So you finally decided to look at purchasing a Home theatre… but where do you start?
Is it going to be a dedicated home theatre room that will be used for special screenings (Friday night at the movies popcorn all round) or is it going to be existing living space that will be part of your everyday use and viewing pleasure.
When deciding on what type of home theatre you are about to purchase. You’ll want to get the most out of it. As George Lucas creator and director of StarWars once said “The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie”.
Layout and cabling
The layout is how you want your Home Theatre to be set up and the type of speakers you want, do you want floor standing or bookshelf?
Bookshelf: If bookshelf, do you have a place to sit them in a surround configuration on stands or shelving?
Wall Mounting: If you don’t mind having cables laying around (then that’s fine) but if you want them to be neat or hidden you will need to consider whether you have the capability of getting the cable from the front receiver unit (normally referred to as the head unit) to the rear surround speakers. This can be done in a few ways, by installing the cabling through the walls or looking for products that offer rear wireless speakers. Nothing is worse than seeing cables running from the front (where the head unit is), across the floor (in front of doorways) to the rear speakers sitting behind the lounge.
So what are rear wireless speakers systems? These units normally have a transmitter card that plugs into the home theatre and a receiver that plugs into a powerpoint at the back of the room. The rear speakers are then connected to this receiver via cables. Which are normally hidden behind the lounge.
Connecting the system up
The beauty of Home theatre in a box is most of these units have colour coded connectors so it makes it simple to work out which is front left and right, which is rear left which is rear right. The easiest way to set up a home theatre is to work out the position where you want the speakers, then run the cables.
The basic configuration for a rear wireless home theatre looks like this:
Right Sound Right Place
Once you’ve connected the unit up including the HDMI to the TV, and you’ve powered it on. One of the first things you will need to do is balance the sound. Now as not all rooms are typically square you will need to calibrate the audio. This may sound difficult but is quite easy. Some home theatres come with an automatic sound calibration (ASC) device which is a microphone that gets plugged into the home theatre and sends a selection of audio tones from each speaker. The microphone picks this up and works out the distance and audio level required for each speaker, then adjusts the speaker settings for the preferred setup. All you need to do is normally plug the ASC device in and situate it at the “sweet spot” (this is normally the main seating position).
If your system doesn’t have an ASC device, then it will need to be done manually. To do this you need to work out the distance from each speaker to your “sweet spot” then adjust the “distance” within the setup audio menu. These normally have presets in both feet and metres. You can also adjust your audio levels of each speaker if needed. An installer does have the benefit of a “trained ear”. Meaning they know what to listen for and do a good work in balancing the audio for you.
From here it’s just a case of sitting back with your latest movie and grab the popcorn…
So in summary, setting up a “home theatre in a box” may seem a little tricky, if you feel you are not comfortable in doing this then look at getting it all installed by a qualified installer. This way, its less time and worry for you. The installer can also give you an overview in how your new system works. Saves you from reading the manual!
We recommend using a licensed installer for all work: AV Installation Specialists offer Australia wide metro services for all TV, Home Theatre, Aerial, Home Networking Solutions. 1300 438 870