Best Home Theater Speaker and Sub Woofer Types

Now lets decide on the the best home theater speaker and sub woofer that suits your needs and style. The speakers can be bought separately or as a unit. There are a number of complete systems available for sale now but it is best to stick to name brands. You can buy an Audio Receiver and hook your speakers into it, then run the output from the DVD player to the Receiver.. Be sure to read the directions carefully and take it step by step installing the system. You don't have to buy the monster package with the quality cables and power protection but it does improve sound quality and protects against power surges and spikes.

Seperates are the way to go here, not those "All in one packages" sold everywhere. The larger the room, the more power in RMS Watt Output you will need. Most of the sales people that you will talk to, or the units that have the specs on them for you to read, normally give the power output in Peak Wattage. IGNORE THE PEAK WATTAGE NUMBER! It is a meaningless numeral in the industry. Find out the RMS(Root Mean Squared) Wattage, as this is the number you need to know. You may have a peak rating of 300 watts, but your RMS could be as low as 65 watts, or even lower! A good rule to keep in mind is 100 watts RMS.

Speakers are another matter. 5.1 is 5 speakers Left Main, Center, Right Main, Right Surround, Left Surround, and Subwoofer. 6.1 moves the rear surrounds to the side walls, and places a center surround in the rear. This system also requires a receiver built for 6.1 and these are not widely avalible. The speaker selection gives the system its voice. High Quality speakers are needed to correctly reproduce the signals fed to them. In typical setups there are the satellite speakers (5 in the case of a 5.1 surround system) and the subwoofer (which stands for the .1 in a 5.1 system).

Now for the Subwoofer. Subs sould have at least 200 watts RMS. Note that there is only one subwoofer because it produces the bass frequencies (anyway from 15Hz to 300Hz). This is because frequencies below about 250Hz are omni directional which means that your ears can hardly tell where the sound is coming from unlike the mid and high frequencies which are very directional. A good subwoofer usually has a response done to around 25Hz and is self-powered which means it has the amplifier built-in.

For the basic system get a receiver that is DTS ONBOARD not the "DTS Ready" garbage. DTS Ready means you will have to purchase an outboard DTS decoder, or a dvd player that has one built in. Many manufacturers are in this business, so take your time, shop around, and get the best home theater speaker and sub woofer that suits your need, style and budget.