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Home theater speakers are the
most important and usually the most expensive portion of any home theater surround sound system. That's because you
typically need to buy a matching 6 to 8 piece speaker system to set up a complete 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 channel surround sound
audio system in your home theater room. Although 5.1
surround sound is the minimum audio standard for DVDs and HD
broadcasts, the vast majority of home theater receivers today
can handle 7.1 digital audio channels for delivering the full
experience from Blu-ray and HD DVD disc players.
Surround sound speaker placement Most (but not all) home theater speaker systems today include 5 to 7 speakers, plus a powered subwoofer to provide the
.1 low frequency bass effects. A 5.1 channel surround
sound speaker system includes a left and right speaker pair that
is typically located to each side of your big screen TV or
projection screen, plus a center channel speaker primarily for dialog that is usually placed
directly above or below your screen (or behind a perforated front projection screen), and a pair of rear surround
speakers generally located to the left and right sides of your home theater seating area.
A 6.1 surround
sound system adds a single center-rear effects speaker to
be located on the back wall between your rear surround speakers.
7.1 surround sound adds a pair of rear effects speakers.
For obvious reasons, 6.1 and 7.1 speaker surround systems are
best suited for larger home theater rooms.
Speaker types
There are several different types of speakers used for home
theater surround sound. Floor standing speakers are
commonly used as main left and right speakers, because they can
deliver the widest frequency range for both movies and music, and they look nice placed on the floor to the sides of a
television -- just be sure that the speakers are magnetically-shielded.
Smaller "bookshelf speakers" are best for
placing on top of shelves in your entertainment center or wall
unit. The advantage to bookshelf speakers is that they
take up less space than floorstanding speakers while still being
able to accurately reproduce the highest and midrange audio
frequencies, although they usually lack the deeper bass response of larger
floor standing speakers.
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Instead of classic floor standing and bookshelf speakers, many
people today are choosing to install a much more compact "invisible" speaker system with tiny "satellite" speakers like the Infinity system pictured below that can easily be "hidden" when mounted on the walls or ceiling.
Infinity TSS1200 5.1 channel speaker system
An increasingly
common solution for owners of flat panel televisions is to wall
mount a special type of single long, slim multi-channel speaker (which takes the place of 3 to 5 separate speakers) directly below the TV. Check out
two space-saving solutions below from Polk and Mirage.
If you are lucky enough to be building a dedicated home theater room in new construction, you should
definitely consider installing in-wall speakers or ceiling speakers.
Any time you run speaker wires through walls, the ceiling, or
floor, you should have a qualified electrician
pre-wire with CL3 in-wall speaker cable!
"Voice-matching" No matter what type of speakers you choose, for the best surround sound
you should be sure to purchase the same brand and series of speakers for each of your left, right, and center channel speaker, as well as your
side/rear surround speakers. However, you can get great results with a different subwoofer brand if you choose.
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