Things to Consider Before Buying Those Speakers

Things to consider when purchasing surround sound speakers.

First you must consider room size and speaker placement. If space is limited the tower speakers may not be a good option, and you’ll need to go with either wall-mount or bookshelf speakers. Although towers will provide a better sound experience, the wall-mount and bookshelf types can closely compete, especially if a powered sub-woofer is included.

After you’ve decided which type of speakers are best, begin your shopping online, this will enable you to see virtually everything available to you and keep sales people, and their biased opinions, at bay.

Ideally, you’ll want to purchase speakers from the same “family”, you know Bose, Onkyo and so forth. This is due to a little thing called voice-matching. Purchasing speakers from different families can possibly cause a delay in the flow of sound, or have different tonal qualities which can disrupt, or annoy, your experience.

Video shielding is something that you’ll need to have if you have a tube TV. Tubes are sensitive to speakers around them so this will be crucial. Additionally, you’ll want to purchase shielded speaker wire.

Center Channel Speaker; This speaker is the glue that holds your surround sound together. It delivers over 50% of the soundtrack, and almost 100% of the dialog. It is placed directly over or under the viewing screen to keep your focus centered. Smaller center speakers are fine in conjunction with bookshelf or wall-mount left and right speakers. However, if you’re purchasing towers, then you’ll need to purchase a larger center to keep it from being overpowered by the towers.

Surround Speakers; These are placed in the rear of the room and provide the underlying and background effects that travel from one side to the other such as howling wind and cars racing by. They are usually the wal-mount or bookshelf type.

Powered Sub-Woofer; This speaker provides non-directional low frequency bass. If you’re speaker set doesn’t have towers, this will be an essential purchase as the smaller speakers can’t deliver the necessary bass to really amp up your movie or music. It should have at least a 10″ or 12″ cone (or multi-woofer), and a decent amount of watts. It should be placed against a wall, or prefferably in a corner. Since it’s non-directional, it really doesn’t matter where in the room it’s placed. Consider the size of this space when making the purchase.

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