How to Find the Best Home Theatre Speakers for Your Money

When creating a home theatre system, there are a number of basic requirements that you will need to achieve the authentic sights and sounds of a true cinema system. From the television screen or projector, to the playback system and even the seats, the one thing that will bring all of your work to fruition will be with the speaker system.

From a simple 2.1 Dolby Digital speaker systems all the way up to a 10.1 or enthusiast custom made system, the audio of your home theatre system plays a huge role in adding to the immersive nature of the entertainment you know and love.

The thing to note about home theatre speakers is that creating speaker cabinets, matching drivers and pairing up speaker cones to get the perfect resonance for the cabinet they are intended for is a very precise science. This means that many of the budget systems may very well have a nice range of speaker sounds, but may focus on the looks and aesthetics of the system, rather than the impeccable fidelity of some of the high end enthusiast speaker systems.

Pioneer Home Theatre Speakers

Pioneer have been in the speaker industry for many, many years and have produced home audio and professional audio equipment that would be considered industry standard. These days they continue to produce an amazing range of modern home audio systems and speakers that include innovative designs with years of research behind them.

One of the best of the bunch when it comes to Pioneer home speakers is the Pioneer SP-PK52FS system. Considered a budget to mid-priced home theatre system, the sound quality for your money is simply incredible. This full size 5.1 surround sound system incorporates two front tower speakers; a 100 watt powered subwoofer, a large front centre speaker for added impact, as well as the obligatory satellite speakers for the rear channels.

The speaker set is designed with curved wood to give it a much more modern effect, and to move away from the overly boxy shapes of the majority of home theatre systems. The sound quality from this system is probably the best for the money you are spending in this price range and offers better than average fidelity and build quality compared to most home theatre speaker system in most shops.

Bose Home Theatre Speakers

Bose are well known in the speaker industry for being the innovation and technology specialists in creating acoustically sound speakers that carry speech almost perfectly with some of their higher end systems. Bose has introduced a number of home speaker sets recently, and some of their home theatre surround sound systems have been gaining praise for not only their sound quality, but also for their price range.

The Bose Acoustimass 6 Series III is one example where your budget doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be skimping on sound quality. This 5.1 surround sound system incorporates tiny satellite speakers that pack more than expected due to their size, as well as a meaty subwoofer with ported air technology to give deep, driving bass response for your music and movies.

This system is a stylish interpretation of the home theatre setup that would look perfect in a minimal home theatre where the emphasis is on the entertainment and not the accumulation of various electronic boxes performing all of the tasks.

Overall, the system creates highly dynamic sound that packs a punch considering the size of the satellite speakers. The subwoofer offers a deep, rolling bass that will have any small studio rocking, but maybe not a larger home theatre setup. For the price you are getting a stylish look, great sound and a good price.

Klipsch Home Theatre Speaker System

Klipsch are a well-known brand that has made a business of creating a masterful design in electronics and acoustics to create some of the very best individual speakers and speaker systems in the world. Their foray into the home theatre market has been successful in turning movie fans into hobbyists and enthusiasts the world over through their affordable yet accurate speaker units.

The Klipsch RC-62 II 5.1 surround sound system is no different in trying to put the emphasis on sound quality, whilst also bringing a little modern style to the table. This system consists of the reference series of speakers, and includes a mighty centre unit, to large satellite speakers that pack a punch, two full-size tower speakers as well as an intelligent subwoofer.

The SW-112 subwoofer contains a 12 inch speaker with a woven fibreglass driver which is available in both 10 and 15 inches if you are looking to upgrade and is powered by a continuous 300 watt or continuous 600 watt peak amplifier. With a frequency response of 26Hz to 120Hz it will shake the floor, or maybe not thanks to the hefty screw on legs and spikes necessary to help the acoustics.

At an average price of just over $4,000, the Klipsch reference series home theatre system is on the higher end of the scale for most people, but the audio quality is second to none for anything near it. If you really want the best home theatre speakers, the Klipsch reference series won’t do you wrong.

The build quality similar to the most expensive units and the design and engineering that went into the electronics, the acoustics and the overall sound quality is what you are paying for here. If you love audio and movies and are prepared to invest in a quality home theatre system, you’d be blown away by this unit.

Build Your Own System On A Budget!

When choosing a home theatre system you will need to source a wide range of equipment and devices to finish your project. Keeping to your budget is the best way to finish your project in time, and not have to delay purchasing necessary equipment because you went overboard on a particular product.

It is always best to buy equipment that is stand alone, so that you may upgrade each component at a later date. This means staying away from proprietary technologies, such as cable systems and plugs, and buying single units that can work together in a finished system to give you the best home theatre speakers, screen and games system for all of your entertainment needs in the long run.

Get the Best Audio from Your Home Theatre Installation

When purchasing a new home theatre to enjoy blockbuster movies on the smaller screen, a lot of people do not take into account the importance of having a high quality audio system to compliment the video. In the past, you could only enjoy the built-in sound coming from your television set, or by hooking up a cheap stereo hi-fi to your television that allowed the audio to be channeled through it.

But today, the market is awash with state of the art, multi-channel surround sound that will make or break your home theatre installation, and this is why:

There are many different types of audio products on the market to take your home theatre to the next level. These include various speaker systems to amplify the music and dialogue of your films, television and video games for deeper bass response and truer sounding vocal replication.

Entry-Level Systems and Connectivity

Many audio systems employ a series of cables to connect to your television, or DVD or Blu-Ray player to divert the audio going to your television instead to a set of speakers for better sound quality.

On the entry-level scale of home audio as part of a home entertainment system or home cinema is the basic two speaker system. This system simply replicates the two stereo speakers in your television and replaces them with higher quality speaker units designed to give more bass and treble to whatever you are watching or listening.

Entry-Level Audio Systems

Many people use a micro hi-fi system in this way to boost their experience, and with the added CD player and MP3 or Bluetooth input, you can add very usable functions to your home entertainment system. Just simply connect the two RCA output cables of your television, cable box or games console to the input RCA sockets on the system and switch the mode to accept the audio, making it simple, cheap and effective in smaller rooms.

The next tier in the home entertainment audio is with a basic entry-level 2.1 audio system. Much like the micro hi-fi idea, a 2.1 audio system is made up of 2 regular full-range speakers and a single sub-woofer. Unlike the two stereo full-range speakers, the sub-woofer specialises in producing deep bass sounds coming from your music, television or video games.

In many cases, you may see “virtual surround” or “virtualsurround sound” written in the features of these units. In these cases, the system is not a full surround sound system, but there are certain algorithms and effects added to the audio as it exists the speakers to give the effect that the sound is all around you within a room. Sometimes this effect works well, especially with spoken audio in a film, but in most cases, music is affected negatively.

What Is Surround Sound?

Surround sound is a way of feeding single tracks or channels of audio into individual speakers to give the effect that you are “in the room” when there is audio being played from the speakers. A series of speakers are positioned around a room and are facing the listener, and when for instance a rear left speaker plays a dog barking, the listener has the immersive effect of hearing a dog barking behind them. When this audio system is teamed up with a film, different audio tracks are sent to different speakers, in relation to what is being shown on the film and will allow a fully immersive audio experience.

There are a number of different standards of surround sound, some of which you may have heard of before. Features such as Dolby surround sound, 5.1 surround sound and 7.1 surround sound appear the most popular. In each of these cases a different technology is used to convert the audio signals from a media device such as a television or Blu-Ray player into audio that corresponds to a particular speaker, or mix of speakers.

What Is 5.1 Surround Sound?

The term 5.1 surround sound systems refers to a system of 6 speakers in total, which include four full-range speakers, a central speaker and a sub-woofer. In a 5.1 system, you generally have two front speakers, two rear speakers, a central speaker and the sub-woofer. These are marked so that the listener knows where to place each speaker.

They are generally hooked up to a separate surround sound decoder and amplifier, which takes information from the audio tracks of a Blu-Ray DVD, games console or television broadcast, converts these tracks to individual channels and then feeds each individual speaker.

5.1 surround sound has become one of the most popular systems to date, with tens of millions being sold around the world, and has increased the popularity of including the information on television broadcasts, all new films as well as games consoles and even home computers.

What Is 7.1 Surround Sound?

Much like the previous example of 5.1 surround sound, 7.1 surround sound systems employ extra speakers to provide even more depth of audio, with two left and right central speakers to add another dimension. The system still works on the same basis of decoding the signals, and an external decoder or amplifier is necessary unless a television or set top box already has outputs for all of the speakers.

A 5.1 surround sound system can easily be upgraded via the purchase of two extra side speakers and a 7.1 decoder/amplifier. This ability to upgrade is a great way of ensuring that you can keep the speakers that you know and love, as well as having a new sounding and bigger sounding experience to enjoy your films, media, music and video games.

Similar to a 5.1 system, 7.1 surround sound comes in a huge variety of designs and accessories to choose from and there is an added level of customisation to each room as many systems allow the use of fine local tuning of speakers to allow the system to work in optimum conditions in a less than optimum room.

The Emergence of 10.2 Surround Sound Systems

Relatively new to the market has been the introduction of a 10.2 surround sound system. This new system includes 12 speakers and adds to the immersive effect that the previous systems bring with it. The extra speakers provide a more in-depth audio that allows extra single channels to be listened to, along with a mixing function depending on the media being played.

Film producers and television broadcasters decide which the best mix of audio channels is and which channels of audio they should be fed into.

In this way, the viewer gets a better sense of what is happened on screen via the speakers and immersive sound and allows the viewer to see and hear the film or broadcast exactly how the director intended, creating a truly stunning experience for the home viewer.

Surround sound systems come in all shapes and sizes and for all budgets, so choose wisely to allow your system to expand in the future. Choose a system that incorporates a known technology such as Blu-Ray into the system to give you more flexibility, allowing you to create a truly immersive home entertainment or home theatre system that comes within your budget.