by Richard Bramante

Created on: June 17, 2008

A basic home theater system can greatly enhance the overall viewing of movies, concerts, sporting events or anything else which a household would want to view from live television and DVDs. With a modest investment and some careful planning, a home's viewing area can be turned into a movie theater with large screen viewing and surround sound.

As with everything else budget will determine the size of the home theater setup which can be purchased. The advent of flat panel screens which offer increased viewing size while giving major space savings has allowed many more households to consider the purchase of a home theater system. Good planning will yield a maximum return on the money invested on the purchase price of the system.

First determine which room is to be used for the placement of the home theater system. It may be the living room, a family room, recreation room or a room specifically built just for that purpose. What you envision your home theater system to be will be the driving force of the budget required for its purchase and setup. It can be a modest setup or one that rivals the local movie house. My recommendation would be to stay within your means initially. You can always upgrade at a later date if you should come across an unexpected windfall.

The room should have a wall which can accommodate the flat panel screen without any impeded views for any members of the anticipated audience. The amount of clear wall space will help determine the maximum screen size which can be hung on that wall. Once the location of the screen is determined the next consideration is speaker placement. Unless a room is being built specifically for the home theater then more than likely either wall mounted or free standing speakers will need to be used. The surround sound effect is accomplished by having speakers not only in front of the audience but also behind the audience and to both sides of the room being used. Most systems have a method of balancing the sound system after it has been installed to compensate for the acoustics of the room. The sound system should be adjusted so that the same sound either to the right or left would allow the viewer to determine the direction the sound is coming from.

Some people mistaken loudness for sound quality. I have seen home theater setups where the sound is blaring when it is not meant to be loud within the context of the movie scene. To me this is not pleasurable. My recommendation is to adjust volume levels so the audience can hear the spoken words of the movie characters as if they were speaking within the same room with the audience. There is no need to have voices booming within these scenes. Every movie will have its loud scenes for dramatic effect. If the volume is at a point that the room is swamped with sound with every scene then the directional quality of the sound is lost. The idea of a home theater system with surround sound is to increase the complete movie viewing experience which includes both sight and sound. Done correctly a household can enjoy the big movie house viewing experience while sitting within the comfort of their own home.

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