Home Theater Sound Tips to Remember
Home Theater Sound Tips To Remember
You may be happy with all aspects of your home theater…except for the sound. If you haven’t been completely happy with your sound, that’s okay. There are plenty of sound tips that can be used within your home theater to ensure you have the best sound possible. Best of all, the tips provided aren’t going to cost you much (if anything at all).
Look at the quality of your music
When you have a well-engineered recording, it’s going to make all the difference in the world with sound. If you are downloading or streaming music, be sure you are looking at the sound quality. There are some sites that provide ratings for sound quality so you are never wasting your time or money on poor quality sound. You also want to look at the compression of your own music files. 90 percent of the sound quality may be ripped away when you burn a CD, leaving you with a sound you aren’t happy with.
Also keep in mind that to get the best audio when watching TV you will also want access to the most HD channels possible. DirecTV is one source that you should review as in addition to a wide coverage of HD movies, they also have a huge amount of HD sports channels. Check out www.SaveonTVDirect.com if you are interested in picking up DirecTV. Currently you can also get three free months of HBO when signing up.
Place your speakers prominently
The speakers are providing the sound for your system, so you have to set them carefully about the room. The smallest angle can dramatically affect the sound. Front speakers should face the room directly or angled inwards slightly toward you, the listener. The center channel should be above or below the TV. Surround speakers need to be facing straight or angled toward you as well. Don’t hide them behind anything as it will muffle the sound.
Use auto-setup features
Your receiver probably has its own sound calibration feature and this means that you need to take advantage of it. When you run this auto-setup, it’s going to choose the frequency response and delay settings to fit the size of your room. While you may think that the manual adjustment is going to be more personalized, let the receiver do its own thing first. You can always make a few minor adjustments after that.
Look into a few basic upgrades
The speaker wire makes a difference. If you’ve spent the money on high quality speakers, you want to complement them with higher quality wires and cables. Stands and speaker brackets can make a difference as well. Instead of placing your speakers on the floor, raise them up where they are closer to your ears.
Don’t rely on built-in speakers
The speakers on your TV are only designed for basic TV. Any HD movie or show needs a better speaker, otherwise it’s going to come out muddy.
Pull in the power from your Blu-ray player
Your Blu-ray player likely has high-resolution surround sound thanks to Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. If you connect your player with your receiver using an HDMI, you can pass the signal to decode all of the formats you have and get a better sound out of everything that you play.
You spent too much money on your home theater system to be unhappy with the sound. The sound is ultimately what drives the entire experience because you want to hear dialogue and background noises and loud explosions. If your sound isn’t the way you want it, there are plenty of things you can adjust throughout the system without spending any money.