Featured Reviews & Articles

Anytime I see a book on a complex topic that attempts to disseminate the subject material in layman terms for the average reader using the word “Dummies” in the title, I cringe. I’d love to learn a foreign language or how to setup a complex home network but I absolutely refuse to pick up a book whose author assumes I am a “dummy”. Realizing a large portion of our readership are essential enthusiasts when it comes to home theater, but also intelligent readers, I conjured up this article for those wanting to get a good grip on how to properly setup and integrate a subwoofer into their new home theater system. Learn how to place and configure your sub and A/V receiver in layman's terms to ensure you get the most out of your A/V system.

The goal of any serious home theater playback system should be even bass, plenty of dynamic range and smooth natural frequency response for the most seamless blend. This is achieved by reducing the modal peaks and nodal dips by utilizing multiple subs, and active equalization. Multiple subs ability to reduce standing waves is achieved by proper placement and setup to reduce the guess work and minimize chasing your tail to find the best settings that yield the most optimal measurable performance. This article discusses tactics and methodologies for achieving the best measurable and audible results for your entire listening area, NOT just the money seat!

Is your bass management set up properly on your processor? If you wish to optimize the bass performance of your home theater, read this article. Learn how to configure speaker size, crossovers, delay and more in this basic guide to bass management. This guide is designed to address the numerous questions we receive from new home theater owners who purchase a new system component and don’t quite understand the How’s and Why’s of bass management. More advanced home theater folks may wish to peruse our more in-depth guides available on the site that give a more thorough explanation of this complex and often misunderstood topic.

The answer to this question is typically yes, assuming you’re comparing one vs. two subs of the exact same brand and model #. In almost all circumstances, installing multiple subwoofers in your theater room will yield significantly better and smoother bass response across a wider listening area due to modal averaging. When deciding on getting either a single large sub, or two smaller ones, I'd usually recommend the latter. If its a hard sell to your wife, tell her you're not doing it for yourself but for the benefit of your mother-in-law.

We are always preaching the more subs the better in a home theater system. So now that you've decided to purchase two subs, its time to show you how to correctly connect them up to ensure you achieve the maximum benefits of a multi sub system. Following the guidelines set forth in this article will help you integrate a multi-subwoofer system into your home theater. If done properly, using two or more subs will yield significantly better and smoother bass response for all of the seats in your theater room.

"To shine or glow, to appear or expand suddenly." This is how Webster defines bloom. I think this definition will work just fine for audiophile use of the word as well. Bloom is a good subjective description of the way that musical performance fills a space, interacts with the volume of the room and provides the rich, emotive communication we, as audio and video enthusiasts, spend so much time and money pursuing.

Where it comes to fine-tuning a home theater sound system for peak performance, finding those locations within a typical home listening space where a subwoofer can provide the most satisfying response - across every seat in the designated listening area - is one of the perennial challenges facing both enthusiast and pro alike.

Lately I have been receiving numerous emails from fellow Audioholics regarding subwoofer operation problems with their DD/DTS AVR Receivers. One of the most common…

Well, I found myself working with a friend to develop a suuround sound system for his listening room. A litening room that is a nearly-perfect octagon! After picking myself up off of the floor, I set about to design an appropriate surround configuration for this room.