There's more to creating the perfect home audio system than simply running to the electronics store, grabbing some equipment off the shelf and coming home. You have to take a number of factors into account, such as the acoustics of the room you'll be listening in, the format of the music you prefer, whether you want a dedicated component system or a simple all-in-one bookshelf unit. You'll have to decide where to put the speakers to get the optimum sound. And then you will need to listen to some different home audio equipment in person to choose the one you like best.

Digital technology has changed how we listen to music in significant ways, and home audio equipment is quite unlike portable players such as the iPod. It wasn't such a long time ago that AM radio and vinyl records were the state of the art. Then it was magnetic tape in the form of 8-tracks, reel-to-reel decks and microcassettes. In the 1980s we began the switch to digital formats, such as compact discs, minidiscs, rewritable CDs and even DVD-audio.

So how much do you know about home audio equipment? We'll help you learn how an amplifier works and the difference between high-definition and high-fidelity. We'll teach you what you need to know about analog and digital sound technology, how compact discs work and what causes the rainbows that appear on the surface of CDs. If you're curious, we'll even help you learn what happens when you touch a CD.

For the truly dedicated, you'll learn about how the digital-to-analog conversion process works, and we'll help you find the answer to the question with which all audiophiles have to grapple: Which sounds better, vinyl records or CDs? Before you go shopping for your state-of-the-art home audio system, visit HowStuffWorks.com first.