams.

Deezer Premium, Spotify, Slacker, Tidal Premium, and Google Play require 320 kbps. Napster requires 320 kbps for the ideal quality in streaming its files. Pandora requires 300 kbps for the best results. But you can have mediocre results at 150 kbps.

Deezer Elite requires 5 mbps for FLAC files, and 10 mbps for multiple FLAC streams. Tidal HiFi requires 1.411 mbps.

Can I use a DAC on my cellphone?

- The Apple “Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter” has a built-in lightning port, which works on Apple cellphones. Are there other kinds of formats for high resolution?

- There’s Sony’s DSD, or Direct Stream Digital, which uses a “Delta Sigma” waveform, which is digital, but strangely has the same shape as a similar audio wave. SACDs use this DSD format.

The wave shapes we use aren’t DSD, but PCM (pulse-code modulation), which we feel conveys more dynamic range and accurately conveys sudden shifts in volume, such as a sudden drum beat or a lunge at the piano during a Beethoven sonata.

Many of the DACs recommended below also read DSD high-resolution files, which many people prefer for their smoothness.

Here is an incomplete list of some converters that I’ve run across which provide high resolution and cost below $1,000: themasterswitch.com has up-to-date listings for all sorts of audio components, such as speakers, amps, and DACs.

Audiolab MDAC Nano ($195) 32/384 kHZ Audio Adapter HD ($199) 32/384 Resonessence Herus ($350) 384kHz FiiO Q1 Mark II ($100) 384kHz TEAC NT-503 ($899) 384kHz Chord Mojo Portable DAC ($579) 768kHz iFi Audio xDSD ($399) 768kHz iFi Nano iOne DAC ($199) 384kHz iFi Micro iDSD Black Label ($599) 768kHz iFi Nano iDSD Black Label DAC and Amp with MQA ($199) 384kHz iFi xDSD Portable DAC Amplifier with Bluetooth ($409) 768kHz, MQA, DSD 256 iFi Nano iDSD LE DAC ($139) 384kHz iFi Nano iDSD DAC ($199) ifi Micro DAC2 ($379) 384 kHz Optoma NuForce High-Res Mobile uDAC5 ($199) 384kHz Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus ($349.99) 384kHz Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital Preamplifier and DAC ($399) 768kHz Pro-Ject DAC Box S2 Plus ($249) 768kHz NuPrime uDSD USB DAC ($179) 384kHz

HEADPHONES AKG K240 semi-open pro studio headphones ($69) Sennheiser closed open-back studio headphones ($150) Sennheiser HD 202 II Professional Headphones ($139) Sennheiser HD200 Pro Headphones ($68) Grado SR80e Prestige Series Wired Open Back Stereo Headphones ($99) Audio-Technica ATH-M30x Pro Monitor Headphones ($76)