Featured Reviews & Articles

Lots of people are starting to wall-mount their televisions, but with TVs getting thinner and thinner there are some challenges. One of the most common problems I've experienced has been power cord clearance. While HDMI cables can be made quite thin, often it's the power cord that obstinately sticks out of the TV and prevents you from tilting it properly or otherwise utilizing that new "ultra-slim" wall mount you just purchased. For many, the solution is to use a recessed power outlet when you (or your electrician) run the power for your TV.

As most people are probably aware, the lifespan of electronics can be greatly improved by keeping temperature under control. Unfortunately, many of us are content to place a receiver/amp where it is convenient as opposed to where it can receive adequate ventilation, at least until it fails. Assuming you want your receiver in a cabinet, ensure that air flow is sufficient. While many so called home theater cabinets make little or no provision for ventilation, there are some models that take this factor into account. If you already own a cabinet that lacks proper ventilation and are concerned about heat buildup, a drill can come in quite handy; an inexpensive but good quality 120mm fan set to low speed can also improve air flow without adding significantly to background noise.

A guaranteed way to make a receiver or amplifier fail is to create a short circuit by improperly connecting speaker wire to your speakers or receiver. It could be as simple as a stray strand of wire which has come loose from the binding post (on either receiver/amp or speaker) and touched the other terminal. It is critical to make sure that the bare wire of the positive speaker cable does not touch the bare wire of the negative speaker cable.

When making connections to receivers and amplifiers (especially when working with speaker wires), make sure that the equipment is turned off first. It's not required, but it's a lot safer for you and the equipment in the event that you accidentally touch two speaker wires together. A couple of seconds to hit the power button can save hours of shopping for new equipment.

Need help with setting up or configuring your new A/V receiver? A lot of manufacturers offer electronic copies of owners manuals, setup addendum's and tips on their websites to help you in case you lost yours or want to do some research. Often in PDF form, they make searching for key words easier than flipping through the manual that came with your new product. Doing a web search (such as Google) will generally find them quickly. Don't stay in the dark. Use these tools to ensure you will get the most out of your new A/V receiver.

So, you bought a home theater system? Great! Watching a movie on a properly set up surround sound system, or listening to your music through a new set of speakers can be an amazing experience. But, the key to a great home theater isn't just spending a lot of money. Setting up the system correctly is just as important as what you buy. This guide, very simply, walks through the basics of speaker placement, bass management setup, how to hook everything up, and how to change a few settings to really make your system shine. Throughout this article are links to other more advanced articles that go into more depth on each topic.

An IR repeater system takes Infrared (IR) light coming from your remote controller and converts it to an electrical signal that can be easily distributed over electrical wiring to one or more IR remote controllable components. How this can help improve your system and allow you more flexibility in multi-room applications is something we'll attempt to answer and explain.

Thousands of words have been written about, and thousands of hours of labor devoted to, marrying our computers with our home theater and audio installations. On the Audioholics site alone there are 78 results from a search for "HTPC" (home theater personal computer). The problem with the concept of the HTPC is that, at its core, it’s a dedicated computer for multimedia applications. What happens if your computer is in your home office and your theater is elsewhere? What if you don’t want an HTPC? How do you combine your home office with your audio/video installation? It’s a question that’s seldom discussed in this industry.

Many people bring home a new HDTV and look forward to the excitement of viewing a true high definition picture. But is it really that simple? Well it can be - if you follow a few guidelines and understand the nature of real HD content and where it comes from. An HDTV doesn't give you high definition content - it simply means that you have the pixels to display high definition sources in all their glory. We'll take a look at four types of high definition sources most commonly received by HDTVs...