Picking The Ideal Home Theater Speakers

There are many decisions these days one has to contemplate and one of these decisions may be what to get for an HT system. Many brands exist in the real world and each brand offers something different than the others with a different philosophy and overall theory of sound. While we respect these other brands, how does one come to the conclusion to choose one over the other, especially if you have never physically heard the brand(s) you're pondering? We'll offer some inside non-bias advice on where to begin, what to look for and when to run.

The first objective is to start with a decent home theater receiver or going with separates that'll enable a better sound quality that may fit your liking. Receivers are a one-stop shop, while separates consist of 2 units that require more than one shelf in your rack and often cost more than a receiver. With separates, one piece of equipment does the processing capabilities, while the other does the amplification.

The next step is to choose speakers. Before going into the different types of speakers, it really does help to keep all the speakers the same brand and same series with the same type of driver material to obtain the very best timbre match. Without a proper timbre match, you'll hear that bus explode, but will leave you guessing as to which direction it came from. In other words, you'll want birds of a common feather.

A set of speakers for the front left and right of your TV should be the first set of speakers you invest in. This decision should be based off the fact on whether you're going to be using these speakers for movies, 2-channel music, or both. The size of room you're placing these speakers is also a big factor in terms of choosing between a tower speaker and a bookshelf. Tower are generally recommended for 2-channel music, as then you wouldn't necessarily need a sub to achieve a low end response. Having towers are also beneficial for movies, where a full and more accurate response would be created for movies. If your room is on the smaller side, bookshelves may be the way to go.

The speaker often depicted, as the most important in an HT environment is the center channel, as about 60% of the information pertained in a movie comes through this channel. Having a center speaker with larger drivers and a decent-sized internal cabinet volume will prove valuable for maintaining a constant volume across all channels in your HT system, regardless of the movie.

Information being sent to the rear channels is often in the form of treble and midrange. Because of this, it's not as important to have as large of drivers in these speakers as that of the center and front mains. Dipoles are usually recommended, as they present a larger than normal response, having one tweeter in each cabinet with a reversed polarity. This will make surround sounds or background sounds seem farther away than what you'd expect; similar to a small movie theater in terms of size. Keep in mind the reversed polarity in dipoles is not listening-appropriate for SACD or DVD audio. This type of setup would be more inclined to having a direct design speaker, like a bookshelf or small tower speaker.

A subwoofer in a system will enable the explosion low to come through loud and clean. In short, the greater the excursion, the more bass you'll have. Having 2 subs in a system can only benefit the bass response that much better, as you would then have a balanced response, as well as less wear and tear on each sub. The ported design is generally the most popular since this is a great sub to incorporate into a home theater, specifically to meet your movie type of needs. This design allows the sub to release its pressure, creating a lower than what you'd expect response, because the driver now has the ability to produce some serious excursion.

Another type of subwoofer is one with no port hole built in or known as a sealed enclosure. This sub will play tight and accurate with the rest of the frequencies, making this sub the most musically sounding and versatile to play with both movies and 2-channel music. The bass response isn't generally as low as that of a ported design, but often sounds cleaner and more refined in the sealed enclosure type due to increased decay.

Another design, not quite as popular as the first two, is the passive radiator type. This design utilizes an active driver with one or more 'fake' drivers on opposite sides of the cabinet that act in a way to increase excursion of the overall subwoofer itself. This provides for an efficient method to achieve a lower frequency yet maintain a proportional cabinet design. These subs are generally used for movie settings, but can also be used for music although a delay may occur as these subs are purposely built to fulfill sub-low frequencies.

Speaker wire is needed to transfer the electrons from your receiver/amplifier to each channel, where by the means of electromagnetics, these electrons are transformed to audible sound waves. The thicker the speaker wire, the higher the potential for more electrons to travel to each speaker. If you're running speaker wire longer than 25 feet, it's often recommended you have speaker wire at least 12 gauge.

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Before you purchase any home theater systems, make sure you read our home audio blog for detailed information on speakers, audio, video, and custom installations.
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