Home Theater Basics
What is home theater and why would you want it? Here
are the basics you will need to get started....
You can have a setup as simple as
a TV set, a pair of stereo speakers, and a DVD player. But usually your theater
will consist of something a little more elaborate.
In fact, setting up a home theater can be entirely
affordable. You probably already have at least one of the key elements...a TV
set! So exactly what else do you need?
The goal is to duplicate, in your own home, the surround sound envelopment and
integration of picture, drama, and sound that you experience in a commercial
Dolby Surround movie theater, only on a smaller scale.
That may sound ambitious, but surprisingly, even a basic
home theater system can deliver remarkably enhanced playback of DVD movies,
concerts, rental tapes and DVDs, and even TV shows like "CSI", etc. that are recorded and broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Sound.
For example, you can enter this world with an
Axiom
home
theater system for well under $1,500. (You already have the TV, and very
possibly a DVD player or Hi-Fi VCR.)
A basic theater system consists of a pair of front left and right
book shelf speakers on either side of the TV.
If you have a large
room then instead of book shelf speakers, you might consider what is known as
floorstanding speakers. They are also known as
tower speakers.
Both bookshelf speakers and floorstanding speakers are
what you might find with your typical home stereo system.
The next type of speaker you will need is unique to a
home theater system. It is your
center channel speaker.
Center channel speakers go on top (or beneath) the TV
set to anchor the actors dialogue at the TV screen no matter where you sit.
Next comes your
surround sound speaker systems.
These speakers go on either side of your couch and they carry all
the effects and ambient sound of a movie or TV show, such as: street noises,
planes flying, jungle sounds, the noise of rain, thunder, or crickets, distant
explosions or rumbles of tanks, and all the myriad of sounds that make up
a complicated movie soundtrack, including, of course, the movie score, the music
and rock songs that underscore the action on screen.
Lastly, most home theater systems need a
subwoofer,
typically a square black box that produces ultra-deep bass sounds-rumbles,
storms, deep musical bass and the like.
If you've kept count, that's a total of six speakers, including your
sub woofer
speaker,
and it comprises "5.1-channel" sound (the .1 is the subwoofer bass channel). But
all your home theater speakers needn't be big. Since the subwoofer carries much of the low
bass energy, the other "satellite" speakers can be compact and visually
unobtrusive, no larger than a hardcover book.
To this mix, add a Dolby Digital Surround Sound Audio/Video receiver,
which contains all the circuitry to "decode" the DVD or videotape movie
soundtrack and effects, plus five built-in amplifiers for each of the five
loudspeaker channels (the subwoofer has its own dedicated built-in
amplifier).
Finally, you will need to add a DVD player for your
home theater. (You can use a Hi-Fi
stereo VCR, but it will only deliver analog Dolby Surround, not 5.1-channel
Dolby Digital.) A DVD player is less than $100, and a Dolby Digital/dts A/V
receiver is about $200 or more. To that, add a $1,254 for an
Axiom
Epic Midi Home Cinema system, including a sub.
That's it...a
complete and very high quality surround sound
home theater
system.
by Alan Lofft
TYPICAL HOME THEATER LAYOUT
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