Getting the Best and Most Sound From Your Home Theater Speakers

Anyone that owns a home theater system can tellyour main listening position as possible. Once, you have
you that no matter how much money you spend on athe distance down; point them to your set listening
stereo system or home-entertainment center, thespot.
sound will never get any better than the speakers you- Next, you'll want to set up the speakers in a way
have connected to it. If you bought cheaply madethat the distance between all of them is no greater
speakers because the price was cheap, don't expectthan the distance between the speakers and the main
great sound quality either. However, even the mostlistening position. Be sure to situate them symmetrically
expensive speakers don't put out the best sound. Thisso that each has an equal and matching relationship to
can be fixed through moving your speakers around.the surrounding walls.
It's an overlooked fact that the placement and- Once you have all the previous tasks completed, it is
positioning of your speakers plays a large role in yourtime to place the subwoofer in the correct position.
system's sound quality and performance. Ask anyMost people usually set it up on the floor in a location
expert or guru and they'll tell you that speakerthat isn't the same distance from the different walls.
placement is especially critical because it affects theThis is because walls emphasize certain bass
tonal accuracy, staging and imaging, and realistic soundfrequencies more than other ones and the last thing
reproduction.you want is multiple walls emphasizing the same
While every system and room is different, here arefrequency. You'll notice the poor sound right away.
some general guidelines that should help you set up- This step is all on you. How good are your ears to
your stereo speakers for their best soundingpicking up the difference in sound quality? You'll be
performance.using some adept listening to make a final decision
- You're going to be basing all of your listeningabout whether or not all the speakers sound good.
decisions from the spot you will be spending most ofPick out a certain piece of music that you know pretty
your time and set everything up from there. Forwell and use it to evaluate the effectiveness of your
example, if you like to watch movies lying down on thespeakers' positioning. Experiment with the sound by
couch, you need to move your couch to an optimalmaking a few slight changes in speaker positioning until
listening distance. If you don't do this, all your hard workyou're completely satisfied with the most natural sound.
will be for not. Decide where in the room you will do- Last but not least, you'll need to do something about
most of your listening and set it halfway between thespeaker wires. You really don't need audiophile cables
speakers and the back wall.for your speakers but they are definitely a good
- If you own two speakers or just a set ofinvestment. You can also use a heavier-gauge wire.
high-frequency tweeters, it is important to position eachThey have less resistance than regular speaker wire,
one around ear level and near the same distance fromplus a purer signal.