Typical Home Theater

In a typical home theater setup, there should be six home theater speakers: two front speakers, two surround speakers, a center speaker and a subwoofer for the lowest frequency ranges. There are two ways to obtain all these speakers: buying each of them seperately, or buying a home theater speaker set.

Home Theater Speaker Sets

If you're low on budget, you should think about one of these. But remember: don't spare on speakers, they're very important. There are lots of cheap home theater speaker sets on the market, but you shouldn't buy one of them, because these are of poor quality. Usually, sets manufactured by well-know brands (Klipsch, Bose, for example) produce a decent sound. This way you'll still not spend as much as you would on separate speakers. If you're thinking about buying one of these sets, read our article on home theatres in a box.

Going One By One

So, you're serious about your future home theater, and want to spend a little more on the speakers? Buying speakers separately has many advantages: it's the best quality you can have, and another, often overlooked advantage is that you can don't have to buy the whole set at a time, so if you haven't got the money, you can still have high quality speakers in your setup.

Your front speakers should be the strongest members in your home theater speaker setup. If you have a small room, choose bookshelf speakers. Larger rooms will require larger speakers; in this case, powerful floor-standing speakers is the choice to go with.

I often hear that it is advisable to have the exact same speakers for surround and front. This is true, but it's not very practical: movie sound mixes don't use surround speakers as much as they use the front speakers. So, you can choose smaller and less-powerful speakers for your surround setup, it won't make significant differences anywhere except your wallet.

The surround and front units were good, old-fashioned hi-fi speakers used for a home theater setup. The case is different with our center speaker. It's a special speaker with unique frequency response. If it's possible, have the center speaker from the same brand as the surround and front speakers. This unit is also often overlooked, but it's very important, because this speaker is used for voices and talking in a sound mix.

The subwoofer is used to reproduce the lower frequencies. Sometimes, it's optional: the front speakers can be powerful enough to rock the house, and an additional subwoofer is not needed. However, in larger rooms, it's inevitable. Subwoofers require lots of power, and in most cases, they require their own power input (these are called "active subwoofers").

Display Types

Over the years, I have grown really attached to my home theater system. I must say, of all the rooms in the house, my own little movie theater is the one I could not live without. I am absolutely in love with my home theater system and, if you are anything like me, I am sure you will love yours too. I found, when I was initially building my system, that there was so much information to absorb. Every product out there seemed better than the next, and I found myself unsure about which to buy. Here are a few things to keep in mind when shopping for a new home theater projector.

There are two main types of projectors on the market; DLP and LCD. DLP stands for digital light processing. It was invented by Texas Instruments, and utilizes a microscopic array of over 2 million mirrors. DLP has a higher contrast than LCD, but there are some unfavorable consumer reports that note something called the "rainbow effect". The "rainbow effect" is noticeable when looking from one side of the screen to the other, and is characterized by a sudden burst of color.

LCD stands for liquid crystal display. These projectors have three distinct glass LCD panels inside; one for each component of the video signal (red, green, and blue). While DLP chips reflect light, the LCD panels allow light to pass through them. LCD projectors produce brighter images, and they are known for having excellent color saturation. In the end, you will be hard-pressed to notice a great difference between the two types of projection systems.

When shopping for a new projector, keep your particular needs in the forefront of your thoughts. As I mentioned above, it is really easy to lose yourself in the minutiae of each particular system. Connectivity is a definitely something to be mindful of. Make sure that you are able to connect all of your components, including your gaming system. Nothing beats playing Halo in real-life size! Contract ratio is another important factor; the higher the ratio, the better the picture will be.

The brightness of your projector is another thing to consider. Light output is measured in ANSI (American National Standards Institute) lumens. You will want to avoid a projector that produces anything shy of 1000 lumens. As you are likely aware, the projection resolution is extremely important. This refers to the number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen. Go for something that is no less than 1024x768, as this will allow you to fully appreciate the depth and quality of HDTV. In the end, you should buy the projector that is in line with your needs and your budget. Soprano's is coming on right now! Time to go!

Creating a Home Theater

When creating a home theater, it can help to heed some sound advice: Working with the right materials can do a lot to improve the overall acoustic integrity of the system.

For example, medium density fiberboard (MDF) is widely used in the manufacture of furniture, cabinets, door parts, mouldings, millwork and laminate flooring. MDF is a composite panel product consisting of recycled wood fibers combined with a synthetic bonding system and joined together under heat and pressure. Additives may be introduced during manufacturing to impart additional characteristics.

The surface of MDF is flat, smooth, uniform, dense and free of knots and grain patterns, all of which make finishing operations easier and more consistent, especially for demanding uses such as direct printing and thin laminates. The homogeneous density profile of MDF allows intricate and precise machining and finishing for high end architectural products.

Hitting The Right Notes

MDF is an extremely versatile building material. As a dense, rigid, acoustically inert product, MDF has no peers when it comes to creating speaker cabinets capable of delivering high-fidelity and high-energy audio. A properly designed MDF speaker cabinet will focus the maximum "acoustic energy" at the listeners, while keeping vibration transition to a minimum. When building a home theater, it's important to use materials that will bring out the system's sound quality.

In some cases, designers have used MDF for wall panels with special fabric coverings to control acoustic reflections in the room. MDF is considered a smart choice for home audiophiles who like higher sound pressure levels. You can really add punch to a sound system with "tactile transducers" under the home theater floor. These are piston-driven devices, connected to the base channel, that can shake the whole room. Such installations are invariably coordinated with double layers of MDF.

The Composite Panel Association brings together 39 North American producers of particleboard, medium density fiberboard and other compatible products.

Home Theater Projector

Home electronics has become a fascinating topic on the lips of consumers and technology fanatics across the globe. It seems that a good combination of equipment has become almost a rite of passage for some homeowners and in many circles of friends. While electronics that deal with such important factors as lighting, heating and communicating are all incredible and somewhat of a necessity, the real eye-poppers have always been part of the home entertainment scene. HD technology has created a huge new surge of components and sound systems are constantly being reworked, reimagined, and reinvented. To complement these technological pieces, a good home entertainment system needs to have a clear and functioning video display unit. But with so many available technologies out there to choose from, what is the best of the lot?

The “best” is really in the eye of the beholder, and also in the desired needs of the consumer. Everything from big screen entertainment systems to projector screens can be purchased to enhance a home entertainment system. However, preferences are given to certain devices for various reasons. Some may give sharper pictures, others may be easier to work, and yet others may simply be easier to keep maintained. Choosing the proper mix of all these qualities will help you find the perfect type of video display to make part of your system.

Let’s start by discussing big screen technology. Home theaters are often judged not only by the quality of the equipment that makes them up, but on the size of the screen that is the focal point of the whole home theater. Televisions come in all shapes and sizes these days, but the widescreen television sets are by far the kings of the set. The only problem that big screen televisions have faced is in picture quality. Sometimes the picture would not be as sharp as if it were viewed on a smaller screen, especially from certain angles. With HD technology leading the way now, that problem has been solved. Big screen televisions now almost always give crisp, clear images, but the differences lie in the types of screens.
Plasma television sets are definitely the playboys of the big screen televisions. With their sleek designs and sexy appeal, any home theatre will be looking its best with one of these. However, while style and picture quality are top-notch, there are some technical problems that tend to come up with plasmas. Mainly, these include connectivity, of which there are often limited choices or amounts. So for those who plan to have numerous output cables attached to a television, it may be better to stay away from plasmas, unless an outside electronic box is purchased to wire multiple connections as an intermediary. The other problem with plasma televisions are the price. While a big screen television of the same size, although boxy in appearance, may cost a pretty penny, buying the same size plasma will apply a noticeable increase in the price tag.

Increasingly popular video display equipment is projector screen technology. This brings a real cinema appeal to your home theatre. These can often give the clearest image possible with current technology, but you need to know exactly what will work best with the conditions of your home theater. There are various color screens that could be purchased, white and grey being the primary. White is perfect for a theatre in a windowless room, while grey should be used if there is ambient lighting or sunlight that could affect the image quality on a white screen. Some downsides to the projector screen technology is that many models run loud and hot, which could be distracting and lead towards poor maintenance quality.
Besides the types of video display equipment available, the technology employed by each is also important to look at. Many people like LCD screens, while many more prefer CRM technology. Perhaps the best resolution you can get is 1080 p, which is rare among plasma screens, but readily available in other forms of video display equipment. You simply need to find the conditions that meet you theater best, ask the right questions when you’re about to purchase the product, and of course have in your mind the picture of your ideal home theatre system.