Welcome to Sound Tips!

You want the best music for your home, or you wouldn't be listening to independent musicians. Your tastes are discriminating, and so is your ear. Because we're dedicated to helping you find the best indie music, we're also concered with helping you get the most out of your music players.

We're going to start by talking about how to best place your home theater speakers.

Speaker Set Up

You've just bought a great new widescreen television, but the internal speakers just don't cut it for you. You're a discriminating listener. You demand great sound from your movies and CDs. So you spent a wad of cash on some really great sounding speakers to set up a surround system for your home theater. So now what to do you do?

Speakers have Jobs

With movies, the job of your center channel and side speakers is to give you a clear audio "picture" of what’s happening on screen. They create what’s called "localized" sound. The surround (or satellite) speaker's job is to provide diffuse, or "non-localized" sound. People argue with me all the time about this but, a diffuse rear sound field is what envelopes you in the sound environment, making you feel like you're really in the middle of the action.

5.1, 6.1, 7.1? What does It All Mean?

These numbers have got to be the strangest marketing scheme on the planet. They sound so "techie" and cool. But it's really much simpler than it seems. The numbers refer to the number of speakers in the system, plus a subwoofer So in a 5.1 surround system, you've got a center channel (1), a left and a right main (2 and 3), two surround speakers (4 and 5), and a subwoofer (the .1 at the end). In other words, with 5.1 you’ve got five speakers and a subwoofer. With 6.1, you add one more surround speaker. With 7.1 you add two more surround speakers.

The Listening Chair

Every media room has a central listening chair. It may not be a chair, per say. It could be a position on a couch. I use a comfy blue plush recliner I told my wife I bought for her. Regardless of what it is, though, it's likely that there is a central place you always sit to enjoy your favorite music or movies. Hopefully it's in a central part of the room, right in front of your TV, away from the back wall, or the rest of this is going to get more difficult.

Placing the Speakers

Once you’ve got your TV, receiver, CD / DVD players, and any other components you've got placed in the room, and easily centralized against one wall with the listening chair in place away from the back wall, its time to start putting your speakers in place. For best results, I'd recommend setting them up in the following order. Just click through on the names and you'll find out how I recommend setting them up.

  1. Center Speaker
  2. Left and Right Stereo Main Speakers
  3. Surround (Satellite) Speakers
  4. Subwoofer