Two Simple Tweaks To Optimize Your Home Theater System

6 April 2015
 Categories: Technology, Articles

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Home theater systems can be a great addition to your home, giving you and your guests the chance to truly immerse yourselves in a great movie or sporting event. However, many people think it's simply a case of buying an expensive system and plugging it in. To help you get the most out of your home theater, here are two simple tweaks you can make to truly optimize your viewing experience:

Get The Angles And Distance Right

Hopefully, when you were dreaming about your new home theater system, you worked out the perfect distance and the perfect angle for your projector. However, daydreams and concrete measurements are rather different, so you may realize that your screen isn't exactly sitting the way you imagined.

Judging your distance correctly can prove to be a difficult task. Some people like to sit up close; however, you run the risk of ruining your screen's image by seeing more of the pixel structure. Some people like to sit farther away; however, you can miss out on a truly immersive experience by sitting at the back of the room. Although personal preference will play a part, there are a few concrete rules you can use to get the most from your home theater:

  • Size your screen so that it fills at least 30 degrees of your field of vision while sitting in your favorite seat. If the distance is slightly off, you can adjust your seating position to account for this.
  • If you have numerous rows in your theater, aim for a minimum of 26 degrees at the back and 36 degrees at the front.  This range will allow your guests to have a memorable experience whichever seat they choose.

Find The Best Spots For Your Speakers

Many people make the mistake of worrying too much about their picture and not enough about their sounds. Having a great screen at the perfect angle can massively improve your home theater; however, your efforts will be in vain if the sound quality is off.

With surround sound systems, finding the optimum layout can be a tricky task. As you have more than one speaker to place, you have to arrange the layout in such a way that the sound is spread throughout the room, yet focused towards the main seats. With that in mind, here's how to set up a typical five-speaker stereo:

  • Subwoofer – The subwoofers are fairly easy to place as they generate sound in all directions. As such, your subwoofer can go anywhere in the system, but it's best to place it in a central location at the front of the room.
  • Channels – All setups will come with two channels which project sound forward towards the center of the room. As such, it's best to place these channels either side of the screen's centerline to avoid your guests' sound being skewed. When placing the channels, you should keep the viewers' ear height in mind so that the sound isn't coming from too high or too low.
  • Back speakers – Not all systems come with back speakers, but adding them to your setup can really help increase viewer immersion. If you use back speakers, you should situate them directly in line with each channel and turned slightly towards the center. The reason for this is that back speakers are usually smaller and so won't project their sound as well as front channels.

Implementing the two simple changes to your theater setup above will help to move you from your sofa and take you in to the atmosphere. And the best thing is, they won't cost you a single dollar!  For more information, visit a website like http://www.atechels.com.