Home
theater speakers are by far the most important components of your
home theater system. Once connected to your home
theater receiver, their job is to accurately reproduce at least
6 channels of audio from today's digital audio/video sources such as DVD
players and high
definition
tuners. Because you need 6 or more speakers, your home theater
speaker system could very well end up the most expensive part of your
surround sound system. The reason for this is obvious. At a
minimum, a surround sound system will have a total of 6 speakers.
6 channel home theater speaker systems
For example, a Dolby Digital/DTS 5.1
surround sound system has 2 main/front speakers that will be placed to
the left and right sides of your television screen. A center
channel speaker is used to reproduce a major portion of all dialog
on movie soundtracks and should be placed directly above or below your
TV. Two rear/surround speakers have the job of creating off screen
effects and front to back depth in your home theater room. The .1
part of 5.1 stand for the LFE (low-frequency effects) channel. A subwoofer
delivers all the low bass effects and rumble on DVDs
from action scenes, for
suspense, or even a huge explosion.
Before you buy home theater speakers, you
should think through speaker placement
-- do you want floor standing speakers or do you want to mount small
speakers directly on the wall. Have you considered in-wall speakers? Where will you be placing
your
subwoofer? (It usually sounds best somewhere near a corner.)
In-between size bookshelf speakers might need
speaker stands to raise
them appropriately to ear level.
DIY Home Theater Kit Hands-on home theater speaker design/do
it yourself types might want to consider building a home theater loudspeaker kit.
Be sure to check on return or exchange policies of
the store where you buy your speakers. Home theater speaker evaluation
is best done actually listening to your new home theater speaker system
connected to YOUR receiver in YOUR home!
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