by Diggle

Created on: April 20, 2010

Over the last few years, home theater setups have become many people's preferred way of viewing movies.  As a trip to an actual movie theater has steadily become more expensive and fellow patrons sometimes less respectful about not intruding on the experience of others (for example by muting cell phones), recreating a movie theater experience at home has appealed to more and more film fans.  The range of options for a setting up a home theater is enormous and to get the closest possible reproduction of the movie theater experience requires many things, some essential (like a screen) and some more optional (like theater style seating).   But one essential ingredient for really enjoying films is good sound.  

The sound output of your home theatre is probably the next most important consideration after the picture.  You will not really be able to lose yourself in the experience with inadequate sound which does not do justice to the film's sound track.  That means that you should not rely on your TV's speakers, but use a separate component system to deliver the sound.  And that sound set-up should include a subwoofer.  

Subwoofers are the core of a superb home theater sound system.  A subwoofer will make your move explosions roar like you are at the site of the blast zone and the deepest bass of the film score touch your soul or turn up the fright factor just as the the director intended.  Without a subwoofer, you simply aren't going to get the real impact of the film soundtrack.  So how do subwoofers do their thing?  What are subwoofers anyway?  A subwoofer is a complete loudspeaker generally from 8" to 21" in diameter with a woofer mounted in a sealed enclosure.  The first home subwoofer was created in the 1960s to enhance the bass of the home stereo systems of the day, but they have advanced considerably since then.  Subwoofers are specialized speakers designed to reproduce only the lowest register of audible frequencies for your home theater or high end audio system.  Typical frequency ranges are 35-200 Hz for consumer products, below 100hz for professional live sound and less than 80 for THX systems. With modern 5.1 surround sound, the engineer mixing the audio can route bass intensive effects and sounds to the subwoofer, which allows your other speakers to concentrate on the rest of the range and produce a much cleaner sound.  That means your home subwoofer is getting audio mixed and mastered only for it.  It also means that your other speakers are free to concentrate on the mid and high range output, which will give you a much cleaner sound.

Learn more about this author, Diggle.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.