Common Home Theater Blunders
A home theater requires a sizable investment of money, thought and installation, particularly if you have a high quality home theater. Therefore, it is a shame that so may people just connect all the pieces in a room without giving any thought to what other things they should be doing to improve it. Unless you hire a professional consultant, you might not achieve the full potential of your home cinema system. However, it is not necessary to hire an adviser, if you just pay attention to a few common blunders made by a lot of home cinema owners
The lighting in any cinema is very important, as I am sure you already know. Why is it then that many people do not treat it as important in their own home cinema? You never see external light – sun light – in a professional movie theater and you should not want any in yours either. Hang heavy curtains over every window in the room and let them overlap the window with a good border.
Heavy curtains will not only keep external light out, but they will also dampen street sounds, something else you never hear in a real movie theater. If you have neighbours close by, it will also help to prevent them from being disturbed by your loud films or music.
Do not try to save money by buying poor quality speakers. Do not mix and try to match speakers either, unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you need five speakers and a sub-woofer, but can only afford three and the sub-woofer, buy speakers from a well-known brand that you know you can get hold of again.
Do not buy end of line speakers, as you will find upgrading hard. The best approach for the novice is to get a 5.1 surround sound set of speakers. Then, if at some point in the future you want to upgrade, you can quite easily, either by buying more or swapping the lot in one go. One thing is for sure, a lot of the magic of going to the theater these days lies in the surround sound and you need to recreate it at home.
It is not rocket science to put a home theater together whether it comes in kit form or not. However, if you do not feel happy setting it up, you would be better off having it done for you. Clearly, it is up to you how you go about this, but you could ask a relative or friend or neighbour or hire someone from the shop where you got it. My guess is though that any moderately experienced eighteen year old has already seen one set up before and can do it for you.
Your movie theater, if it came in a kit, will or should have thorough instructions for you to follow. Please read the manual before you start plugging things into each other. Read the handbook and inspect the parts until you are well acquainted with the installation procedure and the recommended positioning of the equipment.
Make sure that the voltage is adjusted appropriately before you plug it into the mains. Most equipment is made abroad for sale to many countries, so they usually have some sort of selector for the voltage. Get it wrong and you could blow a part of the equipment, in all probability the amplifier, the DVD player or the screen. that could mean replacement of the module or poor reproduction of sound or picture.
It is not difficult to get the installation of your home theater right, but you do have to pay some attention to detail, if you want to get the best out of it.
