A Basic Home Theater Set-up Guide

One of the biggest problems home owners run into after purchasing a home theater system is setting it up. The audio and visual set-up can be daunting for someone unfamiliar with how all those connections work and how they affect the overall sound quality of the system. While most systems come with an instructional manual and diagrams on how to set up everything, sometimes these diagrams cause more problems than good for the novice home theater expert.

If you have followed all the instructions and are ready to see if your sound system is working properly, there are several things to check to ensure everything is ready to use. First and foremost, keep your wires short and simple. Use as little cable as you can throughout the system, this will make taking it apart down the line or moving things around much simpler. Next, make sure you are using the same type of speaker wire for each speaker and the subwoofer. By using multiple types of wire, you are changing the overall polarity for the system, and this can degrade sound quality. Then, make sure your interconnects are consistent. If you misalign one, it will throw off the entire speaker system. Finally, if available, always use the digital connection over anything else your system may offer.

Many home theater novices fail to realize the impact of speaker placement. Nothing will kill the acoustics in a room worse than misplaced speakers. Depending on your room, you may want to play around with your speaker positions to find the best sound quality. Setting up speakers can be easily done by visualizing the sound emanating from them. Place on speaker in the corner of the room and imagine sound being produced in a cone-like shape. From there, look for things that would come in contact with that sound shape, anything that does - such as walls, other speakers and furniture - will degrade the overall sound quality coming from that particular speaker.

There are several tips to follow when setting up speakers. Experimenting in the room is the key component to finding the best set-up for your acoustics. Without taking the time to see what happens with different speaker configurations, you are giving up on the opportunity to find the perfect way to position everything for the best sound quality in your room of choice. Do not let objects block your speakers if it can be avoided; this will degrade sound quality and throw off the acoustical balance between speakers throughout the room. Glass, windows and other types of paneling will cause reflective problems for sound. Again, through experimentation, you will discover just how this plays a part in producing sound in the room. When it comes to your center channel, make sure that it is aligned head-level with those in the room who are enjoying the television and sound system. If the rest of your speakers are overshadowing the sound from the center speaker, align it higher for the best results.

When it comes to your receiver, there are several steps you can take for best results right off the bat. First, set all your speakers to the small setting, allowing the subwoofer to deal with the low frequencies produced. Tinker with the crossover setting to find what works with your set-up as opposed to what the instruction manual tells you. Let all the low frequency effects be determined by the subwoofer, set the dynamic range to night mode with compression off as well as turn off all DPS modes. These settings will just hinder the novice while setting up their system and can be played with later down the line when you are more comfortable with your system.

As far as your DVD player goes, make sure to utilize the digital audio outputs if your receiver and speakers are using them. The most important thing to remember is that you are looking for uniformity throughout your home theater system; this will ensure high-quality audio output. Make sure your DVD player settings are set for bitstream output. This will enhance such audio as Dolby Digital and DTS. PCM is generally the DVD player's default, and this will not allow you to send Dolby signals to your speakers. Any sort of noise filtering or reduction parameters should be disabled. You can tinker with these later. Make sure your player is set up to display in widescreen mode as long as the television in question allows for it. Use the best DVD output based on what your display can handle. If the TV is HD, then you must use component outputs to get the correct signal correlation; if the TV is digital, use the progressive scan function of the DVD player.

Once you have run through the basics of setting your home theater system and television up, you can take the time to find just the right settings for your room and set-up. Not every set-up is the same and while instruction manuals will give you a basic idea of what you can do, do not settle for what they are telling you. Only through experimentation and tinkering will you find the right audio and video set-up for your home theater system that will give you the quality you were looking for when you made your purchases.