Home Theater

Thanks to today’s technology, it has never been more exciting or rewarding to be an audiophile. Right now, home theater systems give off picture and sounds that are so crisp and clear that you would swear your favorite band has set up in your living room or that you were actually part of the action occurring on your television screen. The way that a home theater system works is through a combination of components that all work together to create the illusion of reality right in your living room or media room. What components?  

Although a home theater system can include other components like a video game console, DVR, DVD, computer or Blu-ray player as extras there are a few components that are necessary to get you started including, surround sound speaker system, television or projector and a home theater receiver to tie it all together.

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  • Surround Sound System

The surround sound set up you choose for your home theater system is the single most important aspect of your system. The surround sound system consists of a series of speakers, each of which contribute a different audio channel. This multi speaker set up allows listeners to hear ALL of the sounds provided by the movie in such a way that it allows realism. For instance, if the movie you are watching has a car chase scene, you may hear the vehicles coming up from behind you first, then beside you and finally fading off into the distance from the front of the room. Just as if the car had actually driven right past you in real life. To do this, most surround sound systems for home theater consist of at least five different speakers; front-center, left-front, right-front, left-rear and right-rear, and a subwoofer. Each speaker in the system has a job to do to help enhance the realism of the entire system. The subwoofer, for instance plays very low frequency sounds that can be felt more then heard so that as the car in the chase scene passes you by, you can actually feel it rumble past.

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  • Projector or Television

The focal point of any home theater system, the projector or television you choose allows you to see the action on screen and thanks to the latest technological breakthroughs, never has the action been more realistic. With high resolution 720p or 1080p, HD and even 3D technology, today’s televisions make it seem as if you could actually walk right into the picture and many of them are considered “smart” which means that they can be used to surf the internet as well as watch movies and play games.

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  • Home Theater Receiver

Before you can actually use your surround sound system you will need a home theater receiver. A home theater receiver mainly acts as the control center for your audio system because it processes audio signals, amplifies them, and sends them to your speakers, but the home theater receiver does much more then that.  A home theater receiver can also manage all of the video systems from a single source making it simpler if you want to add a cable box, Blu-ray player, video game consoles or even a computer system.

Control System

Although not 100% necessary to get your new home theater system up and running there are several other items that you may want to consider for your system including:

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  • Control4 System
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  • Universal remote control
  

Unless you want to juggle multiple remotes for each component, a universal remote control or Control4 system is a necessary piece of equipment as it simplifies the operation of what can be a complex system.  A universal remote or Control4 system greatly simplies operation of your system to make it easy for just about anyone to understand and operate.  Additionally, the Control4 system can be expanded to control and automate lighting, thermostats, alarm system, HVAC, etc.

Power protection/surge protector

Home theater systems can be expensive.  Protect yours from damage caused by electrical surges with a surge/power protector or protect from surges and power dropouts (brown outs) with one of our recommended UPS battery backup units.  The UPS option is by far the best way to protect sensitive microprocessor based equipment as they will maintain constant undisturbed power to your expensive equipment by switching to battery during power fluctuations.

Internet connection

Most home theater receivers, bluray players and many of today’s televisions are internet ready right out of the box which will allow you to make use of online video, internet radio and other online media.