Home theater speaker systems comprise front stereo speakers, a center channel speaker, surround speakers, and a powered subwoofer.
Working together, these speakers create the surround sound experience of a professional movie theater in your living room. You will find several brands and models of good speakers; you have to ensure that they work as a cohesive unit. One very important aspect is voice matching. The best way to achieve this is choosing speakers from the same ‘family,’ by the same brand. Voice matching ensures a smooth flow of sound around you, creating a seamless surround effect.
The front left and right speakers offer a wide soundstage that combines with the video, creating a realistic movie experience. Apart from reproducing the musical score, front speakers also handle most of the special effects. You can find floor-standing speakers, bookshelf speakers, and satellite/subwoofer systems as front left and right speakers.
The center channel is a vital component of the home theater speaker system, delivering over 50% of the soundtrack, including almost all the dialogue of the film. Ideally, it should be located directly above or below your screen, because placing it elsewhere will disrupt the surround experience considerably. Choose its size in accordance with the sizes of the other speakers and the television set.
The surround speakers, apart from producing sounds like raindrops, or the rustling of leaves, also provides directional effects, such as a locomotive rushing by, a bullet whistling past, or the rumble of a spaceship. If the system includes a subwoofer, then most users prefer either bookshelf or satellite speakers requiring stand placement or wall mounting.
As most speakers can’t deliver that level of bass on their own, you need a subwoofer so that your home theater system delivers crucial low-frequency impact. A subwoofer can also enrich music listening; it is capable of rounding out all types of music, from classical to jazz to rock.
By: Marcus Peterson
Posts Tagged ‘Home Theater Speaker’
Home Theater Speaker Systems
March 18th, 2010Best Home Theater Speaker and Sub Woofer Types
February 28th, 2010
Now lets decide on the the best home theater speaker and sub woofer that suits your needs and style. The speakers can be bought separately or as a unit. There are a number of complete systems available for sale now but it is best to stick to name brands. You can buy an Audio Receiver and hook your speakers into it, then run the output from the DVD player to the Receiver.. Be sure to read the directions carefully and take it step by step installing the system. You don’t have to buy the monster package with the quality cables and power protection but it does improve sound quality and protects against power surges and spikes.
Seperates are the way to go here, not those “All in one packages” sold everywhere. The larger the room, the more power in RMS Watt Output you will need. Most of the sales people that you will talk to, or the units that have the specs on them for you to read, normally give the power output in Peak Wattage. IGNORE THE PEAK WATTAGE NUMBER! It is a meaningless numeral in the industry. Find out the RMS(Root Mean Squared) Wattage, as this is the number you need to know. You may have a peak rating of 300 watts, but your RMS could be as low as 65 watts, or even lower! A good rule to keep in mind is 100 watts RMS.
Speakers are another matter. 5.1 is 5 speakers Left Main, Center, Right Main, Right Surround, Left Surround, and Subwoofer. 6.1 moves the rear surrounds to the side walls, and places a center surround in the rear. This system also requires a receiver built for 6.1 and these are not widely avalible. The speaker selection gives the system its voice. High Quality speakers are needed to correctly reproduce the signals fed to them. In typical setups there are the satellite speakers (5 in the case of a 5.1 surround system) and the subwoofer (which stands for the .1 in a 5.1 system).
Now for the Subwoofer. Subs sould have at least 200 watts RMS. Note that there is only one subwoofer because it produces the bass frequencies (anyway from 15Hz to 300Hz). This is because frequencies below about 250Hz are omni directional which means that your ears can hardly tell where the sound is coming from unlike the mid and high frequencies which are very directional. A good subwoofer usually has a response done to around 25Hz and is self-powered which means it has the amplifier built-in.
For the basic system get a receiver that is DTS ONBOARD not the “DTS Ready” garbage. DTS Ready means you will have to purchase an outboard DTS decoder, or a dvd player that has one built in. Many manufacturers are in this business, so take your time, shop around, and get the best home theater speaker and sub woofer that suits your need, style and budget.
By: Gasen Redeye
The Positioning The Home Theater Speakers
January 20th, 2010
After the drag of buying a perfect home theater equipment is over, you can consider another important issue, so as to obtain the maximum from your newly acquired gadgets: how to position the speakers, because this is the main ingredient of a private realistic cinema. There is no specific location, marked with a big red cross, since your room might be rectangular, or round, your speakers may be five or nine etc. and your personal touch to the design of the room meant to become a home theater highlight preferences, and it counts whether you have children or not, pets and so on. However, you do have general essential guidelines to follow when choosing a most favourable placement of your home theater speakers.
The first thing when engaging in the positioning of the home theater speakers is deciding the place for the center channel speaker and of the television, because the center speaker is the major transmitter of the dialogue and sounds that occur during the movie, and behaves like an anchor of your TV set. Consequently, it must be placed on the top of the television or below it, and in case you are mounting it on the wall, it should be lined with the TV below, with its front edge to be more exact. This way you get the minimum of distortion of sound that is caused by sound reflecting and diffracting phenomena.
The second thing you need to consider about your home theater system is the placement of the left and right front speakers, because they mainly give the superb surround sound experience and enables you to actually hear the soundtrack of the movie to way it’s suppose to be heard: their positioning should be in the form of a small arc, lined up with the central speaker and at even distance one from another, ear-orientated. The precise measuring of the distance can help a great deal because an inch or two beyond the limit of your requirements can affect the correct output.
Surround speakers come in next, since they allow your home theater speaker placement to render the atmospheric sounds, the bangs and crashes of the movie you are watching. This is where your imagination comes in and there is no limit to how you should have an ideal home theater speaker placement, besides the fact that the surround speakers should obviously surround your perimeter.
However, these speakers should be lined up with your seating area or slightly behind it, as high or as low that they do not play directly at your ears, during your viewing a movie, but still, maintain them at ear level, measured up when you are standing, to be optimal when you are seated: try them out and see how you can get the best possible sound.
By: David Faulkner
