Designing A Home Theater

By Author: Heinz Golz
Total Articles: 189
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Finding the best configuration for your new home theater system , can be a challenge . a number of points have to be taken into consideration before you even purchase the components. Are you an ardent movie watcher or do you have pleasure in the HDTV sports packages so prevalent in today's cable TV set ups ? What is the size of your viewing room ? What materials are present in that room? Do you predominantly listen to music and what kind of music? Every one of the answers will help to settle on what your home theater design will look like.

What you are trying to do is to simulate the surroundings you find at a real movie theater to maximize your viewing and listening pleasure. You have a surround sound system that can have various loudspeaker settings. This is what distinguishes your home theater from an ordinary television viewing situation. In order to get the maximum benefit from these features, you need first make a decision where you want to locate the wide screen TV and where you want to sit. As you do this, keep in mind that the loudspeakers will have to be located in various locations around the room. This will ...
... give you the sense of actually being in the middle of the sound.

Your home theater design should also take in consideration the acoustic characteristics of the materials in the room. Bare walls do not work well with sound quality, as the reverberations tend to muddy the sound. Some type of sound absorbing materials should be put in to help the acoustic balance. Ceiling panels, draperies, and rugs are all assisting in achieving this balance. The actual atmosphere should be designed so that the lights in the room are controllable and are adding to the atmosphere. A dimmer switch on a few of the lights is probably the easiest way of controlling the lights , or you could put in recessed lights to copy the lighting in a movie theater.

The physical comfort of the spectators is of equal importance in home theater design. Temperature regulation keeps the room at a reasonable level and proper ventilation will offer air movement for a pleasurable atmosphere.

The following step is to arrange the speakers in the optimum configuration which will heighten the listening experience. Surround sound speaker systems come in different arrangements with the basic one being the 5.1 channel set-up, made up of three front speakers, two side speakers, and a sub-woofer. The 6.1 channel arrangement adds a channel (a rear speaker) to the 5.1 configuration, while the 7.1 adds yet another sub-woofer for increased bass. Your ideal home theater configuration will take into consideration the need for best location of these speakers in terms of the physical separation required and optimum sound separation . Placing the loudspeakers on the floor is not the ideal way to place them , as the floor picks up the vibrations and twists the sound. Arrangements must be made to elevate the loudspeakers so that nothing comes between your ears and the speakers. This will heighten your experience in the best home theater design possible.

So sit back, dim the lights, pass the popcorn, and enjoy the show.
The author is the owner of Home Theater web site .
For more information on Home Theater go to http://the-home-thrater.com/ web site