Ready to Install a Sound System In Your New Home? Read This Article to Find Out Everything You Need to Know Regarding Home Theater System Planning

A home theater system is an exciting entertainment option that provides you with an immersive viewing and listening experience. Your home theater system can be something as simple as 32-inch LCD TV and a home-theater-in-a-box system, or a sophisticated custom-built system with a video projector and in-wall speakers. However, there are lots of other things to consider when debating about buying surround sound. Read on to find out!

The Room
The first place to start is the room you intend to place your home theater system in. The size of the room will determine the size and type of video display device (TV or projector) that would be best to use. However, whether your room is large or small, additional questions to consider include:

Is the room carpeted or not carpeted? This will affect how sound, especially bass, is distributed throughout the listening area. Hard floors will be more reflective, which can result in unwanted sound echoes and uneven bass, while carpeted floors will help in the absorption of unwanted audio artifacts. What type of wall construction do you have? Wall construction can contribute to the acoustic properties of the room.

Will you be placing your home theater system components in free space, or will you be housing your components in a cabinet or closet and installing your speakers in the wall or ceiling? Depending on how you want the room to look will determine where and how you place your components. Also, whether ceiling or in-wall speakers (and speaker placement in general) are best depends on what surround sound formats you will be most commonly using. Where will you be sitting in relation to the screen image? This will determine the optimal screen size for the best visual experience.

The Video Display Device:
This is the first actual component to consider for your home theater system. After all, the idea of home theater is to bring the movie theater experience home. The most important element of this experience is the visual experience of viewing a large image on a screen. This is where you have a choice of a flat-panel LCD, OLED TV. Also, you have a choice of TVs that can display 720p, 1080p, or 4K Ultra HD resolution images.

A Video Projector/Screen Combination.
The actual size of the room will help determine the size of the screen that can be accommodated. From there, you need to decide what type of video display device would be most appropriate. You also have the option of incorporating 3D viewing into your home theater system. However, you will need a 3D-enabled TV or video projector and other supporting components to do this. For more details, read my Guide to Watching 3D at Home. If you’re using a 4k video projector, get more details about how those work.

The next essential element of the movie theater experience is sound. The way this is implemented in a home theater system is either a home theater receiver or Preamplifier/Amplifier combination. However, in many higher-end home theater system installations, the functions of a Receiver are often provided by separate components: Preamp/Processor, Tuner, and either a single multi-channel power amplifier or even separate amplifiers for each channel.

Loudspeakers
The next components to consider for your home theater system are the loudspeakers. Just as the size and type of room dictate the type of video display device you need, the same factors also affect the speakers you need for your home theater.

Before you buy, listen to several types of speakers and setups. Consider buying the same brand and related model speakers for your home theater. This will ensure that you will have a better acoustical match between both the speakers and the room.

15 comments

Leave a Reply to download Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *