10  BIG Home Theater Shopping Mistakes To Avoid!

Home theater shopping mistakes can be avoided if you know what to look for and the one of the main things to watch for is the challenge of getting a home theater that sounds really good…and here’s how.

Here is a list of the Top 10 Theater Shopping Mistakes people make when they upgrade or buy home theaters.

1) All In One Box Home Theaters: Don't buy one of those lame all in one box home theaters. Why? Because they invariably sound like CRAP! You know those home theater in a box systems from the big name brand companies? You see them advertised all over the place. Well, in spite of the fact that these manufacturers might make lots of other great products, like TV’s for example, they just don’t have it together when it comes to creating great home theater speakers. The problem is this: Awesome sounding speakers require so much when it comes to research, size and testing that these companies just don’t get into it. That is precisely why companies that make great sounding speakers make ONLY speakers. So that is one huge home theater shopping mistake that is easily avoidable.

2) Compare Home Theater Speakers By Listening With Your Favorite Songs: To get the best sounding home theater you’ve got to be willing to take the time and listen to lots of speakers using your favorite songs. Yes, the key is to compare all the speakers using music that you are totally familiar with. Only then will you be able to discern the quality and nuance of the speakers. If you can listen to the speakers in the same room that your home theater is or will be located then that would be the ideal. So try to find a source for home theater speakers that offer an in-home trial money back guarantee.

3) Little Cube Speakers Suck: Sure those little tiny cube speakers look cool and don’t take up any room, but guess what? Buying them is one of the home theater shopping mistakes because they just don’t sound good! Why? Because they just can’t push enough air to make rock music or a full symphony or a movie sound anything like what it is supposed to sound like. Granted, any speaker may sound better than another crappy speaker, but if you raise the bar by comparing them to high quality speakers then you will instantly hear the difference. A great home theater speaker always needs multiple drivers and that includes bass, midrange and treble.

4) Big Rooms Require Big Loudspeakers: Yeah, size matters, especially when it involves home theater shopping mistakes and what size loudspeakers you choose. The size of your home theater speakers must match the size of your home theater room. Take a high quality book shelf speaker and put it in a small room and it might sound awesome, but you can’t expect even a great sounding book shelf speaker to put out the sound you want if your home theater room is huge with tall ceilings, etc. Big spaces require big loudspeakers. You can use the home theater wizard to determine the correct size home theater loudspeakers needed for your room.

5) Small Loudspeakers Don’t Rumble: A pair of great sounding book shelf speakers might put out pleasant bass to about 40 or 50 Hz but you will never be able to re-create the thundering bass needed from your favorite music or movie. For that you will need at least one subwoofer speaker. If your home theater room is large and you want to avoid home theater shopping mistakes then you will need two subwoofers and instead of book shelf speakers you will need tower speakers which are also known as floor standing speakers.

6) Bass Should Not Dominate: A subwoofer speaker is a single loudspeaker that only puts out deep powerful bass. It is an essential part of any great sounding home theater system but the deep bass it produces should not be what you focus on when checking out speakers. It is one element but it needs to be in the background. You want to listen carefully to the upper bass, midrange and high frequency sounds coming out of your front left and right speakers and the center channel speaker. Do the voices sound natural or do they sound nasal, hollow or too full? This is what is called speaker “colorations” and they are unnatural changes made by the speakers. If you’re hearing anything like that then you will find that sound to become annoying after awhile.

7) You Need Power: You need enough power, which is the watts your amplifier puts out to match the size of your home theater room, the demands of your speakers and your listening tastes. Big rooms and big speakers need lots of power. So one of the home theater shopping mistakes to watch for is seeing those ads for amplifiers which gives you the “total power output”. They can be misleading because the receiver they are advertising might say that the total power output of 250 watts” but that means it may only have 50 watts per channel (50 X 5 = 250) and that may just not be enough power for your home theater room and for the speakers you’re using. So divide the total power output by the number of channels to see what its really putting out.

8) Watch Out For Phonies: Avoid loudspeakers with names that sound somewhat familiar to quality loudspeaker names and have an inflated retail price printed in BIG letters on the side of the box and are being sold out of the back of a truck! To avoid these type of home theater shopping mistakes you need to find dedicated loudspeaker designers that have been in business for at least twenty years because it takes a long time to develop awesome sounding loudspeakers.

9) Don’t Listen To Your Companion: Hah, hah, I’m sure that will get me into trouble but it is one more way to avoid making home theater shopping mistakes. Okay, what I’m really saying is don’t let them force you into hiding your home theater speakers inside some piece of antique furniture or an entertainment center. The more surfaces your loudspeakers are near than the more chance of their sound becoming colored. Its best to put your home theater speakers on home theater loudspeaker stands.

10) Get Expert Opinion: To avoid home theater shopping mistakes you really need to get the opinions of experts or at least others that are really into this subject. Check out speaker test reports in reputable magazines. Read independent home theater loudspeaker reviews and read what owners are saying about their home theaters on home theater message boards. Don’t fall for compelling advertising by manufacturers that have spent millions on advertising but little on loudspeaker research and design.

You can also use the  home theater wizard to help you find exactly the system you need so you can avoid making lots of lame home theater shopping mistakes.