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Home theater speakers are a much bigger contributor to the overall
performance of a surround sound audio system than the home theater receiver, and could very well end up the most expensive portion
of your entire home theater system.
For example, if you've got
$5000 budgeted for a home theater receiver and surround sound
speaker system (and any additional speaker stands/mounts and wire/cable), you would be better off spending $500 on the receiver and
investing $4000 on the speaker system (and leaving $500 for the
extras) than blowing $4000 on a high-end surround sound receiver
and just $500 on speakers.
Intimus 6T Grand XD home theater
speaker system from Aperion Audio
A complete home theater speaker system requires 6 to 8 speakers for properly
setting up a 5.1 or 7.1 channel surround sound system. If your
system will include a Blu-ray Disc player and you've got a large enough room to work with,
you should definitely lean towards a 7.1 surround sound speaker system.
That being said, we've got nothing against a nice
digital 5.1 surround sound system. Most home theater receivers
today are ready for 7.1 surround, but do a fantastic job
handling 5.1 speaker systems. A 7.1 channel AV receiver gives
you the flexibility to choose a 5.1 speaker system and add an
extra matching pair of rear surround speakers either now (they
can temporarily be used as Zone2 or B-speakers) or sometime in the future.
Home theater
speaker placement A 5.1 channel surround sound speaker
system includes five "voice-matched" speakers plus a powered
subwoofer (the .1) to provide low frequency bass effects.
Voice-matching means that your speakers should all be from the
same brand and series. You can still get incredible
surround sound if the subwoofer is from a different manufacturer. |
The front left and right speakers are typically
located to each side of your television or projection screen and
the center channel speaker (used primarily for dialog) is
usually placed directly above or below your screen (or behind a
perforated front projection screen). The two surround speakers
generally sound best to the left and right sides of your home
theater seating area. 7.1 surround sound adds a pair of rear effects speakers.
The subwoofer usually sits on the floor and can be "hidden"
virtually anywhere in the same room, but you should experiment with sub placement and settings before deciding on its
permanent location.
Speaker types
There are several different types of speakers used for home
theater surround sound. Tall floor standing "tower" speakers are often 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.
MartinLogan Electrostatic home theater speaker system
Smaller "bookshelf" speakers are convenient for placing on top of shelves
in your entertainment center. The obvious 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 tower speakers.
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
that can easily be "hidden" when mounted on the walls or ceiling. Or
a multi-channel "sound bar" speaker that can be wall-mounted
below a flat panel television.
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 rated in-wall speaker cable! |
