Home Theater Audio: How To Design Your Personal Sound

There are many decisions out there pertaining to home theater. Often, the quest to find the perfect setup can ensure finding one's own insanity, similar to working for the boss; no pun intended. Where to begin, where to end; that is the question. Like finding the perfect woman (ok we all know the perfect woman doesn't exist), but finding the perfect home theater can often feel like you're digging for gold. Whether it's a complete 5.1 or 7.1 system or even a 2-channel setup, you're in for a headache if you don't know where to start or even the right questions to ask.

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.

Once you've chosen your front mains and wish to incorporate them into a HT setting, the next speaker that's often been depicted as the most important is the center channel. About 60% of the information in a movie (depending on the type) comes through this speaker. Back to the basics of physics; the larger the center channel speaker, the fuller vocals will be in any movie. A large center is crucial, as you won't find yourself playing with the center volume during quiet passages in a movie.

As for rears, the information passed to this channel is generally in the midrange and treble frequency range. Also, keep in mind the recommended crossover for a movie setting format is 80 Hz, so the drivers in the rear speakers don't necessarily have to be the same size as those in your front mains. Dipole speakers are typically the most popular, however bookshelves are also a good choice. In a dipole speaker, one of the tweeter's phase is reversed to present greater distance between you and the dipole speaker. In turn, this creates a larger feel to what's going on in the movie; similar to that of a movie theater. You would want to use bookshelves in the case of using your system for either super audio (SACD) or DVD audio. SACD and DVD audio require a greater dynamic range and having drivers with proper excursion rates in a larger-sized cabinet will benefit the sound stage and imaging of your system.

The .1 in a home theater system stands for the sub. If it were .2 or a 5.2 system, there would be 2 subs helping to equalize bass response, producing an essential balance for action/adventure movies. Subwoofers come in different forms for use in several applications. A common type of subwoofer is one that has a porthole built into the cabinet, releasing the pressure. This design allows for a lower bass response as the driver has the opportunity to attain a lower frequency response. This type of subwoofer is ideal for movies, and by placing the sub into a corner of the room, explosions come to life more effectively.

The second type of sub is the sealed enclosure design. This type of sub is most versatile and can produce tight, accurate bass for music, and also have the ability to obtain the depths for movies. The cabinet withholds the pressure produced by the driver, resulting in time-aligned bass of which can be matched with the upper frequencies in your favorite song. Here you would have the opportunity to add more bass to music without it sounding like it's unnatural or not part of the song.

The third type is the passive radiator whereby you have an active driver with at least one or more inactive drivers that work in unison with the active driver to bring you an overall lower frequency response. This design is efficient in a way where the cabinet size can be on the smaller side, but still have the ability to generate some serious bass. These type of subs work fairly well playing music with only minimal delay, but come alive in the sub-low frequency world for movies.

Speaker wire will be needed to transfer the electrons from your power source to each channel. The thicker the gauge, the greater the electron transfer potential to each speaker, resulting in a better sound. A good rule to follow is any length over 25 feet should be 12 gauge or thicker. Keep in mind, this is also dependent on the amount of power your amp is generating, with greater power requiring a thicker gauge of wire.

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Before you buy any home theater systems, make sure you read our home theater blog for excellent information on speaker systems, audio, video, and custom installations.

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