Speaker Setup

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 14, 2023  | 
There's a surprisingly wide range of preferences among audio-video fans. I'll categorize them here into two broad groups: classic 2-channel audiophiles and home theater fans. Not that these groups don't overlap. They often do. But there are listeners in each group who don't intersect with the other. For fans of 2-channel music who are open to adding surround sound as long as it doesn't hamper their enjoyment of listening to stereo recordings, there's a fairly easy way to make that happen.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 07, 2020  | 
Subwoofers are like the magic beans of audio, expanding a playback system's dynamic range in a way that dramatically enhances the listening experience. There's an attitude among some audiophiles that subwoofers represent, if not the spawn of the devil (there are numerous such spawns in audio lore), a bad compromise at minimum. But the truth is that adding a modest but well-designed subwoofer to speakers, even compact bookshelf models, can result in better performance than what you'd get from full-range towers that cost considerably more.
SV  |  Jan 28, 2020  | 
Patrice Congard, founder and CEO of U.K.-based Screen Audio Excellence, discusses subwoofer placement and the potential pitfalls of phase cancellation in the latest installment of an ongoing tech series, published here with his permission.
Al Griffin  |  Jan 23, 2020  | 
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q I just bought Polk Audio Monitor 40 Series II speakers and want to know how to install them using bi-wiring. Do I connect two separate wires from the positive and negative outputs on the receiver and run them to the separate positive and negative input sets on the speaker? What benefits will that provide? —Kris Green, via email

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 06, 2015  | 
Dolby Atmos, for you members of the unwashed and uninformed masses (yeah, you know who you are), enables film sound designers to treat individual sonic elements as virtual “objects” that can be placed and moved almost anywhere within the three-dimensional space of a movie theater. Two things are important about its adaptation for home theater. First, the soundfield—in its original, discretely encoded version, not an extrapolated one—is no longer limited to a two-dimensional plane circling around your ears.
Darryl Wilkinson  |  May 30, 2014  | 
I’m in the interesting position of telling you how to do something with a subwoofer that you shouldn’t do. No, it’s not illegal. But in the ears of those for whom sound quality is more important than ergonomics, décor, and/or domestic tranquility, it’s definitely heretical.
HT Staff  |  Dec 08, 2011  | 
If you’re reasonably handy and not afraid to cut into drywall in your home, installing in-wall speakers can be a fairly simple affair. You’ll need to assemble the basic tools, including a drywall saw, a stud finder, an electrical snake or fiberglass push rods to run the wires, a tape measure, a drill with a long bit wide enough to pass your speaker wire, and a screwdriver, most typically a No. 2 Phillips.
Brent Butterworth  |  Nov 06, 2011  | 

Like marching and making your bunk, bass management looks easy. But sometimes there’s a huge difference between doing seemingly straightforward tasks, and doing them right.

Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 25, 2011  | 
Selecting audio components is one of the more daunting tasks that any serious home theater enthusiast faces. On the surface, it seems evident that if you just go out and buy the best components you can afford, they’ll sound great with both movies and music. And that’s generally true: A better system will more accurately reproduce the waveforms you feed it, irrespective of whether they come from a movie or music. But it’s often not that simple. While assembling a home theater system that’s equally spectacular with movies and music may be a laudable goal, unless you have unlimited funds, you’ll probably have compromises to make. At that point, you might want to steer the system’s performance strengths one way or the other with the right mix of speakers and electronics. But how do you go about matching these up?
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 17, 2011  | 
Home theater has transformed loudspeakers in nearly the same way it transformed TV. As screens have gotten bigger, the stereo soundstage has expanded into a surround soundfield. Wall-mounted HDTVs can now mate with in-wall, on-wall, or soundbar speakers. Even the higher performance of HDTV finds an analog in lossless surround for movies and music.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 01, 2010  | 
Optimizing your sound, one step at a time.

Getting all the pieces for that new system into your room is just the first step to home theater bliss. You’ll need to set up the A/V receiver’s inputs, position the speakers, and configure the AVR’s speaker adjustments for balanced sound before you get to movie time. I’ll frequently refer to your AVR, but the steps will be identical for a separates system with a surround processor and power amp.

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Feb 01, 2010  | 
Getting the Most Out of Your Sound

Several years ago, I set up my current home theater room. While it wasn’t scheduled to be equipped with multitiered stadium seating, faux Art Deco design, or a popcorn machine, I did have the luxury of setting it up strictly for movie and music listening. It didn’t need to be compromised to serve any other purpose.

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jul 20, 2009  | 
Tips and tricks for making your system tweakin’ awesome.

Unless you have really expensive tastes, it’s easy to see how spending several thousand dollars on your home theater system can make some very noticeable improvements. That kind of cash could buy a bigger TV, a larger projection screen, a brighter projector, a beefier amp, or a stouter subwoofer. Any of these would put some extra kick in an already kick-butt system. But maybe—like me—you don’t have piles of cash sitting around begging to be stuffed into a store’s cash register. Perhaps you just bought your first HTIB, recently added to your existing system, or (again, like me) you’re simply a classic cheapskate. Whichever it is, let’s say you’ve maxed out your A/V budget for the year. Now what?

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 04, 2007  | 
Several years ago I was just setting up my current home theater room. While it was not scheduled to be equipped with multi-tiered stadium seating, faux art deco design, and a popcorn machine, I did have the luxury of setting it up strictly for movie and music listening. It didn't need to be compromised to serve any other purpose.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 10, 2007  | 
When you get that new speaker set you're going to need to configure and balance your system. The process described below describes AVRs, but both the features and steps you'll take are identical if you're using a "separates" system with a pre-amp/processor and power amp.

Pages

X