Home Theater Installation Guide
If you are looking for a home theater system you may have more questions than answers. How to choose the best home theater system for your home is a big decision and you do not want to make the wrong one and end up with a theatre system that you really don’t enjoy.
Planning and researching is everything when you are planning on any investment to improve your home shouldn’t be a different from any other project. With the proper planning and research, your chances of making the wrong decision are drastically reduced and you can continue to enjoy movie night without getting stressed each time you watch a movie.
One thing that you can do when trying to choose the best home theater system for your home to take some extra time and effort to visit some retail stores and try the different speakers and speaker combinations. These will not sound exactly the same as when it will be in your home, but it should be close enough to give you an adequate feeling. Once you have found the set-up that you like, you do not have to buy it from that store, as you could go online and possibly find the same setup for a much lower price.
Room Acoustics is a major consideration
As long as you do the research and find what fits into your style and budget, you will have found the best system for you. It would be hard for someone to say that one system is the best or better than another, because everyone has different opinions. What is the priority, is for you to find what is best for you so that you can enjoy it!
You can have the best, High dollar digital surround sound system and still not get the full potential of the system if your speakers are not properly placed within the room.
If you are fortunate to be among those whom are building a home with a dedicated room – be sure to get professional advice, pre-construction writing with provisions for equipment placement and overall layout. You need to have adequate cabling pre-installed into your walls and ceiling for speakers and video device signal. This will save you time and money if it can be done prior to drywall going up.
Why DTS 7.1 Surround Sound ?
Regardless on room size the basic layout of your home theater design should be optimally rectangular in shape in order to provide the best theater seating and digital surround sound. Your video display screen should be placed central on one of the short walls in order to all a better screen viewing angle for all. A small square area lends itself to a diagonal home theater room design and is better suited to having a video display diagonally placed in a corner. This allows a greater flexibility of seating distance from the video display with diagonal rows of seating to achieve the optimal viewing distance.
DTS-HD Master Audio™ has become the overwhelming audio solution on Blu-ray Disc, delivering up to 7.1 channels of discrete audio, while being backward compatible with other DTS audio technologies such as DTS-HD High Resolution Audio™ and DTS Digital Surround™. DTS-HD Master Audio is identical to the studio master, bringing the complete high-definition experience to the home.
The Components Needed for a Home Theater
There are basic components for a home theater that you will need to have in order to have the perfect setup that you will want in your home. You may have an idea as what you are wanting, or you may only know that you want a quality theater system. You will want to start off right with the basic components and then upgrade in the future as you see fit.
A television or screen is the most important thing that you are going to need. You can chose from a rear projection television, LCD or plasma TV or front projection projectors. You definitely want a large screen to give you that theater feeling, though something many people do not understand is that you don’t want to have a television that is too big. If you are sitting in a home theater trying to watch a movie you do not want to have to put your head back in order to see the entire screen. Your screen needs to be proportion to the room and you will find that it is easier to enjoy the theater picture this way.
Choosing The Right Sized Television or Projector
As long as you do the research and find what fits into the style that you are looking for, you will have found the best system for you. It would be hard for someone to say that one system is the best or better than another because everyone has different opinions. What you have to do is find what is best for you, and once you have, the only thing left to do is enjoy!
The overall home theater room design is important when considering where your layout is going to be. You want the majority of the household to be able to fully enjoy the home theater experience. This means you’ll want your video display of choice to be centrally located and your surround sound to be deployed so that there is a wide variety of seating positions to have a good view of the screen and clear sound. If you are planning on dedicated a room, it may be easier to accomplish if you are incorporating the home theater equipment into an existing living or family room.
Choosing The Home Theater Receivers and Speakers
When selecting speakers remember, your ears will be the judge and your wallet will be the jury. While enjoying your Home Theater, your audio system comes in second in importance only to your HDTV video display. There are quite a few options when it comes to digital audio systems, from the basic of HTiBs to the most elaborate A/V receiver with speakers and subwoofer.
A Home Theater in a Box is the term given to an all-in-one digital audio system which consists of a progressive scan DVD player, radio receiver, digital surround sound amplifier, speakers and a powered sub-woofer. There can be additional digital satellite radio receiver, i-pod docks and HDMI connectivity. HtiB systems can range from quite inexpensive with modest power which is better suited to an apartment or small living room to well powered systems that can fill a large room. Take note that while HtiB systems can be economical – their performance can be a trade-off for their convenience but in some cases that can indeed work very nicely.
If you are seeking the best performance and sound quality in Home Theater Audio Systems you will want to invest in a digital surround component A/V receiver system. Digital receivers decode the Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital or DTS audio tracks encoded in a DVD or television broadcast. Normally called Audio/Video Receivers usually shortened to A/V Receivers or AVR — such systems range in price from a few hundred dollars for the basic setup to a few thousand dollars for an “Audiophile” quality AVR experience. Your wallet and your ears will help decide if a component home theater audio system is right for you – and if so – how elaborate that system will be.
Speakers Placement
The center channel should be directly above or directly below your video display. Right and Left channel speakers should be placed to either side of your TV and not too far removed from the screen, yet far enough to have a good spatial feel to the right and left effects. You will also need to angle them slightly toward the central seating area. This achieve two functions – concentrates the sound to the main seating area and helps eliminate “standing waves”. A standing wave is an acoustical artifact where a sound-wave develops when sound reflects from a flat surface back towards the sound source repeatedly. You want the sound to be absorbed if possible by furniture and other padded surfaces.
Rear-Surround channel speakers should be located in the corners behind the seating area, slightly above ear-level and at a downward angle toward the main seating area. The Rear center channel speaker should be located directly behind, slightly above and angled downward toward the main seating area. Side left and right channel speakers should be located directly on either side of and again, angled downward toward the main seating area. Sub-woofer placement is not critical as low frequencies are omni-directional however I prefer my sub at the front of the room near the screen. Some folks prefer them right behind the main seating area so they can feel the extra “seat-of-the-pants” rumble – you may want to experiment and see which placement you prefer – or run dual subs for some serious thump.
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