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Impressing your Friends: Getting the Most Out of your Surround Sound System

Every budget for a home theater installation has the potential to give the room that amazing viewing and listening experience, provided that you know how to apply a few tricks to maximize the use of its features. This is especially true for your surround sound system, which eats up almost three-quarters of your whole budget. You will be cheating yourself from what would have been a better sound quality if you miss out on the following tips:

  1. Let the room size be your guide. Converting your large basement into an entertainment and media center would require a good number of speakers to achieve the surround sound than just using a small living room or bedroom. It is also more expensive to create a home theater design for a room with high ceilings than those with lower ones because you will be needing the floor-standing speakers to match the space.
  2. Design according to your use. Different folks have different primary uses for their home theatre systems so if you plan to do more relaxing by listening to music, then you can opt to blow your budget on your speakers than on your TV. Video game addicts, movie and sports fans may find that a good placement of the center channel, where they can hear the dialogues and the soundtracks from, should be given due consideration.
  3. Allocate your budget wisely. Audiophiles will understandably splurge to get the best surround sound system out there. If you are at a loss on how much to spend, a good rule of thumb is to use half of the money on the subwoofer and the center channel, about a third of it on the front speakers, and the rest on the surround speakers. If you plan to upgrade to better quality speakers in the future, then you can set aside a good amount for the receiver.
  4. Calibrate your surround sound system.  Matching the voices of your speakers will give you that ultimate surround sound experience. This is easy to accomplish when you get one of those boxed models that contain everything you need for the setup. When you purchase your devices from different manufacturers, you may need to match them up first before you can appreciate a cohesive sound that you want.

Source: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-zEJ6QJa5A0l/Learn/speakers/planning-system.html