What You Need to Know About Speakers for Your Home Theater - Your Ears Will Love you After Reading This!
You can have the best 4K display, and the most excellent home theater receiver on the market and your home theater room can have the most beautiful seats available, automated lighting, along with your favorite decorations, however, if your sound quality is insufficient, then it is all a pointless endeavor. However, with so many options available, which speaker system should you use for your home theater?
In this article, we will break down the different types of speakers and describe the benefits for each kind. We will also talk about how many you may need to fit your needs.
Speaker Types
Bookshelf, Compact Speakers, In-Wall and In-Ceiling
Essential for those that enjoy the home theater experience but lack the room, smaller speaker systems can offer big sound while taking up little to no space. Perhaps you desire to “hide” your home theater; speakers can be installed discreetly into the wall and ceiling. Many options are available that can push you beyond the “sound-bar” experience.
Center Channel Speakers
Center channel speakers are responsible for 80% of your movie’s soundtrack. All speech and dialog come through the center channel speaker. Center channel speakers are surprisingly the workhorse of your home theater. It is critical that your center channel is well matched to the rest of your system.
Floor Standing Speakers
If you're looking for the full movie theater experience, and you have space, floor standing speakers are the way to go. Floor standing speakers offer a connection between the speakers and the floor, enabling you to hear and feel the full range of what your system has to offer. There are many options available in the finish, speaker driver, and build quality. A floor standing speaker with a horn tweeter and standard woofers reproduce a much more precise sound and are most pleasing to human ears. Some models offer solutions for Dolby Atmos built into the cabinet construction of the speaker. Depending on your budget, primary uses, and how you will be setting up your system, dictate which models would fit best for you.
Surround Speakers
Surround speakers come in all shapes and sizes. Some look like little bookshelf speakers, others, are designed to mount on the wall, some are designed to work correctly with a Dolby Atmos rig, and others are designed specifically for a THX rig. Depending on the type of home theater audio system you are putting together, you can require as little as two surround speakers, or many more in the case of an Atmos rig for example. The larger the surround speaker, the more space it will occupy, however, the fuller the sound quality will be.
Subwoofers
A subwoofer is designed to produce audible frequencies that generally cannot be used by the main speakers. Some subwoofers can produce frequencies that can only be felt. To reproduce realistic explosions, car crashes, to feel that T-REX’s footsteps in your favorite movies, subwoofers are going to pull it all together. Subwoofers require proper room placement and the right balance settings to make them melt into your home theater system and make it sound like a wall of sound. Subwoofers are generally powered, meaning they include an amplifier inside of them along with all of the proper crossover circuits so that they are running as designed. Speaker driver sizes that are common in subwoofers range from 8” up to 15”. The larger the driver, the lower the frequencies the speaker can produce.
What Speaker Configuration is Good For You?
5.1 Surround
The most common surround sound speaker configuration has been a 5.1 configuration. The “5” describes how many full range speakers are in the system. This would generally mean that you have two floor standing speakers (left and right channel), a center channel speaker, and two surround speakers. The surround speakers in the system are usually arranged as left and right. The “.1” describes your subwoofers. In this case, you would have a single subwoofer positioned somewhere between one of the floor standing speakers and the center channel speaker.
7.1 Surround
Almost identical to the 5.1 surround system, the 7.1 surround system adds two rear firing surround speakers to the mix. Newer soundtracks on blu-ray movies will support 7.1 to provide a more immersive experience.
Dolby Atmos - 3D/Object Based Surround
Dolby Atmos systems are the most popular of the modern surround systems available to us on the market today. Atmos goes beyond the two-dimensional plane and projects sound from a third axis, namely the ceiling. Speakers can be set into the ceiling, however, speaker systems that are Dolby Atmos-ready like the Klipsch RP-140SA Dolby Atmos Elevation Speakers and the RP-280FA Dolby Atmos-ready floor standing speakers exist that will project your ceiling sources off of the ceiling, minimizing installation costs and they sound amazing!
Dolby Atmos standards offer multiple configurations:
5.1.2 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, subwoofer, and two ceiling speakers.
7.1.2 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, left and right rear firing surround speakers, subwoofer, and two ceiling speakers.
5.1.4 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, subwoofer, and four ceiling speakers.
7.1.4 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, left and right rear firing surround speakers, subwoofer, and four ceiling speakers.
9.1.2 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, left and right rear firing surround speakers, left and right front firing surround speakers, subwoofer, and two ceiling speakers.
9.1.4 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, left and right rear firing surround speakers, left and right front firing surround speakers, subwoofer, and four ceiling speakers.
9.1.6 - Left and right floor standing speakers, center channel, left and right surround speakers, left and right rear firing surround speakers, left and right front firing surround speakers, subwoofer, and six ceiling speakers.
There are also X.2.X configurations with Dolby Atmos with all of the configurations above which includes stereo subwoofers.
Which System is Right For You?
When evaluating the needs for your home theater, you must also consider the size of your room, your budget, and what surround standards your receiver will support. Also, factors such as your movie collection or streaming service having these standards available to even benefit from them, and your neighbors being OK with your new thumping home theater should be considered.
Final Thoughts
To hear and feel your movies are as impressive as stunning 4K content. When choosing your speaker compliment for your surround system, be sure to discuss your needs with your CTG associate so that you end up with the system that is right for you.
For more information on Custom Home Theaters for your home in the Austin, Round Rock, Lakeway, Georgetown, Houston, The Woodlands, Cypress, Sugar Land, Spring, Humble, Sugar Land, and Pearland, Texas area, give us a call or CONTACT US by filling out this short form.
https://www.klipsch.com/products/elevation-speakers?model=rp-140sa
