Home Cinema Room SetupWritten by Matthew Seigneur
The best home theater experience is achieved with proper home cinema room setup. A home theater cannot be setup like any regular living room or den - it has special requirements so you can get full experience from sight and sound of movies you watch. There are very specific things you can do to make your viewing experience best it can be.While it may be tempting to put your seating and equipment at interesting angles and your speakers on whatever is handy, this will degrade sound and view of your home theater. The best set up, of course, is one much like that of a full sized movie theater. The room should be carpeted or have an area rug to give best acoustics, and walls should be decorated with non-reflective items - blankets, tapestries, and other similar wall hangings are good for absorbing sound. The seating in your home theater room setup should be thick and comfortable, with thick upholstery to absorb sound waves. It should positioned in rear center of cinema facing center for screen.
| | Home Theater Audio SetupWritten by Matthew Seigneur
Your home theater audio setup will depend on space available to you, what kind of signal your receiver can carry, and number of speakers you have. With proper setup, it doesn't matter if you have a simple stereo audio setup or a complex multi-speaker setup. Proper home theater audio setup will give you most enjoyable experience.The first step to proper home theater audio setup is if you have a tile, hardwood, or any other non-carpeted floor, to put down an area rug. Hard floors may look nice but they affect acoustics poorly. The second step in home theater audio setup is to place your speakers. For a stereo setup, placement is simple - one on either side of viewing area. For Dolby Digital 5.1 or Surround EX, however, you must take extra considerations into mind. Your center speaker should either be on top or below your display and facing your primary viewing position. The left and right front speakers should be on either side of screen, preferably at ear level, at about a 45 degree angle from center of viewing position. If seating is meant for more than one person, all three of front speakers should be placed in a straight line. Surround speakers should be placed slightly to rear of and alongside seating, a few feet above head level when sitting. If surround speakers must be placed behind seating, experiment with pointing speakers at an angle so that sound coming from them seems to 'surround' viewer. If you have a subwoofer, place it wherever is most convenient, as it's placement is not critical to sound reproduction.
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