What type of home theatre speaker do you need?
Before you decide on the type of speaker – we should first look at where you are going to put them or more importantly where they need to go to give you the best in home cinema experiance.
Aside from physical installation and cable access speaker placement should be carefully considered
Front speakers – should be positioned to the left and right of the screen
these reproduce dialog, music and sound effects
Center speaker – depending on the screen position can be placed above or below or behind a perforated screen if used with a projector
these reproduce the main dialog as well as music and sound effects
Surround speakers – positioned on the sides of the movie goer or listener, often a dedicated surround speaker is used
they reproduce sound effects and a real ambiance critical to get the full dimension of sound as the director intended
Rear speakers – installed at the rear of the room often a single speaker in the center in a 6.1 system or two speakers either side of center in a 7.1 system
add some dimensional size and realism, both surround and rear speakers should surround you in sound without drawing your attention away from what you are watching
Subwoofer – because the sub operates at low frequency it is not obvious where the sound is coming from so location of the sub is not as critical as the rest of the speakers in the system
the beast of your system, the subwoofer takes care of the deep bass giving both power and feel to the low frequency effects in movies and also provides for the bass content in your music for a truly full range listening experience
With correct placement of the above speakers you should experiance a seamless transition with sounds and effects between the front, center, surround and rear speakers – you will beleave the plane that just shot across the screen actually flew right overhead
